Searching for Soulmates

 As I flipped thru the newspaper, the sheet below, as it was meant to,  caught my eye. The earlier drab looking ‘matrimonial column’ (?) has a dramatic new look as ‘Soulmate’. 

I am sure I would have not dared to respond! The brides-to-be would be looking for a dapper looking man who could go 'balle balle' at a minutes notice. No way a two-left-footed guy like me would do the Bhangra at the sangeet! If it also meant that I should have the capability to deck the bride with huge amounts of jewellery, I was out of the race in any case!  I would have just glanced and tossed the paper away. Thanks to the rain I had time to scan the ads.

 I was lucky not to depend on the media to my find a mate and the 'soul' part was given when we were young!Those early days we had parents to arrange our weddings. Love came much later. Parents had the power and the responsibility! Horoscopes were matched and so on. There were rules! Sometimes rules did get bent. 

For us, as parents, times have changed and as grandparents it will be a different matrix altogether! I have no message here. But it is interesting to see how urbanisation of the country has changed the scene of matrimony! With more money in circulation, it is no wonder the Gandhian (Mahatma!) simplicity has been tossed out!

Top of the page was about elite brides and grooms.
I guess it could be a kind of elimination process!

We would not see this variety in the old matrimonial columns 

It is known that same caste is still preferred


Nice to see a Cosmopolitan! 

Religion still plays a huge part, even though times have changed


I chose to highlight the Advice

If you get confused with the ads read the articles linked below!

Comments

M C Nagaraj said…
It is really changed a lot. Elite group means it goes through an agent he/she evaluates whether worth connecting you as family to other side. If old system is still in practice where parents have to find soul mate for children very tough process.
prasan said…
Nice blog. Of course most of us, at our age, just take a casual look at these ads, unless we are "looking out" for someone near and dear. But yes, these ads have definitely changed a lot over the decades. They, however, do make interesting reading. In the US, we used to get a weekly newspaper called INDIA ABROAD, which used to have a couple of pages of matrimonial ads in every issue exclusively for the India community. In addition, this newspaper would also host a matrimonial match MEET twice a year (in NYC only) where parents would register and bring their offspring to meet other youngsters also seeking suitable soulmates. Unfortunately, this newspaper was one of the casualties of the pandemic and is no longer published.
Vidhya Srihari said…
Whew! This is SO 😕 CONFUSING! WE WERE BETTER OFF MARRYING OUR PARENT'S CHOICE!
Rama Gopinath said…
Everyone should be as lucky as you are! Found your soulmate without trying these ads😀😀
Bina said…
Yes uncle the times have really changed .. I was lucky to find my soulmate myself and also get parental consent !!
Anand Arni said…
You've been spending a lot of time on the matrimonials.
Sivaraj said…
Wow.....ha ha....good one
D. Raghunath said…
A very interesting collage. The message is, anything in this country, confusing. While going out to find ones soulmate is laudable the compartmentalisation that is evident shows that the divisions in our society are there and 'healthy'! Offsprings of a very close friend chose this route and are now (hopefully) happily married. The newspapers and marriage bureaus are doing good business. However, this form of arranged match making has a built-in hazard in comparison to the traditional family meets. Wonder whether wewill ever adopt the Western blind date methodology.

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