Love Vs. Arranged Marraige

Hi friends, today when the most awaited Hindi movie “Tanu weds manu” is released; I am dedicating my blog to this movie:). The debate over above subject does not have any end. In this post, I am neither supporting nor opposing any particular marriage style. But I am trying to bring and highlight some humor (with respect to my understanding) hidden in this debate.  

I always think that why people call it “love marriage” (so called)? Does arranged marriage (so called) not have a love factor in it? In fact when partners arrange their marriage and not the parents, it is called love marriage and when parents arrange a marriage for their children, it is called arranged marriage. Now when both the type has an “arrangement” regarding marriage style, who will decide that, which marriage style contains love and which does not? Even I am not sure about the best nomenclature for the so called love marriage:). 

In today’s world, both the generations find this debate as the easiest way to decide anybody’s mentality and attitude. New generation thinks that those, who support arranged marriage, have a narrow mentality and they don’t want to grow up with the society. For them, arranged marriage is like a fairness cream, imposed by parents, to bring some glow on the child’s face. It hardly gives a quick result but if it suits it may add and maintain some glow to their face but if it does not, reaction on the skin (Life, in this context) will be the worst ever. So it contains more risk factor. At the same time vice versa is also true when it comes to the evaluation of love marriage by our older generation. They think that love marriage is more like a foundation cream on your face which can give a quick glow but does not last longer. After sometime the glow disappears from your face and your skin tone (Life, in this context) looks darker than original. So it has more attraction in starting but no stability factor in long run.

Being an IT guy, I always try to relate computer science fundamentals to the real world processes and hence to both the marriage style also. After listening to many discussions and experiences, I find love marriage as a project where you define and implement your business functions in advance without any requirement gathering and documentation. These functions may be love letter writing, talking on phone, movies show etc. But when you execute your program (marriage), suddenly you come to know that client’s (partner’s) requirements and expectations are changing with time. Since you have implemented many functions already, changing any functionality can break the whole program and your system (life) may crash. In fact this is a project where you yourself are the analyst, architect, manager and developer all in one but not a tester. The testers are your partner and your family members. Since testers and developers relations are world famous so I need not to give stress on the testing effort by these experienced testers. This kind of project surely contains many challenges, less opportunity to explore but has lot of excitements in terms of team work (which is mostly single handled).

On the other hand, arranged marriage is the project which is well written, documented and executed after following a software development model. Right from requirement gathering till user acceptance testing, this project follows each step very consciously.  In this, client requirements are clearly mentioned. Before taking any decision you check the feasibility of the project, then prepare architecture, define some functions and start following and implementing those. Your role is limited to a developer who can do some limited unit testing also. Managers, architects and testers are your family members. But since you have a focused role now, chances of less faulty functions and hence a stable product is higher. This project has lot of opportunities to explore but it seems less challenging and less exciting in terms of team work. 

Since it is a sensitive topic and I also don’t want my mentality to be judged, I am leaving it for my readers to summarize it:). Surely I have focused only one part of both the marriages but it does not mean that second part does not exist. It does exist and I will be more than happy to see those in the comments:). In fact, logics do not exist in the marriages. It is all about mutual understanding, adjustments and trust. So whatever will be the type, if these things exist in your life, any kind of marriage will be a success.

Change

Hi friends. After following many blogs, I thought of following and struggling with my own thoughts J. Since I am writing a blog for the first time, you can expect many mistakes. But your valuable feedback will certainly motivate me to improve in the required areas (except thoughtsJ). So here is my first blog: Change.

The flavor of the season and the most talked about topic is “change” in the system.  CWG, 2G spectrum, ISRO’s bandwidth allocation, land and properties scams, blind faith over religious gurus and blah blah blah again have raised a question about our system and its players. We always blame our system for any kind of problem in our society. Now days, it is the hottest and the most lovable topic for graduate people like us to discuss everyday during the lunch at cafeteria. Cursing the system and its sub-systems, we always show that we are graduated. But limiting it to the discussion and not execution, we in fact prove that we are probably graduated but still not educated. 

I always ask a question from myself- “do we really need a change in the system”? May be, but the biggest question is that are we really prepared for this change? May be not because I think there are many other related concerns which need some positive change first like voting on the basis of cast and religion, opposing the migrations from other states and our national language, misuse of democratic rights, being more theoretical rather than practical etc. In fact, we concentrate more on the analysis of a cricketer’s career record to select a dream world cup team rather than analyzing career records and eligibility of the diplomats who are supposed to lead our country and this is one of the reasons leading our country to a dummy and corrupt system. If you notice, you will find that system is always defined. If something is not defined then it is the individual part (us) which together makes a system perfect. So we need a change in our beliefs and thought process first and not in the system.
 

But change is not a sprint. It is a slow and gradual process. We need to initiate, stop and initiate again. In other words, it is essential to maintain a momentum to reflect any change. To bring a positive change, we need to keep the momentum going. To keep the momentum going means we need to refine our own beliefs all the time. But unfortunately momentum itself is missing from the frame. In fact, by setting our own thoughts and actions in the right direction at least we can speed up the momentum which seems inactive. To grow and to bring a revolution, focus should be our beliefs. By choosing the right actions, we will be able to always accelerate our progress by overcoming obstacles, without any resistance.

A quote from SAMSKRUTA SHUBHASHITAS affirms the philosophy of a healthy society to keep the momentum going.

yathA hi ekena chakreNa na rathasya gatiH bhavet | 

evaM puruShakAreNa vinA daivaM na sidhyati || 

Translation of the above sloka is like this- “Just as a chariot cannot move with only one wheel, even so fate not come to fruition without human actions”.

Embracing change is often the most difficult. But refining our own mindset will allow us to fully specialize and then we will experience that change presents the most opportunities, with untold joys. We can always improve and refine our mindset. If we do so, it will give benefits to the society, country and the level of success we achieve in life.