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Ever since our son turned twenty seven we have been on a perpetual hunt to find a suitable partner for him. He has assigned the job to us.
In the good old days marriages in Kerala took place through the intervention of the elders in the family. The elders used to take notice of young men and women of marriageable age. They would reach out to the two families with their suggestions. Once the preliminaries are over the boy would meet the girl and if they are in agreement the families would go ahead with the marriage.
The advent of the nuclear families has eliminated the role of the elders. The Gulf boom and the IT invasion have loaded a large number of our compatriots with hard cash. It is a situation where people believe they can buy anything with the money they have. They buy seats in the professional colleges. They throw their money around to find a placement for their children. Marriage is no exception.
We have been going through the matrimonial advertisements in the newspapers. We search the web. It is a routine. Once we have the advertisements we would contact the advertisers that in almost all the cases happen to be the parents of the girl. Our son has a degree in Commerce and masters in Business Administration. He is employed for marketing by a software company. He is tall, athletic and dark. The moment we introduce ourselves the parents of the girl reveal to us proudly that their daughter is an engineer and that she is employed by one of the leading IT companies. According to them an engineer should marry an engineer only. They convey a message that marriages are between careers , qualifications and packages only. It seems no one is interested in quality or character. The boy is odd if he is a tee-totaller. The package and the perks compensate all the negatives. Obviously the package drawn by the boy has to exceed Rupees Fifty thousand per month. They would tell us that the qualifications of our son has no value at all in the world. They would probe how we have a son who is dark. They act as if all is lost if you are not an engineer. We would go on to the next advertisement. The effort has exceeded two years and we feel it would go on till infinity. We have now conveyed to our son in all seriousness that he would have to drop his job and start his student days all over again to come out blazing with an engineering degree if he wishes to get married. He would hit the jackpot if it is in medicine.
We have observed that most of the boys and girls in Kerala are going into the engineering colleges these days. They would try to become Doctors at first. As admission to medical colleges is limited and prohibitive they would deviate to the engineering colleges. Not many go for a Masters in Humanities or Education as the package is not attractive. Even if some dare to swim against the current and acquire qualifications of their choice in areas that differ from engineering or medicine they too are particular that their match is qualified in engineering or medicine alone. The refrain is engineering or medicine are on a much higher level and all other qualifications are second class. We are afraid a time will come when we will have no one except engineers or doctors in Kerala. God’s own country would become the land of engineers and doctors where all the tasks are handled by engineers and doctors alone and where no one else has a right to exist.
