<img style="float: left;" src="http://images.mid-day.com/images/images/2015/aug/meenakshi.jpg" alt="" width="180" height="50" />A lot of the younger generation have no time to find a wife, or are too bored to find one, it seems &mdash; so they outsource the job to mummy. It may also be that they don&rsquo;t trust their own judgment when choosing a life partner. Besides, mum&rsquo;s the perfect alibi if things go wrong. So, when you want to outsource the wife/partner business, mum&rsquo;s the word.
<img src="http://images.mid-day.com/images/images/2015/aug/16-Meenakshi-Shedde.jpg" alt="" />
At an impromptu school reunion, I was updated about today&rsquo;s modus operandi for finding a mate. One of my friends, let&rsquo;s call her Radhika, lives in Bombay, and asked if she could bring her daughter-in-law along. Of course, we said. Now, Radhika has two sons in Canada, of marriageable age. She was after them to &ldquo;settle down&rdquo;, and they said, &lsquo;cool, if you want us to marry, you find us a wife each.&rsquo;
So the future happiness and legacy of Radhika&rsquo;s family was entrusted to shaadi.com. She said she&rsquo;d got a horrendous backache poring over girls&rsquo; pictures and CVs in the last two years, shortlisting candidates, conducting endless, polite chats with potential in-laws and brides, and offering a few chosen ones, Shabari-style, to Son No 1. Oh mom, I&rsquo;m too busy, let&rsquo;s talk on the weekend, he said. When she called him on Sunday, oh, mum, I&rsquo;m out playing cricket, he said. After years and months of labour finding a suitable girl, His Highness had no time to glance at a few options, with whom he was to spend the rest of his life. Finally, when HH deigned to consider them, he was horrified at mummy&rsquo;s offerings, and said, &ldquo;Usko goodnight bolo, mummy!&rdquo; which became his code for &ldquo;Forget it!&rdquo;
Eventually, photo, CV and phone chat with in-laws elimination rounds graduated to direct Skype conversations between Boy and Girl. He would make snide comments later, and the girls were no less. Peeche jao, a potential bride instructed him on Skype, so she could see how tall he was. Cap nikalo, ordered another, worried that he was concealing a balding pate.
And so on, until finally, Likely Girl was found. She lived in Nagpur with her family. Boy&rsquo;s parents took flight to Nagpur. Girl &mdash; now wife/daughter-in-law &mdash; told me, oh god, my mother woke me up at 6 am to make me wear a sari for the first time. Batata pohe and chaha &mdash; traditional Girl-Meets-Them offerings, were made by Girl. Radhika freaked out. &ldquo;Oh my god, please change into your jeans and shirt, like you wore on Skype. Right now! If my son sees you in a sari, he&rsquo;ll kill me! No sari-wari types!&rdquo; Girl was hugely relieved. Parents approved on both sides, Boy was half a planet away, but deed was done.
On returning to Bombay, Radhika stepped on the gas. Boy gets only two weeks&rsquo; vacation to Do Everything, she said. So, she printed the wedding cards, invited the guests, booked the wedding hall, organised khana-peena, saris and jewellery, prezzies for everyone, booked Boy&rsquo;s flight to Bombay, and then their honeymoon tickets, before booking them finally on a flight back to Canada.
Finally, Boy arrived from Canada. He met his bride-to-be for the first time, barely a day before their wedding &mdash; and they went out to get wedding rings and the main sari &mdash; as these were personal choices and had to fit. Before you knew it, wedding happened, honeymoon happened, and they were off.
Bride had kept a diary full of man-reviews, with coloured Post-it tabs &mdash; red for Yes, Saturday pe milna hai!, green for Plan B, yellow for thanda, and so on. I asked her what she had wanted from a life partner. She had barely two requirements: he should not be bald, and he should not be short. A smart, educated, beautiful Indian girl, about to live the rest of her life in Canada, I was struck by the modesty of her expectations.
Well, I thought, a Canada-based NRI groom&rsquo;s wedding in 2015 is not much different from how my parents were married half a century ago. They too met for the first time shortly before the wedding, and married partners supplied by parents. I wondered if this was progress. Radhika had no doubts. She said, now I know exactly how it&rsquo;s done, so it&rsquo;ll be easy finding Girl for Son No 2! Meenakshi Shedde is South Asia Consultant to the Berlin Film Festival, award-winning critic, curator to festivals worldwide and journalist. Reach her at meenakshishedde@gmail.com.

A lot of the younger generation have no time to find a wife, or are too bored to find one, it seems &mdash; so they outsource the job to mummy

A Suitable Girl

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