Though I am not much of a humanist, since the basic tenets of humanism ceased to exist long ago. I was going through with my struggle-full life, that I guess is true with every human on this planet when I came across this website, where I found a couple of people of my age talking about life and stuff.

Kind of drew my attention a bit, in particular when I scrolled through this story, 'How It Feels To Be A 30+ Single Woman Trying For An Arranged Marriage In India'.

I am not here to critically judge the story as most of it sounds rationale. The author gives a first hand account of her experience of meeting several men more or less of her age so that she could finally have sex with someone approved by the society.

That process is called marriage. The meaning, nature and definition of which changes as much as the many languages spoken in this country.

Two instances given by the author are indeed funny. First, “I will marry you only if, you know, I have that feeling for you. For that, I might need to take you to bed before I decide.” These include a few IIM graduates.

And second, "He comes to meet you, orders everything he wants on the menu without asking for your preference. And then he suddenly gets a phone call, attends that for 20 minutes, comes back and says sorry, says “You ask questions” and when you ask something, he says, 'My cab is here!'"

At the end, the author expresses her anguish and substantial frustration by asking the men of the world, “But men seriously, what do you want? A girl? Her money? Her looks? Her skills in bed? I mean how do you judge a girl who you meet in such a setting?"

Well most of this is justified, given her experience of meeting some 100 plus men, only to get married. Fair enough. It didn’t work out, may be that is the reason why guys like me are still single.

Now comes the second story by another well-deserving author titled, 'This Is Exactly Why A 30-Something Male Should NOT Go For An Arranged Marriage'.

Here I find a hell lot of realism and could really relate to it within seconds of reading it. My own personal experience with arranged marriages, be it via matrimony websites or otherwise, has been horrible.

Why is it always that a guy has to earn more in order to take care of the wife? Who has set this parameters? I will tell you that nowadays the male thought process has changed considerably. You will find many men around who will ideally not have an ounce of ego issue if by any chance the wife earns more.

Secondly, the author is very right when he says, "Dear women, if someone just asked you whether you know cooking or not, it does not mean he wants a maid." — I will add on to that, if someone just asked you whether you know how to cook, doesn’t even scream a decibel of patriarchy.

"And we all being in our late twenties have mastered the art of cooking in some ways, I mean it is not rocket science after all. Most men know how to cook these days." Very rightly said. I can very well relate it. In my final year of graduation in Varanasi I tried my hands at cooking. Today I know almost every dish relevant to me as a Bengali or otherwise.

Let me shed a bit more light on this. Some of my friends who got married in the past two years, they say that they are not happy. A journalist’s job is to observe happenings around the society. From that observance I've realised that nowadays a marriage has become more about the groom’s socio-economic prospects more than anything else.

I tried to woo a woman a few months ago. A former colleague. At office, she used to abuse me as if it was her birth right. A very prolific writer for the web. Her qualities alone are what attracted me towards her. When I told her about how I felt for her, the reply confused me. She neither rejected me nor accepted my proposal. She said that she respected my feelings but she could not accept my proposal  at the time because she was undergoing a tragic death of a close cousin.

Fair enough, how was I supposed to know about the death in her family, which was indeed unfortunate. 

I often come across women who saw marriage as an opportunity to go for foreign trips to post selfies and photos on Facebook and Instagram. Their husbands have confessed this and some of them happen to be my own friends.

So friends, where we concede that women’s movement in the country has not in any way paid dividends since most of the ideas of feminism in India are imported and not desi, but those who have actually seen the colours of emancipation have not behaved ideally for the rest of the lot.

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