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.
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