WEDDING @ WEBSITE.COM

WEDDING @ WEBSITE.COM
No matter what, weddings have to take place on earth. Will tomorrow’s weddings be conducted on websites in cyberspace?
Marriages are made in heaven,” so goes an age-old saying. “But the problem is that they have to take place on earth,” goes the age-old joke too. Unfortunately, we do not get any G-mail (God mail) from our believed-to-be Creator to tell us who Mr. Right or Miss Right for our daughter or son is. I am talking about arranged marriages here.
In our days—say just after the Great Deluge, I mean 3 to 4 decades ago — exchanging horoscopes was the first step in most families down South among the people whom the people in the north generally referred to as “Madrasis.”
Sorry for digressing. Coming back to horoscopes, once the janam kundali tallied, and no black cat crossed their paths, a dozen members from the boy’s family would descend on the girl’s place “to see the girl.”
It was a stiff and formal affair. But I think, the boy generally enjoyed this outing, hailing as he did from an unbroken line of MCPs. He was entertained and looked after very well by the nail-biting, anxious parents of the girl.
For the girl it was torture. She had to fall at the feet of all the elders, even those just one or 2 years her senior — and sit in the midst of strangers and sing a song. Here I must mention that girls perforce had to learn Carnatic music then. Actually most of them whimpered or whispered, but the boys were not great connoisseurs of music either. It was an excuse to hear her voice and test her vocal cords.