My views on marriage (becuase everyone is oh so curious!)

First, you ought to know my theory on what's personal and what's not. And because we all are bent on being ridiculously sensitive these days - this is my theory. My theories and philosophies are my way or interpreting the world. They apply only to me. I explain them to you , so you can see my perspective and where I'm coming from. They have nothing to do with anyone else and I expect no-one to follow or agree with them. All they are, is an insight into my psyche; explained to you solely to provide clarity of my statements.

Now that, that's out of the way - to me everything about anyone is personal. Someone's name, date of birth, where they live, what they do, who they are - all of it is really very personal. When we simply look across the street and observe anyone doing anything, we're basically peering into their personal life. We, as humans and civilizations, being somewhat of social creatures, along the centuries decided that it was okay to share personal info to some extent with others, with whom we felt a connection. And that exchange of personal information with each other somewhere along the lines took a form of languages and gave way to the invention of words like family, friends and relatives. And as the civilizations grew it all got covered under the blanket of sociability. Social life then became public life, which gave way to public information and unceremoniously, in form of evolution, took away the privacy of people without anyone so much as realizing it. And for centuries we've lived with the concept of public and private life, most of us leading a two faced life. A source of much pain and unrest in the world.

And then came the idea of a global village. That pretty much blew all bounds of society out of water. Nothing anymore was private for anyone. People you never knew could now prey on you secrets. And thus came what I call the extinction of trust and communication. Thus, the uproar of privacy invasion and law suits began and all that gibberish. I say gibberish because for some strange reason we only care after death of something or someone; when it's too late.

Anyway, that's what my view on dealing with what's personal and what's public is. So to me, everything about anyone is personal and I'm really rather a very open person and voluntarily share my life to a great extent. But this is how I put it - I'm a  open book but it's a limited edition, only available in certain few libraries on reserve. So you have to go there and read it, if you want to know anything about me. There's reason why I don't have all the social media accounts and why for a very long time I didn't let my poetry become a book or didn't start a blog until recently. Simply because someone, no matter how close or how important to me, wants me to share any of my personal information and make it public, doesn't mean it'll happen. I share, what I want, when I want, to the extent I want. And my want has little to do with desire, but a whole lot to do with reason and logic.

And on that note, do you still think I'll be sharing my views on marriage? Besides, marriage as institution versus marriage as it pertains to me are two different matters. Marriage as an institution, is a nonsensical idea because it's something really personal and so it's meaning and importance changes based on culture, people, beliefs, and in my opinion, is very, very subjective. And as far as me sharing my view on the matter as it pertains to me goes, unless you are one of the few people whom I've verbally in very clear terms said - I'll discuss this with you; you're out of luck. As a matter of fact, you have no right to ask me, just like I have no right to ask you.
Even then, if it's pure ideal curiosity, as long as you're asking me in-person, I'll answer without the tiniest bit of annoyance. It's rather rare for me to not answer a direct question but what annoys me, and especially on this particular topic, is when the probing questions are asked with a gossipy or malicious intent. And by malicious (because to me it seems the perfect word for this) here I mean the questions asked by all the aunties at pretty much any gathering with the intention of matchmaking, not because they care about you but because they have someone or other in mind who needs a green-card or wants to move abroad or some other stupid reason like that.
The only good thing in this process I suppose is there's no sexism or ageism since everyone from the age of 17 until they get married have to go through it. At times it seems to even extend to your western friends who've accompanied you to some event. Although to me it's a whole another reason of annoyance. Culturally speaking, wouldn't it make more sense to have these conversation between just parents, themselves. And personally, it's most annoying when it happens in gurdawra's and in the darbar hall no less! Langar hall, annoying as it is, is still more bearable. (Reasons why I haven't been seen in any Gurdwara on a Sunday between 11am - 3pm since after I stopped teaching Gurmukhi classes.) Talk about strangest reasons of needing Gurdwara Sudhar Lehar again! But lets not get into that. It's a whole different range of grievances and annoyances of frivolity trumping philosophies.