Engaged ! Keep Away from the Social Media !!
Dinesh K Kapila
I am looking for data. First of Chandigarh. Simply, the number of marriages taking place each year and then the cases for separation piling up in the family courts. Some data suggests the cases filed for separation could be seven hundred to eight hundred a year. That seems a lot for a comparatively small city. Even if I include nearby cities. And many marriages are said to unravel in the first two years or there is trouble afoot.
Actually, there are a lot of youngsters walking around. With long faces. At least this is the impression I got. Reason. A break up after deciding to get married. The families got together and maybe just decided it was fine and the dates for the formal engagement and marriage were being worked out. Meanwhile the young couple have gone berserk on social media, on Instagram, Facebook, X and what not. Reels and stories abound. And I found the soul mate I was always looking for in various variations or copied and pasted from many sites posted all over. The couple find so many adjectives for each other, each adjective surpassing the previous one exponentially in praise. Loving, caring, he or she in the one, we fulfill each other, so intense, so educated and aware to what not. Then they quarrel. Could be a lovers tiff. Or some off hand remark by a relation. Or jealousy over the role of a close friend. And it’s all over. I personally know off fundamentally non issues causing major problems in some cases. Now starts the task of removing all the recently posted snaps and adjectives and pretending the other person never existed, never had a role in their life and what relationship ! Even sundry relatives who go around posting on social media with all sorts of modes of happiness being expressed have to suddenly change track. It can be terribly confusing and even comical ! Some snaps remain posted and some get shared and stay on. Then once the deletion of snaps and videos is over, we have the strategic silence and long faces.
Some of us, us means in the late fifties and early sixties got chatting the other day. What came out is the sheer scale at which marriages take place are also impacting youngsters, specially the guys. Hence they keep postponing the idea of marriage out of sheer stage fright. And the financial implications. What I could gather is that it’s the ladies who normally want all the glitz and glamour but the poor men seem to just want a normal steady ceremony with a alcohol led song and dance show a day earlier. As one young man said, You, parents and the couple, spend a bomb only to be not compatible a year or so later or maybe two years. One lady actually moved for divorce and hold your breath, one reason, it’s so serious, the husband did not go for long drives on moonlight nights!! After a days hard work who the hell wants to drive on our over crowded roads. Another young lady said the level of romantic interest had reduced and it was all too steady and therefore boring. After three plus years. And I suppose a divorce plus another marriage may lead to what she is in search off. Some counselling seems to be in order plus a little less watching of Bollywood marriages and the like !! Some reality needs to be acknowledged as inherent in our lives.
And lawyers, just try telling a lawyer to move on in life and get engaged. They young lawyers seem to be only dealing with divorce cases or watching divorce cases. Every young lawyer has frightening and even more frightening and disturbing stories of marriages gone sour and couples fighting it out. One young man told me Uncle, forget me, there is a lady who just filed for divorce at the age of sixty after losing a bomb in stock trading. Damned if I know if it’s true but it worked as the youngster quietly sneaked out of my way with this story. In any case all young male lawyers say it’s better to be over cautious about marriage as the very law is negatively oriented towards men.
One solution many a young person now says is to avoid any social media posts of the engagement, parties and even if it ends up in marriage, cutting down on the snaps and specially on any travels. It would take away the pressure and the need to scale up the investments and expenditure on all the keep it up with so and so and so and so. Just by the way, I overheard a youngster, recently engaged, telling another youngster, man, don’t get married ! I just sat perplexed, he’s not even married. His marriage is after a couple of months. Turned out the fiancé, her ideas were getting fancier by the day, about what a dream wedding would have to be. Just normal guys, but come marriage, it had to be some way out uplifting exhilarating fantasy come true. One young man said wearing different outfits each day, at each function, I felt I was on display with scripted events and not at a marriage to be relaxed and enjoying it.
Marriages in fact had a youthful raw feel about them in terms of celebrations and ceremonies. With the sheer number of cameras and photographers and videographers and planners now a days, that feeling of a natural vibe has gone. If the would be bride is coming down the stairs and the guy from the stairs the other side, those twelve steps or maybe fifteen steps take an eternity to navigate. Music, dancers, lights, young relatives flirting in and out, what the hell is it. Most guests just watch for some time and then chat or by compulsion watch their phones. That feeling of impromptu celebrations has just about been given the go by. And how many do watch the videos later or the snaps. That’s a reality check.
One friend, a good businessman, said it’s an upper and higher middle class phenomenon and crisis as youngsters delay the decision to marry by years and then get more set in their ways. I don’t know about this but it seems the social media, the sheer glamour and happiness being projected and the need to be twenty four hours in a sort of romantic haze or stupor are all factors in backing out or in breaking up. The fact is, many youngsters are postponing by years a decision to settle down in matrimony. The religious undertone is just a formality, as everyone waits for the religious preacher to move out of way, as quickly as possible. Its more of the vibe, feel of a party and the staged settings. A tri-city without any deep roots in culture, maybe it contributes to some distance from the seriousness of purpose that is marriage, as one friend mentioned.
Well then the way out is go discreet on the snaps and the number of videos and reels posted on social media. Hold it till certain it will work out. And do discuss salaries and earning and lifestyles and culture around the engagement and not later. And the scale of the marriage, not all youngsters are comfortable with it. As one group of vociferous youngsters told me, as to the sequencing, first the informal engagement with minimum family members and no cameras at all. Then four to six months later, the formal engagement with celebrations but only a couple of snaps on the media. if at all, And no videos. And then three to four months later, the marriage. And snaps and videos. This would give time to break off, if they feel it’s not to be, specially after the informal engagement, and minimise any embarrassment! Now this, proposal by youngsters only, well it seems certainly doable.
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