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Saturday, January 8, 2011

Logical tragedy

This is one topic I have discussed with a lot of people on different forums and was reignited recently after I had a talk with one of my good old pals from engineering. We realized we are a rare breed of non committed bachelors in this city who seem to be approaching closer to 30 with every passing day. Also it is making our parents cranky for reasons we don’t understand.

Now I was just a step ahead than my friend as I had something called a Matrimonial Profile, and had some experience of navigating sites for the same. He was more on a denial mode as yet. So for him, I was something we always look up to in an Engineering college; a senior who has the magic key to get 40 marks and pass the exam.

So as the conversation went, the first part was an enquiry about what site is good. Now that’s a tricky one, a good site need not have good registrations. Site searches show recent visitors and higher payers on priority- mostly it is people you don’t want to be seen around with. So in the crudest fashion (typical of me) saw an answer saying, “It’s like shopping in a sale; if you missed Day 1, you going to have to dig deep into the pile, ignore the bigger discount signs and still look if you find a good shirt”.

The reason I say it was a crude reply was since it was only one sided. In a mutual selection scenario, the process is much tougher. I introduced him to a new equation which beats the Theory of Natural Selection hands down. So if ‘The beautiful mind’ people said no one wants to be second choice, the choice variable also had additional bearings.

I am yet to find a scale for relative terms like, ‘Smart, Tall, Handsome, Well Mannered, Funny, Highly Educated, Friendly and Simple’, which seem to be prime requirements. If they were contents of a milkshake, I’m sure it would have a life of 3 minutes before the something would curdle the milk making it unfit for consumption. Not even a juice vendor would mix apple, oranges, sweet limes, grapes, pineapple, water melon all at once and give a mega cocktail- coz they all just don’t go together.

But my PhD topic is a research study called Salary Equation of Matrimonial success. Considering my last PhD topic was ‘The analogical correlations between Employee-Employer & Life Partners’, I am pretty sure it must be some HR who has brought this equation into the wedding scene. (How I hate these HR people). As in corporate life, this one does not take inflation into consideration, nor offers you a chance for explanations. It also dumps equality for gender, fair treatment at work place and all those things seem Utopian.

The equation says, ‘the possibility of an arranged alliance- P (A) =1, if and only if salary of the groom S(G) is at least three times the salary of the bride S(B)’


Numerically, P (A) =1 | S (G)> = 3 S (B)is satisfied


Yes, I see you already want to challenge it- but let face it, somewhere down we know it’s a fact. And worst of all, it has no logic-except rejection from the other side. I know people say that money is not all that matters, but then this is one area where it makes a huge difference. It is a primary selection criteria- one with a scale attached to it.

I really wish to sit down and publish this someday and expose the hypocrisy in all this. Say I started working in 2003 at an annual pay of 2 lacs (which was pretty good then), if every year I had a 30% compounded growth, at the end of 5 years, I will end up with close to 6 lacs in my pocket. In 2007, a similar person was normally offered 3 lacs starting considering inflation.

So end of the day, I ask- how do I make 9 lacs even in the most ideal conditions? (I am deliberately ignoring 08-09 as it will add to complications)

Sure I understand that girls see matrimony as a big change for them, they would perceive moving into an environment totally unknowns. But even when Alice was going down a rabbit hole, she was ready to make best of what came. It not easy for men as well (including me) The ‘I-me’, have to change to ‘we-us’.

What is surprising is I have realized this- but most of the world has not. If the future for ‘me’ is ‘we’, so have to be the dreams and so has to be the world ‘we’ can build. Somehow people still want to know what ‘I’ alone will build.

Anyways- If anyone is aware, please tell me a better place to put this logic across- as this is a Logical tragedy which I am not happy with and am prepared to fight for….

1 comment:

Richa Gupta said...

Its encouraging to find out guys have these woes too! Women usually tend to be oblivious to this point of view