Why do people get married?

Its a Monday night and its past 3am in the morning. Its not that I usually stay awake this late at night on a weekday when I know that I got to be in the office working my ass off for the next entire day. Something distinct happened today that made me think and yeah I do think some of the times. Its not a regular act but yes sometimes it gets really messy.

For some reasons, my phone got discharged today when I was in the middle of a conversation with one of my college friends. It remained switched off for around 1 hour until the time I got back to home and put the phone on charge. As soon as i switched on my cell, a sms popped up

" Mr busy?? why your cell switched off? no mails...no calls? kahan hai??"

I checked the sender and I couldnt believe it. Rechecked it. Yes it was her - a very old school friend of mine - Pooja (name changed for maintaining anonymity). There was a time when I used to talk to her on a very frequent basis - almost twice in a week. Used to confide with her everything. As soon as I shifted to Pune, the frequency of phone calls died down to like once in a month. Obviously when you are not in touch with your old pal for such a long time and suddenly you get a message indicates that something has gone wrong. I replied the message with a call but nobody picked up. After a few minutes she called back and as usual she talks as if we have been talking everyday. She took a deep breath and said "Asheesh, I am getting married. Next month and you need to come". Literally shocked, I was not sure what to say apart from congratulations. Gaining composure, I started acting normal and started questioning about the guy and how things happened so quickly that nobody got to know about anything. She had answers to all the questions which actually had made me think uptil this late at night.

Million dollar question that I have been trying to search an answer for tonight was
"Why does anyone get married?"
I havent got any reassured answers from any of the married couples either. Guy is 28, girl is 25 so they should get married. What on heck of an answer is that to a very complicated question yet simply put. My argument is what is so different if the guy is 28 or the girl is 25 and what difference would it make if the guy had been 38 and the girl being 35? Rituals and traditions say that a girl needs a guy to look after her. How long can a family support a girl when they know that she had to move to her husband's house anyway? I say what bullshit!! Hasnt the girl started living independently after she got a job of her own. And why is this all about girl? Doesnt a guy want a girl as a life partner? Questions are very intriguing when someone starts thinking about them seriously.

They say you need some life partner with whom you can share everything. Havent you been sharing everything with someone till date? You are 25+ dammit and I am sure you must have been sharing everything with someone, someone close, some good friends or family as a matter of fact. Have you been at any point of time in need of a girl or guy partner to share everything you have got? Pooja told me that the guy she is going to get married is now working in London. She hasnt seen him. They have got engaged without their presence. Their parents met up in a temple and exchanged rings between the families. Pooja was at her place of work and the guy was in London when the engagement was done. I couldnt believe my ears when I heard this. Engagement without the presence of the persons who are going to get engaged!! How weird is that and what the heck is it all about?? Is it some kind of joke or something?

Coming back to the question again "why does anyone wants to get married?"

• If its a girl, the society doesnt allow her to remain single after she crosses her silver jubilee birthday. The bloody society points fingers at her and her family every now and then and makes her life miserable without any choice but to get married to any-other-guy whom she finds decent enough to settle down with.
• If its a guy, there is no bar for him and he can continue living his so called bachelorship till the time he wants. But still then he wants to have a family, someone who loves him and care for him. So he gets married with a girl whom he expects that she will love him the way he wanted to be loved after marriage. Its the same story for the girls too who are bold enough to face the pinching society and do what they feel is right.
  
• God has created man and woman on earth together so that he doesnt have to play any role in keeping the generation moving forward. God really had been acting as a lazy ass and of course he is. How long can he take these responsibilities? Thats when the role of men and women comes into picture and just to make the mating process legal, a term "marriage" got created. This also avoids a very dangerous disease that we all know what I am talking about - aids.
• Love or arranged marriages then?? Both of them have got their own charm. Some are lucky to experience love marriages and some are lucky having them arranged and some are luckiest to have them both. But does it matter at all? I personally could not yet figure out how can anybody go for arranged marriages when you dont even know the other person with whom you are going to spend your rest of the life with - share your room, share your bed, share your kitchen, share every goddamn thing that you have been using for your own.

I live in a big flat with 3 bedrooms and the rent is pretty high. So I put up a notice on our notice boards in office mentioning that 'Flat on shared rent available. Internet, water, electricity, tv, fridge free. Everything else is on sharing basis.' Other day, two of my colleagues turned up to stay in the flat. One of them turned out to be a pain-in-the-ass. There was no other way I can get rid of him because he was paying for whatever is on sharing basis. Life had really become tough to get back to home after work. And this situation aroused because I didnt know the person in advance and I allowed him to stay with me.

Does arranged marriage sound any different? What if your partner turns out to be a real jerk and you are not at all comfortable staying with him/her anymore. How long are you going to compromise? If you are really compromising, what is the extent that you can go upto? If nothing works out, is divorce the only way out? I really dont have any explanations to all these at this point of time - not because I am feeling sleepy but because nobody has got any justifications for anything like this. Even if you ask a divorced couple about the reason of being separated, I am damn sure you wouldnt get a better answer than 'It was really hard living with him/her anymore. So I left'. I would give such a blur answer a point of less than 1 on 10.

Well, bottomline is I am really confused and dont know what to think at 3:30am in the morning. So I better get out of here and take a cozy nap in my soft bed. And I promise I will never think about all these complicated questions again in my life and neither should you? Believe me, it can really go worse if you cannot handle it properly.

Good night, khuda haafiz, alvida, sayonara
Signing off
MAsh....as usual!!

Playstation 3 or XBox 360

Now dont at all think that m acting kiddish when I speak about video games. Its not just a video game which one plays with a freaking brick game in it. Its a 35000 bucks playstation dammit with high definition graphics which makes all the gaming experience frigging real.

So, when I thought of buying such a console, only two names popped into my mind:

1. Microsoft's Xbox 360
2. Sony's Playstation 3

Now lets me elaborate which one of these to buy if you are new to these and confused with which one should you go for.

Sony Play Station 3:

This product looks good. Doesnt matter what it has and what not, as long as it has got a sony tag on it, it will sell.
Pros and cons (written in a jumbled up manner - sorry but thats how i always think):

• Slick console.
• If you are planning to keep it in your glass cupboard, it will surely gonna add a whole lot of zilch to it. The black version looks like an alien spaceship which has come to earth for a total annihilation
• Blu-Ray disk which is the future technology of DVDs. Dont put much thinking on it because i was also not able to assess what it actually meant.
  
• It has got a huge amount of space in it in terms of gigs. So no matter what you store, how big you store, you gonna end up in having space all the time.
• Can play DVD movies
• Can be used to surf web
• The games when played on it, gives you a feeling of happy-go-lucky
• Few problem with the graphics: [a] when u look into sunny area standing in a shady garage or house, the screen becomes almost white. [b] Antialiasing is not that good as in foggy scenes, the nearby bulbs and fires are not quite visible. [c] The blood coming out of a soldier doesnt look so real - lacks clarity and doesnt give a feel that you have actually killed somebody

Microsoft Xbox 360:

Now this is a real champ. White and Black model are the famous one in market but you will get many fancy outer body - be it pink, orange, commando theme and literally anything, you can get anything you can think of. Well apart from this what i found interesting is the interface. Its much better than the PS3, all colored up and easy to use.
Few features that one should look for in Xbox 360:

• Heck of a speed! All the cars in Need for Speed Carbon go zoom with greatest quality in texture and lightening
  
• One can literally plug anything into this piece of holy crap and get into the thing vis-a-vis iPod, Zune, SD cards, Memory sticks.
• The lightening effects in the game are really sharper than PS 3
• There is a online community forum too where a XBox user can log onto and do whatever he likes - challenge other players, download music.
• Speaking of music, whereas PS 3 is for photograph lovers, XBox is for music lovers. If someone takes a wi-fi connection, they can literally download mp3 files location in their computer nearby.
• Best price - lot cheaper than PS 3
  

Now the question is which one did I buy? Straight answer is neither of these! I found Nintendo-Wii to be a far better option but still searching for its dealer in India.