When Yash decided to marry me all those years ago, he was aware of the fact that he was going against a very strong tradition of the culture of his community. I am talking about arranged marriage. Arranged marriages were and still are very much the norm in eastern cultures. Things are slowly changing and nowadays, many of the marriages we attend are in fact ‘love marriages’ as they have come to be called. Well, as Yash sometimes says, in a lighthearted manner, ‘all marriages are love marriages in the beginning. Then they turn into hate marriages'. I just say ‘speak for yourself!’.
People in the modern world generally have a concept of marriage as having something to do with romantic love, but that is only a modern concept. Marriage is something which is practical and which needs a practical basis. As far as I can see, it is only in the last century or so that people have been having marriages which are based on the concept of romantic love. In Ireland, where I come from, the matchmaker was a very important person in society. This was the case, especially in rural areas, up to about half a century ago.
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