What to do and talk when meeting to a girl or boy for arrange marriage!!

Taking sip of hot steamy coffee in Cafe Coffee Day or Starbucks is my favourite pass time. It gives me some leisure time to have romantic, heated discussion with my dear wife. Yesterday was one of days I was enjoying discussion with my wife. I was telling her my experiences of girls I met in CCD for my arrange marriage, and I had the best discussion of my life with girl who became my wife.

One guy with neat attire was alone seating on table just behind us. He was bit nervous and was playing with his smart phone. It's rare to see somebody alone in CCD unless have laptop opened in front. My doubt from mind, he being alone there vanished when girl who was dressed in 'function' type attire appeared there to accompany him. Their body language suggested my dear wife, they are meeting for the 'Arrange Marriage' discussion. I got excited to see them and being well experienced in it, wanted to pass on comments though it's not very ethical.

Meantime our order of hot sizzling brownie and Late was yet to be prepared due to laziness of CCD boy and I got chance to get up from my chair to check status of my order so I could come back to sit on chair to have picture of Girl & Boy meeting first time. I am too smart and I have all this kind of tactics in my pocket.

I saw them and finally could pass on few comments on their behaviour. They were stiffing each other when they were finishing with their conversation. They were trying to see each other while talking, and once their eyes met they were seeing to glass in front of them. In short, it was a difficult situation for them and they were not comfortable at all with each other while knowing each other.

"I have never met a boy alone, I always had my parents with me.", Girl gave a good reason for she being so uncomfortable. Guy never mentioned how many girls he has seen alone.

"My family wants son of law to have ___________ qualities" Girl was explaining expectations to him.

I was trying to listen all the conversation and we finished of with our brownie and coffee. My wife reminded me time to go home, and while going out my wife wanted to tell them to relax and give best luck. So I had to take her out forcefully so she wouldn't try anything like that.
And this made me re-start blogging to give my valuable experience for all girls/boys who would meet for first time for arrange marriage.

• You should be in a comfortable attire otherwise it may make you over conscious.
• It's a good practice to wait outside of meeting place for a girl, though not necessary.
• Follow gentleman practices like opening & door for girl, pulling out chair for her. This is not to impress her and believe me, she won't be expecting this to happen everyday if you get married. This helps to break ice as "Thanks" can start your conversation on a good note. And so for girls, they should say "Thanks" if he is doing anything like above mentioned.
• If in hotel/cafe, give your all order initially before starting discussion, this will keep all types of disturbances away once you start your discussion.
• Please discuss what all you want, try to understand each other. Understanding family members/ family values is not necessary at first meeting.
• Habits/hobbies are good things to understand nature and this helps to discuss on various things.
• You don't have to be too precise on point wise discussion as this is not official meeting. And so really not necessary to be too formal. Just be how you are with your friends.
• Usually Guys should pay and never mind if girl give 50-50%. But don't allow her to give 100%.

There are too many to do's and not to do's but honestly it varies person to person.

So just mentioned few things which may help to avoid stupid mistakes if you are meeting to a girl or boy for arrange marriage. :) 

Are you a good person?

Are you a good person?
Have you sacrificed anything for any person?

These are few questions you can answer 'yes' or 'no'. But whatever the answer is you can not answer one question "What is the price of being a good person?"

You try to be a good person, you want to take care of other person's mind. You want to be a person who can be with other person in his/her bad times, you want to be a friend of other person whom she/he can tell anything. You want to be a person who sacrifices few important things for somebody. You want to be a person who understands other person's emotions, who cares of his/her feelings. 

You do something, you make something, you plan something .. but at what price?

You forget when you decide to sacrifice for other person, then it's a sacrifice. Then you don't care about the price you pay! You don't need to think about your feelings, you don't need to expect the things, you  don't need to care about your life ...

There is a proverb in Marathi (My native language) 

"Jaya angi mothe pan .. Taya Yatna Kathin" 

Literal meaning:
Jaya - 'Who' as a person
Angi - 'Figure' as a body shape
Mothe Pan - 'Greatness' 

Taya - 'To that person'
Yatna - 'Pain'
Kathin - 'Difficult'

Meaning of proverb: "Person who is the greatest always suffers difficult pain".

When you decide to be a good person, you have to suffer something. 
When you decide to sacrifice for somebody, then you have to go through a pain of sacrifice. 

This is a thumb rule of behavior of the world. 
So think before you become a good person .. 

Lyricists the magician

I am a music maniac, I listen music any time - any where. And it's obvious too, I learned 'Music' for around 5-6 years. How much I do for it is a different thing altogether. But yes I love to listen music of any type, I can indulge myself with pure Marathi classical music as well as pure metal rock. And listening to bollywood music is a part of my life.
Coming to the point, last week my friend asked me what I listen when I plug earphones of my iPod. 'What' in this question was in the sense of 'perspective' not for 'type of music'. So I started thinking to answer his question and I couldn't find a single word answer. Because, when I used to learn 'Tabla' I always tried to listen beats/taal of the song; when I started to learn 'Harmonium' I tried to concentrate on chords and scales; when I started learning Guitar, I used to find guitar pieces and guitar chords while listening the music.

I answered him I listen lyrics of songs. Surprised!! I was also surprised because it came out of the blue. I never thought about it but still I told him that I listen lyrics of songs. But it was definitely not out of the blue, I know why I told him like that! Before he came to meet that day, I was listening Linkin Park album - 'A thousand Suns'. I have listened it thousand times already, I have learned the guitar pieces of these songs by heart. But when I listened song 'Waiting for the end to come ..' I didn't listened it's beats / chords / guitar pieces. I was listening it's words.

Waiting for the end to come
Wishing I had strength to stand
This is not what I had planned
It's out of my control
Flying at the speed of light
Thoughts were spinning in my head
So many things were left unsaid
It's hard to let you go

I know what it takes to move on
I know how it feels to lie
All I want to do
Is trade this life for something new
Holding on to what I haven't got

Sitting in an empty room
Trying to forget the past
This was never meant to last
I wish it wasn't so

I know what it takes to move on
I know how it feels to lie
All I want to do
Is trade this life for something new
Holding on to what I haven't got

Above lines are part of the complete song and believe me I thought singer is singing for me. I thought about a person who has written it. He has written it for me! Many of other people would feel the same, and that's the magic of Lyricists. This was the reason I said, I listen to lyrics (not true always though).

Next day one song from movie 'Always Kabhi Kabhi ..' started on my iPod when I was driving my bike on the way of office. Title of the song was 'Antenna', I am sure nobody would know much about this song. I was also not aware of it and I wanted to change the track which was not possible due to heavy traffic. But when I listened it, I stopped my bike and played it again! Because it was telling me what I always feel now a days.
Few lines of  this  song -

Sapne hamare hai toh chasma tumhara kyun lagaaye
Safar hamara hai toh rasta bhi hoga na hamara
Chalne kaho toh chale rukney ko bolo ruk jaaye
Aapke remote pe, hume nahin chalna gawara
Baatein karo na hamari, kabhi tum jo kaho woh dohraaye
Rahe dil mein chhupate yunhi always dard hamara
Chaahe jo bhi kahe kabhi tum problem samajh na paaye
Kabhi bhoole se bhi signal pakad na paaye kyun hamara
Antenna, nahin karta match antenna

There are so many 'songs' I listened, rather 'lyrics' I listened after that day, and I am controlling myself from pasting them here. I think these songs are made for me, written for my current situation. These lyricists are really the magicians. They have got magic of words. These words will touch our hearts, minds. They help us to think about the situation, they make feel us that we are not alone who is facing this situation. And this is very important because the intensity of our frustration or dissatisfaction decreases when you see someone has already gone through this or somebody understands your feelings. 

If we try to look, there is a song for every situation. Above mentioned lyrics may not appeal you, as it happened to me but there must be other songs which you feel are written for you. So which is your favourite lyric?

Still starving for 1 Mark

I am a Mechanical Engineer, working in top tier software firm. My dreams were different. To be an Electronics Engineer. I don't know what I would have been doing if I would be Electronics Engineer probably the same thing I am doing now, but yes, I wanted to. This dream was shattered when I didn't get admission to Electronics branch as I missed admission criteria by 1 mark. Admission closed at 280 out of 300 and I was having 279 in my hand. So I chose to go to Electrical Branch.

I studied hard in first year of engineering and got highest marks in my class so I was eligible to get branch transfer now. I filled in the form of branch transfer with 2 options. First option for Electronics and Second for Mechanical Branch. And to my bad luck only one seat was allowed for branch transfer and ironically a guy with 1 mark more than me got this seat. Wow !! Second time I missed it with 1 mark. Who else than me can understand the importance of 1 mark!!

Days passed, I came out of college with a degree of Mechanical Engineer and offer letter from one of the reputed Software company in Pune. I joined company, and after successful completion of my training I joined a project. And then I appeared for some certifications for knowledge growth and for compulsory (mandatory)  requirements of project. Yes, you guessed it right I couldn't pass them and every time I was 1 mark short . (You may think if I am dumb enough not to pass these exams but imagine how should I judge my self when I got 59 in every exam I appeared when it was required to get 60 to pass). And then I stopped, I stopped to appear to exams as my certification page was showing 5 exams with 'Fail' remark and 59 marks next to it. I even became paranoid to think that developer of that exam has set default marks against my name.

Days passed, I jumped to a different company. And last week only I decided to appear for another (external) certification. Yet again I failed, this time with 59.5 Marks. Well, seeing improvement in my marks but not well enough to get that 'Pass' remark against my name. As soon as I saw my marks, I could feel the importance of 1 mark more and more. All these instances where I was short of this 1 mark tumbled in front of my eyes. I could feel the starvation for 1 mark, the starvation of a win over this mental block of 1 mark.

I was watching single and double trap matches on TV (Olympics) the same evening. (If you are not aware about this competition then here you can read about it: Trap Shooting). 6 players were shooting clay targets. Michael Diamond who equaled world record (which can't be broken as record is of 125 out of 125 targets) and qualified for finals. In final, unfortunately he missed few and his score tied with Fehaid Aldeehani. So bronze medal match came to a breathtaking tie breaker. And Michael Diamond missed one shot, he lost and couldn't get any medal. It's irony that a person scoring world record didn't get any medal that day. I could imagine nobody else than Michael knows importance of that one target. He must have thought if he could have shot 'that one missed target' to get one more chance, one more opportunity.  

And I thought of 1 mark agony. And I was happy for the first time on that day that I didn't miss any medal due to that 1 mark. I didn't miss anything which I could have got with that 1 mark. I am having many other opportunities to appear for exam and Michael was not having any chance now. And I smiled for the first time on that day .. with a hope to do better (at least by 1 mark) in that exam whenever I will appear for exam again. 

Culture!!

 I am very much fond of Indian Culture. There are many things which I think are exceptional in our Indian Culture, especially we have a distinct nature to preserve 'Family Value', to conserve 'Respect' and 'Conservativeness'. I mentioned these natures as we can find people in India having parental feeling in a divergent way. There is a huge difference in the way of upbringing the child in India. And so we respect our parents, elders and because of which usually 'smoking, drinking' is kept veiled from parents. This nature is to that extent that I have seen or experienced any talks about these so called 'Sensitive' topics are usually avoided. 'Sex' is another topic which can't be discussed openly. It's always kept hidden and I have started observing detriments of this nature.

Today I read news in TOI (link). This is second case of molestation in this month. I know this could be a normal/regular thing but now a days it's getting more media attention. And this news triggered thoughts in my mind. Why still girls are not safe out on the roads? 

There are many reasons like lack of safety measures, poor laws to punish molesters, ineffective police control and to a major extent "In-sensitiveness of people present at the scene". But making sure these things should be these is 'a treatment of disease'.  Cause of disease lies in one 'nature' I mentioned above. Hiding the things makes things inexplicable. And especially with topic like 'Sex' piques someone's curiosity easily. It's pretty unfortunate that every city has 'Red Light Area' but we say it's unethical to have it like it's there in cities like Amsterdam. So in short, hiding things aggrandize or comes out in a wrong way. This is definitely not to support molestation but to enlighten problems of proclaimed culture where we need 'Ladies Compartment' in local trains, where girls can not go out alone at night, where wearing western cloths is a sin for girls. 

We should learn to respect other person irrespective of gender. Sensitiveness is a nature of human being. I heard few people saying after Guwahati Molestation (link) "That girl was wearing revealing cloths, and so this is girl's mistake as well". So what? It was her choice to wear cloths she wants. Her skirt and T-shirt doesn't give you right to molest her!! Even a prostitute has a right to roam around  and you can't molest her because she is already a prostitute. We definitely need to change the thinking, behavior and nature. We should respect other person. And it's a time to when this should be inculcated. This should be discussed at home, with parents, with elders. And parents should remember 'the apple doesn't fall far from the tree', so it's their responsibility to discuss about untapped topics. 

There will be freedom of discussing topics like 'sex'. Though this is not a only reason for such molestation cases but it would take the topic of 'sex' out of the curtains and we would not think 'girl' as an object of amusement. We would respect 'girl' as another human being with similar feelings about this subject. We would be able to control urge/feeling otherwise can't imagine how the world would be.  

I respect Indian culture but these are few flaws in it. It should be changed. We will not find molesters on the road. And I wish there should be such a punishment for molestation that no other person should dare to do it again. I hope all molesters would be prosecuted so these molestation cases would not happen again.

Anna Hazare, Congress and Media...

In my childhood I used to listen stories of King-Queen, Prince-Princes and Villains.. kingdoms, people living in kingdoms...

Many days passed, and now after I grown up I have started seeing the role plays of those stories now!!

Yesterday I was watching the press conference hosted by Anna Hazare on different news channels. He complained about 'Salman Khurshid (SK) - A minister of  prominent Ministry of Law and Justice who is a Lawyer by education- a conspicuous personality of Indian National Congress Party. Anna Hazare was telling that he met SK 'in private' after his invitation of a secrete meet to discuss the progress of 'Lokpal Bill'. It seemed that Congress party have started to consider some thing about Lokpal Bill seriously. But my hope died away after listening the reason of the Press Conference. It was to communicate to the public/media that Mr. SK (the lawyer) cheated him by sending letters to other members of the 'Team Anna' about his secrete meeting. Obviously letters were not directly sent by Mr. SK but from Union Minister of States 'V Narayanaswami'.

This could be a another trick to create a rift in the team fighting against corruption. Brilliant isn't it? Today I got a chance to see a debate on this topic and I was held stood after hearing to Congress Spokesman (Mr. Janardan Chandurkar - Another Lawyer). He was saying that Arvind Kejriwal (AK) gets stardom status with these kinds of movements (i.e. Anti-Corruption Movement). AK got his 3 photos in news paper where there was only one of 'Anna Hazare'. Bang on !! It cleared all the doubts of SK's meet (secrete) with Anna Hazare.

I was right about the politics. These people will try to break the team fighting against corruption and rule again to stole the money away to the tax heavens to substantiate a proverb 'India is a poor country of few rich people' (see link).

On the other hand, I couldn't justify Anna Hazare's decision to meet SK secretly. Anna Hazare must be knowing these people better than anybody. He must understand the kings and 'The Queen' will do whatever possible to hold the crown, the sovereignty and to hand over the kingdom to the Prince. They definitely are not trustworthy. I believe 'Anna' you are ...

 I wonder if these kings and 'Queen' use this brilliance for our Kingdom .. we could see kingdom would be free of at least few of the problems ...

 

Senses ..

We have learned in 5th grade about 5 senses. With all these sense there is one more which is never taught in school, that is common sense. And this is the one which is required to taught in the school. At least I have started thinking like that!
Coming to the point directly, now a days I have seen people losing their senses. Sense to see what is happening. Sense to listen whatever is coming to them. Sense to feel (the touch). This is not up to any specific case. You are standing in a queue, people would do anything to jump the queue, probably they are losing their sense of vision to see there are other people standing. If you try to shout for this then they will ignore you as you are alien, probably they are losing their sense to listen. And at last they would never feel that they are pushing you aside, probably they have lost their sense to touch.
This is just a generalized example. If we look around us we see people throwing rubbish on the road especially from their kitchen window. We see people rushing ruthlessly while driving and ignoring old aged pedestrians crossing the road. We see people talking as loud as possible to disturb other people as far as possible. We see people standing near accident spot discussing how it happened instead of helping injured person.
And so on ... this list would never end neither such thoughts of general awareness!!


Selfishness is  everywhere in this world and an another example of 'abating senses', but there must be a line drawn to decide to what extent one should think of selfishness. There are few norms if we follow our life would be a lot better than what is now. If we keep our senses live, we could think of for people, our society, our nation.

I always thought Indian culture is very good compared to other culture we call as 'western'. Yes, it is good in one aspect but there are few good things we should take from so called 'western' culture. I was impressed by the way people behave in public places. The first thing which we observe when we go to other counties is discipline. I never saw a person jumping the queue. I always saw people observing traffic rules. I saw people waiting to enter lift/train till other person comes out. I learned the rule of 'ladies first' there as I never seen a man entering or coming out of the lift if any lady is waiting to go in or come out.
Today I saw a picture of traffic jam in London with a news "American and Australian Olympic team stuck in traffic due to Olympic lane". I didn't find any car in that Olympic lane in that picture as this lane is reserved to Olympic Vehicles only. This is the way people follow rules there. And everyday I wish I will find vehicles following the lane discipline in India (at least in Pune).

Vehicles stranded due to Olympic Lane:

Definitely  I am one of these people not following rules and I think I should change first, but I have seen the affects of following the rules on road :). Don't know how it this could be followed, but I know one thing that everybody should follow the discipline and life would be much easier.