Lessons In Marriage From Katrina Kaif: The Right Age And Time To Marry

A woman writes about the lessons in marriage from the Katrina Kaif’s starring Titan ad. What is the right age to marry? Read on!

The latest Titan Raga ad featuring the heartthrob of Bollywood and dream girl of every second guy – Katrina Kaif is worth a watch. The ad shows Katrina all decked up for a wedding and she talks about when’s the right time to get married- in fact she goes about it in a unique way by bringing forth those situations or reasons to which people often fall prey and tie the knot only to realize later that it was not worth and it all started from the reason/situation which prompted them to.

Introspecting on this, it is indeed true. The immense pressure on people these days and I would say more in case of women is indeed excruciating. It starts when you reach the so-called marriageable age. Who has set this norm about the so-called ideal age to get married is something I often ponder on. People are becoming more liberal these days and the “age” is no doubt getting extended, but there is a still a certain age beyond which if one has not found a match (for whatever reasons), they are considered having crossed that “age” and will have to be content with whatever falls in their plate- “We told you a million times, but you paid no heed, now suffer.”

My family has always been liberal and the supreme goal of my parents has always been to educate me and my brother and make us independent. When I think of the days before marriage, the groom hunting phase memories make me chuckle. There are sweet memories of how I met my husband and our courtship, at the same time there are those memories of unwanted and totally irrelevant questions which make me ponder over the mentality of people towards marriage. I live in the so called modern society, in the IT city, am surrounded by educated people throughout the day who call themselves broad minded…well all that din’t stop them from firing a host of questions at the bewildered victim.

Some of the most common and annoying questions to which I was a subject are:

1) So you have completed your CA, got a job in a MNC, where’s the biggest good news now?

Ya I was born with the sole purpose of my life being to get married right? So why did I take all this trouble burning the midnight oil? Bitten by a bug eh?

2) Look  beta, if you don’t get settled down in a year or so, time will pass and you will get old. You will then have to settle for  someone below your level.

Well, who has decided about this time frame? And about settling for something below my expectation has never been my style and when I apply this to things like buying a dress or picking a restaurant, do you think I would really compromise when it comes to choosing my life partner.

3) Why don’t you find someone in your workplace? There are so many young men out there coming from well cultured families and earning as well as you . You talk to them in the course of your work and some may even be your friends. Pata lo kisi ko.

Going to office with the intention of  finding someone, I always found this very absurd as I go to office to work and my primary goal has always been to excel at my job.  And yes I have colleagues and some of them are my good friends but that’s that. It ends at that.

4) See that’s the problem when you educate girls too much and they earn like men, they get horns. They don’t want to get married or they want someone who earns as much as or more than them.They should not forget that they are women.

To people with such a low-level mindset I would say- the guys out there are not good enough to match our standards, go get your boys better educated. So my parents should have probably stopped my education midway, just let me be a graduate rather than a Chartered Accountant, or I should not have taken up that job at the MNC where they don’t distinguish between men and women when it comes to the pay scale.

5) It’s a big responsibility for your parents, they would be happy and relieved as well(unke mann ko shanti milegi) to see you settled. As a daughter, it’s your duty to consider your families wishes and not only think of yourself.

Well, I know my parents better than the so called well wishers advising me, no doubt they would like to see me married but more importantly they would like to see me happy and they would not mind if I take a year or two more in getting married, as long as I am happy.

6) How many guys will you meet? Why do you want to meet the guy so many times before saying yes? You have seen how he looks, seen the family, know about his qualification, job, family background, what more do you want to know or understand, the more time you take and the more people you meet, it is going to get all the more complex. So make it simple and be realistic, you won’t get everything. Learn to compromise.

Yes I agree I won’t get a Knight in shining armour, I am not looking for the guy who has it all but I am a girl of modern times. I have my own views and opinions, my ambitions and desires, have a career in which I want to grow and flourish, have guy friends, someone of whom are my best friends, I want someone whom I am compatible with, who will support me in giving shape to me dreams and to choose such a guy I can very well take all the time I want. Yes, even a lifetime is not enough in getting to know someone, but I would want to say yes to a guy only when I don’t have even a shred of doubt in my mind.

7) If you marry late, when will you have kids? See after a certain age, conceiving is tough and you don’t want to make rounds of the fertility clinic.

Yes I love kids and would definitely want to have mine someday, but not at this cost. That just because I might have trouble in conceiving or a difficult delivery, I would just settle for the first guy who came my way.

You may think most of these questions came from the agonising aunties who are all ears for gossip or the dada dadis(grandparents), but the truth is that most of it came from well educated so called people with modern outlook, some of them as young or even younger than me who worked with me, were as educated as me,  this made me realise that yes there is a sea difference in “being literate” and “being educated.”

It’s not easy finding a life partner and I would say more difficult to sustain the relation and let it flourish once you are married. But the undue pressure and the narrow mindset of the society do not make the process of finding a match any easier. It’s high time we free ourselves from this net and let it be solely our decision as to-when is the right time and who is the right person. Lets not fall prey to the unrealistic and irrational standards set by society for marriage and fall prey to it only to repent later. I am not a great fan of Katrina but I would agree with her wholeheartedly on this one!

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