Okay.  This one is for you dozen tipsters who are jonesing for our take on this article about “”love-cum-arranged,” marriages that appears in today’s NYTimes. 

Yawn.  Haven’t I read this article like a dozen times before?  It’s always half of an article where they drum up the angle that they wanted to write in the first place instead of doing any real reporting. 

These young people may have come of age in an America of “Moonstruck” and “Dawson’s Creek,” but in many cases they have not completely accepted the Western model of romantic attachment. Indeed, some of the impetus for assisted marriage is coming from young people themselves - men and women who have delayed marriage into their late 20’s and early 30’s, said Ayesha Hakki, the editor of Bibi, a South Asian bridal and fashion magazine based in New Jersey.

“That has been the most remarkable trend,” Ms. Hakki said, citing the example of a male acquaintance, who, after dating on his own, turned to his parents for guidance.

As Madhulika Khandelwal, a historian who has studied Indians here, said, “Young people don’t want to make individual decisions alone.”

[cough]-bullshit-[cough].  It’s not that young people don’t want to make “individual decisions alone” and have decided that their parent’s “guidance” is best.  No.  It’s that they are giving up and no longer want to fight “the system.”  Ladies in their late twenties can only pursue self-absorbed or commitment-phobic guys (and there is nothing wrong with being commitment phobic ) for so long before they throw in the towel and opt for “traditional,” by default.  Likewise, guys are forced to deal with women who are too neurotic to date mostly because their parents are breathing down their necks to get married.  We (Indians raised in this country) turn to our families for the exact same reason as someone of another culture would turn to their’s, except for the fact that there is more pressure to turn to them. This article and others like it always seem to dodge the truth in order to accentuate the exotic “embrace” of our culture.  What the article describes is more than just being set up on a “blind date,” which it compares it to.  Lots of cultures practice the art of the blind date, whether through family or friends, and it isn’t particularly newsworthy.  When journalists single out Indians they do so with the implication that the family’s fingerprints are all over the entire courtship process.  If that is the case then explaining it away as a willing “return to tradition” makes my eyes roll.  Here is some more bullshit:

The embrace of more traditional habits is apparent in other ways. Weddings are often elaborate and last three or four days. Families of the betrothed often still consult a Hindu astrologer who schedules wedding ceremonies according to the stars. When Anamika Tavathia, 24, was engaged to a young Indian she met in college, his family visited hers to propose on his behalf and the priest determined they should marry on June 26 of this year between 10:30 and 11 a.m.

This fall is expected to be an unusually busy wedding season in Indian communities, because many couples postponed weddings last year when many days were deemed inauspicious.

Are you f*cking kidding me?  I guess the Times decided that the article could use a bit more masala when they added that last sentence.  As a quick aside though, I made up a drinking game for when I go to Indian weddings.  Any time someone uses the word “auspicious” you take a shot at the reception.

Despite its groundings in pragmatism, assisted marriage is spoken about among some young Indians in highly romanticized terms - implicit in it is the cinematic idea that immediate attraction should result in an eternity spent together.

Damn.  I hope that’s not true because that would mean that a lot of my close friends are totally abnormal.

Kesha Petal’s sister married a man to whom she was introduced through her aunts. She decided to marry him the day after they met. “A lot of my friends,” Kesha Petal said, her eyes gleaming, “tell me you know in an instant.”

Oh, oh.  I just vomited all over myself.  Speaking of weddings though, did you guys see this long-overdue article in the Guardian?

The wedding beast, I fear, is swallowing us all, and Liz Savage, the editor of Brides Magazine (circulation 68,000), confirms it. The British bridal industry is worth £5bn a year and growing, and Savage cites a faintly nauseating buffet of factors. First, people are increasingly paying for their own weddings, thus unleashing a torrent of Personal Romances-style fantasies on us all. “Fathers of the bride are no longer automatically footing the bill,” she says. “Couples have more money to spend and they want the wedding to be an expression of their personal style.”

The key driver, it becomes clear, in the excess of the modern wedding is pseudo-sophistication and grisly one-upmanship. “Our tastes have become much more sophisticated and glamorous,” says Savage. “I got married nine years ago and there was none of this fuss over the menu and what we were drinking. Then you wouldn’t have dreamed of turning your nose up at the wine but today we are putting ourselves under far more pressure … Our readers spend more time thinking about the reception than anything else. The attention to detail is amazing - the choice of napkin ring, how they are going to tie the napkins and how are the place settings going to look. It doesn’t matter if they are traditional or getting married in winter or abroad, our readers want to surprise and delight their guests. People are much more creative and imaginative today. They want their wedding to be talked about and to give their guests the best they can. They really want the wow factor.”

[begin rant] It’s true.  It’s far worse for Indian weddings though.  One of my closest friends and his fiance were in town a couple weeks ago to do some wedding shopping.  They both advised me never to get married because the actual wedding will suck all the life (and money) out of you.  Everything has to be perfect and you have to invite guests that you will never talk to again in your life.  I for one will never buy a diamond engagement ring.  I’d rather spend the $14,000 on a 4 week 5 country honeymoon, and I won’t have to worry about some kid in Sierra-Leone getting his limb chopped off for a rock that in reality is worthless.  I also can’t stand the way that women shake hands when they are newly engaged.  Also, please, please, please save your money and do not make a “wedding music CD” for your guests.  Nobody wants to listen to the music you guys do the dirty to. [end rant]