YEHI HAI  RIGHT CHOICE BETI !

Till even a generation or two ago, joint families had not yet begun to disintegrate. The head of the family's edict was sacrosanct and the world revolved around one's home and one's hometown. A life where everyone knew everyone else, sometimes from their grandparents' time, and matrimonial alliances were formed based on the like-mindedness of the parents of the bride and the groom - the planetary positions in the horoscopes willing. The personal/commercial relationship of the parents of the bridal couple was a dominant factor in the marriage. It was more a merger of two families than a communion of two souls. The approval/dissent of the primary people concerned - the bride and the groom, was rarely taken into consideration. And even in the rare cases, the groom may have had a better chance of exercising his opinion while the bride could only follow the diktats of the elders. "We know what's best for you" was the constant refrain and few dared to rebel.

Today, it is a different scenario. And how. Joint families fragmented into nuclear ones. Tremendous strides in the fields of transport and communication have made the world a smaller place, but yet, paradoxically, now it is a life where even neighbours are strangers and anywhere is not too far away. Man and fellow-man have become so dissociated with each other that, apart from one's immediate circle of friends and relatives, one hardly knows the other - leave alone from one's grandparents' time. Societal pressures do leave their imprint on the personality traits of people and so, impressions formed about an individual earlier, tend to be in variance with his/her present mind-set. Both, boys and girls, have started to realise the importance of education and the pursuit of higher education has broadened their perspectives. Economic independence has brought about self-confidence, and with it, a self-realisation, that it is, after all, their life and they would like to have their own hands on the steering wheel. The new refrain is "I will be the one spending the rest of my life with my spouse. Let me decide who I want to spend it with."

Even when buying clothes, which one would be wearing for, at best, only a few years, one puts in so much of deliberation before making a selection. Imagine how much more thought and diligence would need to go in for the selection of a life-partner. While the question of entering into a life-long alliance is no trivial matter, it is not something that can be left to chance, either. One cannot keep on hoping to find Mr. Right and let the years slip away.

This is where we come in.

Let us make one thing clear. We are NOT against arranged marriages. Matchmaking is here to stay. We are only against people rushing blindly and hurtling into lifelong relationships without knowing what they are getting into. A lot of marriages run into heavy weather not because its inmates are bad but because they are mismatched, personality-wise or otherwise. Mr. A and Mrs. B might have made a better couple. Just like Mr. B and Mrs. A. What should have been two compatible couples end up as two sets of married individuals heading for misery. Perhaps a little scrutiny, or a little bit of getting to know about each other, before taking the plunge, could have averted the disaster. Of course, the Internet is full of websites promising online matches. But in cyberspace you can never be sure if you are really interacting with Dr. Jekyll (or is it Mr. Hyde?). One can never be sure about the name, age, sex, location and even the personality of the person one is trying to befriend. Playing the lottery would be a safer bet.

With each issue we strive to present before you, a number of prospective grooms. Apart from the usual bio-data, we elicit further information from each of them by way of answers to questions which 'lays their souls bare' enabling you to 'know' them better and help you form an opinion. While extreme care is being taken to verify data like name, age, occupation, salary, etc., it is but natural, that certain details disclosed cannot be verifiable - for example, the actual time of birth, or, the personal views expressed by the prospective groom in relation to the questions posed, etc. We try to dispel at least a small part of the haze shrouding a person's personality. Not all 'tall, fair, handsome MBA with two year experience with a MNC drawing a six-digit salary' prospective grooms are identical.

We sincerely hope that this effort of ours will help bring two happy souls together in holy wedlock.

Wishing the couple a long and happy married life!