My daughter's boyfriend

Its about to happen anytime now. No bells would sway heavily at any church or temple or masjid ; no white or black or maroon smoke outta any chimneys and no channel wud cover it , not even cartoon network .But its a decently historical moment in my life. I am about to get the first salary of my life.Wont be crisp and good smelling cash but a much more "seedha saadha" cheque. Even the amount is not astronomical enough to trouble any satellites or stars up there but then its decent enough for a 23 year old bachelor with no "zamindar ka karz" to pay , no " ma ka operation" to be paid for and no "chote bhai ki fees" to handle.

In other words , its good enough for a 23 year old bachelor with no immediate responsibilities to handle.Infact , my parents have been handling all the serious stuff in my life and to my discomfort , have started to urge me to be more responsible lately.Responsible about things like awareness of paperwork regarding our property , ironing my shirts and shorts myself , getting up on time and not chewing too noisily.

And this makes me think. Now , I have got a very carefree existence right now ,as I have already highlighted in rather filmy phrases in the preceding para .All I have to do with some kind of seriousness is study. Which I have been doing to a decent degree , i sneaked into a pretty reasonable engineering college and then directly pole-vaulted to IIM Calcutta.

But now as the formal education part of my life is about to end in an year or so, provided I dont flunk , I think about life. And when I think about life after IIM , I see a job in some kind of multinational , I see my boss cursing me , I see long working hours , I see keyboards , I see career moves , I see balance sheets , and I see a lot of other important but unromantic stuff . And a little later , I see a wedding. And to my slight horror , I see that this is my wedding.This is a very crucial and "scrutiny demanding" episode of my life's soap opera .I am a little confused about this thing called shaadi .

Agreed , I may marry a person to share my sorrows and joy n moments but what if the girl turns out to be more interested in stuff like forcefully discussing about how my neighbour gets a new car every three months , or how she finds my way of chewing irritating enough to make people jump off a running train , or how she makes me watch "jassi jaisi koi nahin" instead of soccer on TV . What if shes an "ekta kapoor-TV serial-inspired" lady dripping stuff like jealousy and family politics and backbiting.

In more polite terms , what if she turns out to be someone who is not "my type" ,which anyways very very few females have been identified to be,infact i have been unlucky to bump into some highly stupid and disgustingly intolerable females throughout my nursery school , school and college.And I am certainly not the guy to follow girls like sum puppy on a leash , like some guys are.

And even if shes mature , its a hell of a job raising kids , which i think will automatically follow in a few months time frm my wedding , if I am biologically capable enough , which I vigorously claim I am.You see , the fun part about cute babies ends soon enough , n thereafter its about serious work.I would wonder how much to "donate" for their school admissions , how to stop my son from flunking in maths yet again , how to make my wife stop attending kitty parties and pick up kids from judo classes instead , how to stop my daughter from meeting that guy in her college who looks like a gangster and is found drunk every fornight. And then they grow up , and you worry about IIT s and IIMs and how to get your kid into them. And then they grow up further and you see them going off to silicon valleys and other such valleys while you are left applying "zandu balm" to the hurting joints in your body and reading spiritual articles.

In short , I see life after marraige as a little bit of fun and love and sharing and a lot of responsibility and sweat and tension.But this is just my view , and I need to figure out why almost everybody goes through this seemingly not so relaxing experience.

So I have to ask .

If you are unmarried and plan to marry , why ?
If you are already married and dont plan to get divorced soon , why ?
If you are married once ,then divorced and plan to remarry , why ?

I gotta think .It scares me to imagine about my imagined daughter's beer-guzzling boyfriend who carries a gun .

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Added later :

I just came across this quote from the movie "shall we dance".

"We need a witness to our lives. There's a billion people on the planet... I mean, what does any one life really mean? But in a marriage, you're promising to care about everything. The good things, the bad things, the terrible things, the mundane things... all of it, all of the time, every day. You're saying 'Your life will not go unnoticed because I will notice it. Your life will not go un-witnessed because I will be your witness."

Makes me think a little...lagta hai ghar basana hi padega....

Parting note- I got my cheque today and have been adoring it , smelling it , wiping it clean , caressing it since then.