The gender (dis) connection

Sorry friends for not posting so long here at TP. The holiday mood lingers and working from home has not helped. I am mentally still in the Christmas Season 2007. But then issues and lives go on and a chance meeting with a friend at the Forum yesterday, bought me back to reality quicker than a trip to office.

R is a premier B School alumni, mallu and in his late twenties. R is still not married even though he is a hot pick with his credentials. I remember teasing him with a gal in my office, who had a crush on him and instead of blushing he replied gravely that romance was out of the question for him. A long chat over coffee and he told me things which I was beginning to notice around me anyways. The dilemma of the well read, well traveled or just plain old modern mallu man. The dilemma of not having much of a choice in mallu women of the same ilk, who can make decent conversation or are simply, cool company to hang out with.

This post might offend some. But then when I started writing TP, I knew that I wasn’t going to make many friends here anyways.

R has no dearth of good proposals. Smart, highly educated and good looking girls, but as he mournfully asked me, what would he do with them? What he meant was, what would they be as a couple after a couple of years of marriage? Just another couple who will coochie coo in the initial years, then settle down to work and due to lack of a common interest or inability to communicate on issues other than domestic or work matters, fall silent in front of the TV. Or if there are kids, go through the routine of the daily grind, the kids grind and life!

R is not alone. I know quite a few such guys, who push their luck “one more year” hoping their parents will come up with someone interesting or they will find someone on their own. Then they resign themselves to an arranged marriage with the best among the list of proposed brides, a type of marriage they were hoping to avoid.

I remember D, another guy in a similar situation. He finally settled for an arranged marriage as age started piling on. He is married to an extremely nice girl. He is happy, “not ecstatic” as he told another close friend when she bumped into him the other day. But then he hoped that he didn’t have to go out of the house to find stimulating conversation with friends. He hoped he could have a decent conversation with his wife on matters like politics or sports or anything else under the sun. He hoped he had a friend and less of a “wife” in the traditional sense of the word.

This is of course, a small percentage of the mallu male population. Most men are quite happy with a well educated and or well dowried gal. And they are content with the same.

I guess guys these days, at least a small percentage and a growing percentage of guys I am told, want more than the homely, God fearing gal who can cook and clean and has a professional degree to boot. These guys are looking for people on the same mental wave length and sadly, for many, the search will lead to nowhere. Our society has seen to that most girls are brought up conservatively and the freedoms given to guys ensure that the exposure and growth of the male and female of the species are skewed. Ironic that people who have to live together are brought up so differently to the point of incompatibility.

Guess this is the wake up call for parents of daughters. But are they listening?