Marriages are made in the mind..

I am told in rural India, people directly ask what caste you belong to. I don't know, but I am told it happens. In urban India, they don't ask this to your face. But when they find out you're a Konkani guy, and your wife is Mallu, they do ask you this..

"Sir, you have a love marriage??"

Maybe they live their secret desire vicariously through my married life. Maybe, it's a symptom of how suppressed we really are in terms of expressing our love openly. Maybe it's just their amazement, to how our parents agreed to it. I don't know, but I have heard this so many times, that it's not even funny. The funniest thing is that after almost 5 years of marriage, and having seen many marriages work (and not work), I really don't if there's any difference in the married life of those who have had a "love" marriage and those who have had an "arranged" marriage. I know a guy, whose parents went against his wishes and got him married to someone of their choice, that didn't work. So, they gave in to his wishes and let him marry someoen of his choice and that didn't work either.

There's no such thing as a soul mate, in my opinion, you have to understand each other, and that's more important. The phrase soulmate must have been devised by some greeting card marketing manager, I think. If you are not willing to change, it's never going to happen, love- / arranged-/ or whatever other type of marriage. A Marriage is something where both partners have to give a little, take a little, and come up wiht the best there is for all concerned. It's been a blast for me personally, but while most credit of that should go to the boss, I guess I should also get some brownie points.

That's why my standard answer to this standard question is:

Self - Arranged