A Suitable Girl

Its been over a year since we began looking out for a bride for our Naval Officer son. Like most folks these days we set out to put Ashwin's details on a popular matrimonial website in order to get us access to details of potential daughters-in-law. We did pretty much the same thing when it came to Ammu, our daughter, some four years earlier, but in her case we hit upon our potential son-in-law in as little as one week of posting her details on the site! And what was amazing was that we did not have her permission to put up her picture on the matrimonial website so only some textual detail was put up! We tried doing the same for our son but the fish were not biting! Which  meant we had to put up his pictures on the website along with a whole lot more details about him! 

Weeks went by with Sudha and I poring over hundreds of profiles and pictures of young things from all over the country and overseas but nothing was really clicking because even when we expressed interest the girls' folks seemed uninterested! With the few that did reciprocate interest there would be issues with the girl's looks, or the girl's family or the girl's educational background! But mostly the problem stemmed from the fact that most girls did not fancy marrying a Naval officer because they would be subject to frequent transfers (postings) which meant that they would not be able to keep their jobs. Then ofourse, there were those who felt that Ashwin's specialisation as a submariner meant he risked his life too often by spending too much of his working life at the bottom of some ocean somewhere! On occasion we would get to talk to potential brides' parents and try to set up initial contacts between Ashwin and the girl concerned but then something would give and the call between him and the girl would not materialise. Then it would back to the drawing board and poring over profiles and sending off details of more girls to Ashwin and getting him to shortlist a few who's parents Sudha and I would try and make contact with. Then one day we stumble across the details of a PYT who is based in Chennai but her parents were in Kerala - I manage to speak to the father of the PYT and was asked to send along Ashwin's horoscope and other details. Weeks go by and there is no come back from Kerala and then one day Sudha gets this call from a nephew's wife saying that they had a call from people they know, enquiring about the suitability of Ashwin as a bridegroom for their daughter. This nephew is also in the Navy and hence the referral by the PYT's parents to enquire about Ashwin. Ofcourse, Sudha's nephew assured the parents of the PYT that Ashwin was all of what his CV and matrimonial profile depicted him to be. 

I then get on to FaceBook to check out the girl and sure enough there she is - plenty of pictures of her there. Ashwin was asked to check the PYT out on FB and he comes back to his mother and wants to  know if we actually find the girl ok! He asks the question not once or twice but several times and wants to be assured that we were ok with the pictures of the girl! Its only then that we realise that he was asking because the PYT wore pretty modern outfits in the pictures, so the son was wondering why his parents were not scandalised by the pictures! Soon the parents of the girl and the girl herself paid us a visit at home and spent a little while with us over lunch and before long Ashwin and the PYT were on phone with each other. A week later we got the green signal from the son and then the marriage machinery begins to crank up. An engagement was in order, Ashwin and Devika (thats the name of the PYT!) were soon engaged and then they began their count down to November 3rd - the day they are to be married. 

 

Its amazing how fast time went by - before we knew it the wedding was upon us - Ashwin had in the meantime been posted out to Mumbai on INS Sindhu Vijay. Now it was about making sure the Navy gave him his leave to get married! He shows up on 2nd Nov morning to get married on 3rd Nov giving the bride and her folks plenty of kittens in their tummies wondering if he would be there for the marriage!

Suffice it to say that the pre-wedding party and the wedding went very well and Ashwin and Devika are finally man and wife thus ending one whole year of searching for a suitable girl!