Should I get married?

Its raining marriages, of late I am hearing about marriages of people whom I know better, I mean my friends at school, college and even colleagues. So getting married has become the in thing or did it? Whatsoever, too many marriages around me have confused me and before going any further, let me again bore you with my trade mark flash back!!!

Back in my intermediate (also known as PUC or +1/+2 in other parts of world) I used to wonder what a crazy affair marriage was (which I still do) and why people opt to get married. I was particularly amazed by a distant relative of mine, who happened to come back from US for a short break and created ripples by declaring an ultimatum with his parents that he shall be married immediately under any circumstances and the poor parents did manage to find a girl and get him married in the short span of one month.

What I could not comprehend from his urge to marry was the necessity. Why on earth a person who is in US who can live a luxurious life, is opting to ruining it by getting married? It took 9 years for me to realise the answer. That's because on the 10th day of fifth month of this year, yours truly would turn 25 and this I guess is having sobering effect on me. Almost all the children now call me "uncle" and I have now become less arrogant and more compassionate and as my friend wrote in his blog, Twenty of me and you have the Mughal Empire. Forty of me and you have the Christian Dark Ages - full with plagues and little ice ages and everything. Sixty of me, you have Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) fighting his wars. Eighty of me, and you have Jesus Christ - allegedly perishing for the sins of one and all. Hundred of me and you have the glorious kingdoms of ancient India and China. You have Buddha sitting under a tree in what is now Laloo-land. You have Asterix and Obelix plundering the Romans. You have Aristotle and Plato committing blunders. You have Pythagoras talking about hypotenuses. Two Hundred of me and you have the Egyptians and Chinese starting out and the Indians (some contend) on song.

Whatsoever, 25 years of life tamed me from an arrogant and aggressive young lad to thoughtful(?) and rational uncle! And how did this happen? And why am I thinking of marriage now? Why did the sense of ridicule and mockery towards that distant relative of mine has now changed to empathy and compassion? The answers to this question lies in my journey from a PUC student to an employee in an IT firm, from a protected child living with parents to a self sufficient adult living alone.

When I was 15, girls did not make sense to me(strange but true). Almost every female who tried to talk to me has been mocked upon. And I did enjoy the repulsive status I had then, but as time passed by I realised that all the cool guys are hanging out with girls and the guys in my group are envying them, only then did the flirt in me was born.

Girls enjoyed exclusivity, and when I tried to charm a particular girl in the group while mocking others, it is a great sense of accomplishment for her and more often than not I enjoyed success. But the basic bitter gaurd in me never died and my sense of humour and arrogance never went down well with the girls and after a few affairs, I evolved into regression and ended where I started. And the result, though my sexual orientation is straight, I am well off with guys and mostly my companions in the quintessential tasks of a SE(software engineer) like raiding the malls or pubs or multiplexes have been my room mates(males) or my colleagues (males again).

Now there is a sub prime crisis of sorts in my life, almost all the friends of mine whom I used to hang out with are married/engaged now and hence are not available during weekends with pretty quirky reasons (males are pretty bad at lying) to avoid our impeccable weekend schedule of raiding malls and pubs. More and more weekends are passed with in the four walls of my boring room. My age does not allow me to go behind a girl or at least it did not so happen that I found such girl that I can circumvent my own rules. So, in one of those inactivity filled weekends, I was generous enough to think about the distant relative of mine, and became even more generous and changed my feelings towards him, from scorn and ridicule to empathy and compassion.

However, things are not yet ripe for me to give an ultimatum to my parents to get me married. Though marriage comes with a few advantages like assured company to hear your brain rotting jokes and a fresh perspective to the weekends, I am not too sure with the risks involved. So, considering the fact that I had given upon the concept called girl friend, should I be getting married?