shaadi ka laddoo

as the saying goes...jo khaye woh bhi pachtaye aur jo na khaaye woh bhi....
i think this one of the most complex of all social institutions which human beings have spun for themselves.
it is diificult to say waht is right and what is wrong because there are no absolute rights or wrongs in human relationships
i have a distant cousin who had declared to the world that he does not want to get married and his family, parents etc had lost all hopes of ever seeing him married. all of a sudden this guy meets up with a girl and withinn 2 months, he gets married to her in a very austere ceremony with only a handful of people. his parents are happy beyond words. infact they met the girl only at the weeding ceremony...
then there is another league of people, like this friend who wanted to marry but quite understandably to the girl of his choice...very reasonable expectation indeed. but as his father would have it, the man literally forced him to marry a girl of 'his' choice whom my friend had not liked at all. i remember, i had screamed, howled, counselled this guy to say no, simply because he did not want to maary this girl. but this fella simply could not. not that he did not register his absolute dislike for the proposed match, but as his father is--he rolled out all sorts of tricks there are in the book.....from anger and displeasure to pretending to have a heart attack. believe me his father did that.
i remeber even on his wedding day when this friend kept looking at me with such helpless expressions in his eyes that i could not belive that a modern well educated financialy independent man could be so submissive about the most important decision of his life.
by then i had sort of lost sympathy for him, because of not only his weak submisssive nature but also because this story had another twist to it. earlier, i may have in certain moments really pondered over the thought...if he had pursued me well enough.....but not now...