Matrimonial Kashmir

“…First son married in Andrabi family...
Second daughter married in Suharwardi family, whose second cousins are settled in Amrika and third cousin is a well known businessman in middleeast...
Third daughter married in Peerzada family—of a particular area and
finally groom wanted for fourth daughter, preferably from Qureshi family and/or Qadri family…” or any other caste—identifying an alien foreign geographical location, preferably Central Asian—and ending at the second last alphabet of Urdu language and/or ninth alphabet of English language.

Without exaggeration, this is the script written in personal J&K bank diary of one of the many match makers in Kashmir, who find better halves for the population, where many believe that the choices have already been sanctioned somewhere in heaven. And, here on earth this script most of the time is written by the parents or family members—literate and well established—of a boy or girl in their own handwriting. Red ink marking the dangerous No-No candidate, blue and black ink pointing to—if there is nobody then this one choice—and green signaling the best profile.

One of my journalist friends who recently got married is another eyewitness to the similar and almost replica post in another diary of sacred secrets. He accessed the diary during his pre-marital match making operation, when he was spied upon in Lal Chowk by strangers, his daily routine scanned by match makers secretly like that of CCTVs installed at Regal Chowk and examined at infamous Cargo by the police officials. When personal moments like nose-picking were also recorded and later dissected as if it was a covert anti-state operation. Or for a match maker, it turns out to be the last nail in the coffin in grooms profile that ends chances of marriage. He further informed that the post he read from the diary was written by a well known professor of Kashmir University, who is widely acclaimed for his contribution in academics.

And this pattern of greed based artificial selection cocooned by fake conservativism is followed in every strata of the society, by all castes and societal structures in their own way. While so called elite caste families do it on basis of historically unverified and even unimportant heredity, many others do it with their ill begotten wealth, illegitimate political power, cross-hybridized religious literacy and influence, sectarian hatred, unpaid bank loan based multimillion businesses, changed and mutilated castes or with direct collaboration with the oppressing power structures. The match maker thus turns into a broker, who does not facilitate linking of tender chords between the two souls, but negotiates a deal between the two wily investors, who think that the synergy will be a good investment to get a better standing in the societal stock exchange. And many of us most of the time, end up as collaborators, succumbing to one pressure or the other, with some honorable exceptions as always.

Similarly, more than enquiring about the groom or bride the families enquire about uncles, aunts, daughter in laws, great grand parents, sixty-fifth cousins, former and current neighbors, family help, salary accounts, fixed deposits, shape and color of roof tops, open and closed drains outside the residence of potential bride or groom and above all the variety of useless cutlery and number of trays in which dishes are served in the house.

And somewhere at the end of the process of the match making, we find way for personal character and nature of the individual getting married, his or her moral uprightness, ethics, belief system and other qualities, that actually help him or her to nurture, what we call a successful marriage.

The marriage thus turns into a spectacle to showoff one’s social, economic and political power and this is why the actual ‘Nikkah recitation’ during many marriage ceremonies is seen as burden and hushed up as an unimportant formality, while shameful appeasement of a ‘powerful’ guests and filthy cosmetic boasting goes on for days and remains the top most priority.

While marrying someone whose, social economic and political realities are closer to oneself may be advisable for many and may work as well. But the society should refrain from exploiting religious or cultural advisories for violent selfish interests as is being done in many parts of South Asia, which will only lead us to chaos and more chaos. “Zache Lage Zaetey”, “Aes Mae Lagav Ouer Yoer”, “Aseel Zaat and Kameen Zaat” or “Shudaer and Non-Shudaer” narratives ingrained in genomes of our society have to be questioned seriously and a cleansing process needs to be started soon.

The victims of this chaotic ugly social reality are thousands of youth in the state, who couldn’t marry for years, as in one way or the other, consciously or unconsciously they have attempted to challenge this exploitative social structure which is exclusively based on personal greed and vengeance.
One of the distant acquaintances, who earns well to feed family of 20, was recently rejected by a prospective bride’s family because of his dark skin shade. “Hatav Sou Haev Yuhaey Deesi Basaan’ one of the aunts of the girl had reported back to family after pre-marital meeting in a restaurant. This has come from the family, whose members give away food in charity every Thursday in name of Prophet Muhammad (SAW) and his companions, which includes Hazrat Bilal Habshi (RA).

And most of our Friday sermonizers never seem to open eyes to these realities. They will always keep humming beautiful historical anecdotes rarely relevant to present times. Will never questions the societal conditioning and realities that forces an individual to go astray, but leave no chance to issue Fatwa and invoke fury of Almighty, once they stumble on or are informed about misdeed of any individual.
Individual efforts of many youngsters and initiatives like Humsafar Marriage Bureau acts as palliative in such a depressing scenario and gives us hope that we should never never forgo.

May Almighty help us to see things as they exist in reality!

Note: With no malice towards any caste mentioned in the article.