Friday, October 14, 2005

I DO or DO I ?

Being an unmarried desi in late 20s in US, one of the most common questions i get asked is, "Do you have a bride ready for you ?" which is another way of asking when is u r arranged marriage. There is a lot of myth here about what exactly constitutes arranged marriages. Things i have heard include child marriages and mail order brides. Though I am not going into technical details on what is an arranged marriage. Let me compare "love marriage" and "arranged marriage" in terms of science.
We have often heard that relationships work because of chemistry. Well physics not chemistry makes more sense in arranged marriages. I would say love marriage is more like nuclear fission where a chain reaction leads to energy when the critical mass is met. In arranged marriage 2 pretty stable atoms are forced to combine under tremendous pressure (read parents) and heat (read peer pressure) to form a more stable atom and release tremendous amount of energy just like nuclear fusion ! Now lets see which one is better. Materials need for nuclear fission are hard to come by (chemistry) and only few people can manage it and if the reaction is not controlled properly, it could lead to spectacular and disastrous results and by products are hazardous (read broken hearts, broken family ties, broken friendships). Fuel for nuclear fusion is available in abundance and by products are eco-friendly. So i would say, while the rest of the world is finding ways for fusion to work, India has a billion fusion reactions and counting !