Who is my Soulmate?

As I continued with my search for the perfect ‘mate’, Paulo Coelho’s ‘Brida’ walked into my life. The book has been an inspiration for my current contemplation: Of all the wonderful Prince Charmings’ I meet everyday which one is my Soulmate?

I have already spent one fourth of my life dreaming and anxiously awaiting for a moment when that perfectly made gift of love would come galloping into my life, sweep me off my feet to experience ‘fireworks’ that lasts for eternity…a perfect emotional bonding and compatibility that fits my personality finer than my perfect pair of gloves. (Wow!!! that sounds like a piece out of one of Charles Perrault’s big book of Fairy Tales.)

Perhaps a good place to begin figuring out the where’s and the how’s would be to ask my little inconspicuous and complicatedly wired brain to heart network what I visualize my ‘Soulmate’ to look like? The answer to that has been on an ever changing and ever evolving etude since my first ever encounter with the idea of ‘Being in love’, from the Prince Charming of Walt Disney to Jack Dawson of Titanic.

Dreams of a little heart
Of beautiful lands oceans apart
With brave knights on valiant steeds
Flowers to charm and a tango to lead

A Prince charming for Cinderella’s steps
A Dazzling Nobel to kiss Snow Whites lips
With no step sister to taunt or a step mother to harm
What then would I do then with a brave knight’s charm?

A reverie then at brimming adolescence
Showing me the world, the stars and the moon
A man I wanted from the pages of Mills n Boon
My story of love to be the model of perfection

A tender caress my love’s first kiss
Youth shall kindle the fire, that with time shall thaw
Bygone beauty stepping the prime of life
Memories of nights and moments of bliss

A silent request, a prayer at womanhood
The keys to my heart not Robin shall hold
For eternal youth a companion I shall seek
Thirst for cognizance he shall seek

With flowers to charm and a tango to lead
Lines of wisdom in his eyes I shall read

- Shree

Its all about ‘Shaadi.com’

The ‘little girl’ in me has been very confused lately…On one leash she has a Golden Retriever while the other is being tugged by a Labrador (yes, the crazy canine from ‘Marley and Me’) and she is unable to make up her mind on which one of these pretty pups would be more visually appealing in her family portrait with Mr. Charming and two kids (a girl and a boy to make it ‘perfect’. Come on if this is going to be a fantasy ride I might as well make it perfect!).

The ‘big girl’ has been busy filling her life with more soul satisfying socially engaging projects…

Meanwhile the ‘not so traditional’ Naidu household of mine has embarked upon a new socially appealing, personally embarrassing, traditionally approved project… ‘Indian Arranged Marriage.’

Before you set out to get a hang of this 5000 year old ethnic practice of ‘Indian Arranged Marriage’ system you need to understand two very important terminologies…and if the genius in you could gather enough grey cells to find an atom of fathomable logic in either one of them, I am eagerly waiting to learn.

Marriageable age: a terminology that states that it is not your EQ but DOB which determines whether you are ready for marriage. It has graciously been biased to the female gender…we get to legally become financially and emotionally dependent on the opposite sex comparatively earlier in life. Oh yes we girls get to celebrate our happily ever afters’ by the age of 25 while the men have to wait until they are a good 28 - 32 to experience their first times…XXX.

Horoscope: A prospective bride and groom’s physical and emotional compatibility is based on the score obtained by matching the positions of the nine planets at the time of their birth (or was it ten? Something like that…At this point of time, I am not sure which has been more compromised my belief in astrology or my attention deficit disorder specifically with Grade 5 Science).

It has also been 'anti – traditional' to question an Indian man’s Intellectual ability and hence the aspect of ‘Intellectual Compatibility’ was never integrated into this 5000 year old astro-science.

It doesn’t matter if you are carrying a cholesterol filled Aorta coupled with a half functional kidney and a disintegrating liver due to your over indulgence in pleasures of liquor and life or even a compromised immune system with the only smart virus we humans could borrow from the monkeys…as long as the planets indicate you’re you’re a a perfectly compatable couple with a score of alteast a 7 out of the perfect 10 your EQ, IQ or even your HealthQ doesn’t matter…and I thought a band 7 in IELTS was only meant to assure you of a Residency Visa in Australia.

So how does this ‘Arranged Marriage’ system actually function???

A system where the parents and their parents and their sisters and brothers and their wives and their sisters-in-law and mothers-in-law figure out by this perfectly impeccable logical ‘horoscope’ compatibility test that two individuals who have reached a ‘marriageable age’ actually make a perfect match and would live happily ever after. Phew!

…and I thought marriage was all about love and companionship…wonder my facebook status still reads ‘single’.

Anton Chekhov was perhaps at the peak of his enlightenment when he said, “if you are afraid of loneliness don’t marry.”

So…to all the Cinderellas’ out there… Girl-friends’ are for Love and ‘Golden Retrievers’ are for Companionship as for Marriage…its shaadi.com!!!

Romance, Realism and perhaps...Expectations...

As a little girl my role model was Cinderella. Not because she was kind at heart, talented or beautiful but because she had found ‘Prince Charming’ who bought her a pair of glass slippers. (I guess I was clear about my materialistic approach to love even as a child of 9.)

By 28 the glass slippers had taken many forms: red roses, exquisite Swiss chocolates, exotic wine and dine, Ralph Lauren hand bags, Diana Ferrari Shoes and Swaroski crystals…as gifts I bought myself all in the name of love! Yes, by 28 I have come in terms with reality and have learnt to accept that ‘Prince Charming’ existed only within the 70mm screen of Walt Disney productions and that the pair of glass slippers are just a credit card swipe away.

Does that mean that after all those heart aches and enduring disappointments I have had with love and relationships I have become this male bashing female chauvinist who doesn’t believe in love?

Ofcourse not!!!

Although the 28 year old career focused fun loving 'big girl' in me has no realistic expectations or hopes to meet a ‘Prince Charming’ the little girl in me still dreams of the blaze of romance in red roses and diamond rings (come on…its alright to get a bit materialistic)!!!

I do miss ‘Prince Charming’ especially on the 30th of every month when I sit in front of my laptop with the i-banking window open clicking the ‘Bills Pay’ section. Those are moments when I wish I could do with a sexist traditional Indian husband whose belief system reverberates with ‘Man is the bread winner of the family and hence the head of the family’

Helen Rowland once said, "When you see what some girls marry, you realise how they must hate to work for a living."

To all you Cinderellas' out there… “Relationship is not the answer…it’s the question…YES is the answer!”