The enterprise called love marriage

Over a cup of bland vending-machine coffee, a friend of mine popped a balloon of statistic in the air. His theory went thus, “More often than not, an entrepreneur will have a love marriage as against an arranged marriage.” I thought about it, and it helped me forget the blandness of the coffee. But then I thought about it a bit more, and realized that the idea was worth ruminating on.

To begin with, the number of well-known entrepreneurs who have met their future wives instead of being led to meet them is not that insignificant. Blockbuster names like Steve Jobs, Sergei Brin and Elon Musk are known to have walked down the aisle in love. But then again, our “sanskaari Indian” thought process would retort that marriages in the Occident, more often than not, do not come with the ‘lived-happily-ever-after’ warranty. Indeed, the last two of these three examples had an acrimonious climax. Let us adopt a Look-East policy then. So, what do N.R.Narayana Murthy, Nandan Nilekani, Prannoy Roy, Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, Kunal Bahl, Chetan Bhagat & Mohammed Yunus have in common? You guessed it right, all are entrepreneurs and all embraced love marriage. So, we know the idea may not be a wild goose chase.

When you think about it, it starts to make a little sense.

Entrepreneurship is a tough taskmaster. It demands passion, focus, perseverance and, above all, a will to walk a path less trodden or not trodden at all. While nobody can contend that these qualities don’t bolster a salaried professional’s career, it’s reasonable to say that they are oxygen to an entrepreneur’s career. Consequently, if one drinks, eats & breathes about an enterprise, the elaborate and tortuous process of an arranged marriage may become too much of a performance-retarder. And while the entrepreneur’s family may recoil thinking that their offspring is not interested in getting married (or worse!), the offspring may end up becoming betrothal-agnostic. Love marriage, which by definition is an enterprise itself, suits the style of an entrepreneur much better.

Coming back to the “Indian” mindset, a large chunk of us still tends to believe that a salaried job is a stable and mature career choice. Names like Lehman Brothers and terms like downsizing don’t seem to mean much to this chunk. In such a scenario, an entrepreneur is viewed almost like a maverick who doesn’t think about the welfare of his family and wants to take undue ‘risks’. Female entrepreneurs have it even worse. This state of affairs frequently is a dampener to shaadi.com members and their parents. This has two broad ramifications. One, an arranged marriage and an entrepreneur may become chalk and cheese. Two, an entrepreneurial individual will crave for a life-partner who shares his/her passion and/or, more importantly, shares his/her wavelength. While arranged marriage definitely has the potential to provide such a partner, love marriage becomes a more natural, or at least a more desirable path. Of course, whether the synergy continues after marriage is another matter, and the predicament of Alex Rogo whom Goldratt has accurately shown struggling to balance family and work may well become relevant. But that is crossing the bridge when you come to it.

I guess we are indulging in too much of unnecessary arranged-marriage-bashing. So let us take a look from the converse side. An entrepreneur has a fire in the belly that fuels his/her actions every day. An entrepreneur is also aware of the fact that, as mentioned above, the path chosen by him/her is a unique one. When such a person encounters a like-minded individual, at work, at the coffee shop or at a client meeting, hormonal rush can very frequently accompany appreciation and respect. This makes love marriage a natural after-effect.

Finally, proposing to someone is making a sales pitch. Period. This would be something right down the alley of an entrepreneur. Also, this puts the entrepreneur in charge of his/her destiny, which is one of the biggest drivers pushing any entrepreneur. Love marriage is, thus, much more streamlined with an entrepreneur’s flow and could be a strong variable in an entrepreneur’s equation.

Having said all this, I know this could be complete nonsense. But, in a world where we are still debating whether we landed on the moon when we think we did, a healthy-looking argument is all that is required. Argue away.

The Passport kaleidoscope...

To put it very simply, life is just a continuum of observation and learning. Observation may be both inward and outward, and learning is derived from observations that we make on a daily basis. If we observe carefully, many aspects, layers and nuances of life are visible all around us. Indeed, while our own lives give us a firsthand experience, cross-sections of life around us can be equally enriching and educating.

One of the Passport Seva Kendras (PSK) offered me such a cross-section the other day. My wife had an appointment for submitting her documents to the PSK and I had accompanied her. At the appointed time, the guards ushered her into the PSK and I realized I had some time to kill while she went through the document verification routine. I bought a cup of elaichi tea and a couple of Osmania biscuits from one of those ebullient thela vendors that somehow always exist outside such offices and settled myself on the low wall of the PSK parking lot.

As I looked around me, I realized the PSK was teeming with hopefuls from all walks of life, looking forward to get a passport for a variety of reasons. There were youngsters, presumably looking forward to academic avenues abroad. Most of them were accompanied by their parents, and the entire family had the look of expectant excitement of their faces. One of the young girls even touched her parents’ feet while going in.

Then there were the overseas job-seekers. Many of these hopefuls, evidently, were financially stretched (or perhaps even jobless) in India and were probably looking at greener pastures like the Middle East, Canada or even Africa to prop up their and their dependents’ lives. They came clutching crumpled polythene packets containing their documents, their faces frequently betraying their anxiousness. Some of them had disheveled looks, evidently having travelled from neighboring towns or villages to the PSK. You could guage the criticality that the PSK held in their scheme of things.

Senior citizens represented a third category of applicants. Elderly couples helped each other as they painstakingly climbed the stairs of the building. Some applicants waited patiently, running a final check of their documents through reading glasses perched on their noses. Some others kept flitting around nervously, occasionally stopping to look around, ask someone a question or just to catch their breath. A variety of situations that had brought them to the PSK could be extrapolated on observing them. Some were going to visit their children who were living or settled abroad. Maybe some had a daughter who was expecting maternity soon. A couple I accidentally overheard was being forced to move abroad to live with their younger son as the elder son in India was not inclined to share a roof with his parents. The PSK was, for these elderly ladies & gentlemen, a portal to either a family reunion or family dismemberment.

And then there were the frequent flyers. These were professionals working in multinational firms who were used to frequent overseas visits and their passports had either expired or run out of pages. They were probably even tired of attending visa interviews. The look on many of such people was plain irritation, non-productive but mandatory work eating into their exacting but handsomely paying working time.

As I kept absorbing what I was seeing, the dichotomy of India’s so-called development seemed to play out in front of me. While some sections of our society are clear benefactors of India’s tryst with development, misery and seemingly fathomless struggle still stare unflinchingly at other sections. Bright minds are moving abroad and weakening our demographic dividend. Social structures are weakening and emotional strains are on the rise. The future of our nation is indeed bright, but on that day at the PSK, it seemed at best to be a light at the end of a pretty long tunnel.