Most of us go through this at least once in our lives. We think we cannot hold our own in foreign climes and cannot project our point of view well enough, but somehow we get through the ordeal and come out of it with the domestic flag flying high. But all are not built for such negotiations and neither the experience of generations past nor instruction from the well-intentioned can help us get through with pride and position intact.
The vast majority of Indians know exactly how to handle such high power meetings but there are always exceptions, and sadly, we fall into that category. Through the years we may have observed parleys from a distance or received a blow-by-blow account from those who had participated, but we turned a blind eye and a deaf ear. It was almost as if we were saying for everyone to hear, "We want no part in this — and we never will."
We should have known better than to use the word ‘never'. Fate, destiny, the alignment of stars, call it what you will, everything conspires to compel us to go through what we had so firmly believed we would have no part of — and now, here we are, at the negotiating table, clueless, totally dependent on the sheer good nature of the opposite side to overlook every faux pas we make.
Words we had never heard in our time — ‘roka', ‘declaration of intent', ‘engagement', ‘exchange of rings', ‘sangeet', ‘phera' — pop up from the multi-linguistic lexicon and we have to translate them into everyday English to understand what is going on. Whatever happened to good old-fashioned ‘meet, fall in love, and marry', we wonder? It was so easy then — for us, our parents, even our grandparents. What has changed in recent years to make it all so complicated?
Naturally, we seek the advice of friends who have been through this before. They, with the blase acceptance of those who had seen it all and done it all, nod and indicate with word and gesture that we should get on with all these various steps on the road to happy matrimony. And so we do: bashing on regardless, somewhat in the manner of commandos entering a minefield, hoping that we leave no fallout and acrimony for our offspring to contend with for the rest of their wedded lives.
All barrels firing
Undoubtedly, we will, however, as we flip-flop on dates and invitation cards, decorations and menus, and in our ignorance overlook that all-important ingredient for successful negotiations — exchange of gifts as a show of goodwill, good intentions, acceptance..., anything else we've left out?
Then, before we know it, the list of those who ‘must be invited' grows although the bridal couple barely knows them, the reins are grabbed by sisters and brothers and aunts and uncles and ceremonies and celebrations are planned until we give up trying to emphasise ‘simple-simpler-simplest' and sit back and say, ‘Let it happen any way you like, we have no preferences.'
Obviously, sticking to our guns isn't our strong point. Although, let's face it: we had plenty of no-holds-barred encounters with all barrels firing in our own ‘un-negotiated for' marriage. There, our guns were trained on each other — could it have been because we weathered no storms and sat through no negotiations prior to the big step?
Maybe all this discussion, these insights into each other's families and their idiosyncrasies are an essential part of the whole deal. You know where you stand from day one and you get on with it — and you shift the crosshairs from one another and find fodder for your fights in that large circle of negotiators!
Cheryl Rao is a journalist based in India.
