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Ineligible Bachelors: Indian Men Living in U.S. Strike Out

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Re: Ineligible Bachelors: Indian Men Living in U.S. Strike Out

#41
post #22

I live in the South Indian state of Kerala. Here 'arranged marriage' means parents and relatives get a chance to background-check the future partner before you do. So for a girl, this means your parents check on the boy's character , his earning potential , the way his parents made money and other related aspects. If parents are happy, a meeting is arranged.If the girl and boy likes to go forward with a relationship,…

poda pulle nayinte mone. The sick orthodox views of the people of Kerala is debilitating to the modern man. One is expected to stay celibate till the age pf marriage which tends to be around age 25. Suppression of hormonal urges has a crippling effect on the mind. College life in Kerala is the worst all over India. Apart from the impossibility to have sex thanks to the conservative views of the mallu girls, there's a…

"poda pulle nayinte mone"

for all those who don't speak Malayalam (the language of Kerala) translation => "get lost you son of a bitch"

"patti chetteh kazhidhe thendi"

translation => Dog, scum, donkey, beggar!

fwiw, I think such language is inappropriate on a public forum , particularly HN, but to flag or delete something one should know what is being said.

I find the device of slipping into a different language (here Malayalam)from the commonly understood one (English) to send a "private message" (in this case, abuse unfortunately) interesting, though (strictly imo) that is a violation of the commonly understood (unspoken) rules of discourse.

Re: Ineligible Bachelors: Indian Men Living in U.S. Strike Out

#42
post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, obviously I didn't mean that Apartheid was a concept or system. And you know that.

My point is that your argument validly defends Apartheid. It is a standard (if somewhat impolite) rhetorical technique to parrot your opponent's arguments in a way that makes them seem obviously flawed.

I should probably be downvoted into oblivion for this but...

Is this actually a valid use of "Reductio Ad Hitlerum"? Surely such a thing is rare and beautiful.

Re: Ineligible Bachelors: Indian Men Living in U.S. Strike Out

#43

A more sensible interpretation is that marriage and courtship rituals ("courtship" extended to include "casual" relationships) have a heavy culture specific component to them. I had a Canadian manager (tall handsome intelligent guy) who tried applying his knowledge of how "dating" worked when he was posted to Bangalore for a year and "struck out" all the time until one day, at a party, he got drunk and asked me "Dude…

That may be true, but the article was about Indian families becoming reluctant to marry their daughters of to Indian expats living in the USA. I don't think there was any intention by the author ("Shefali Anand") to "hyuk hyuk" at Indians.

Re: Ineligible Bachelors: Indian Men Living in U.S. Strike Out

#44

Or, maybe, here's a radical thought--the next time one of these men meets someone he likes, he could ask her out. The whole arranged marriage nonsense is a blight on the Indian community. Needless to say, it often leads to loveless marriages; further, the fact that you're making life decisions based on scant information results in bizarre situations like the consultant in the article who can't find a wife because the…

If it wasn't 4:30 in the morning, I'd dig up some info about the relative success of arranged marriage vs love marriage. Plenty of Western marriages end up loveless, and divorce is rampant here. It's not clear to me which system would seem more efficient to a hypothetical man from Mars (but as a not-so-hypothetical white American, people I know would think I'm insane for even entertaining the idea that there could be redeeming qualities of arranged marriage).

Re: Ineligible Bachelors: Indian Men Living in U.S. Strike Out

#45

A more sensible interpretation is that marriage and courtship rituals ("courtship" extended to include "casual" relationships) have a heavy culture specific component to them. I had a Canadian manager (tall handsome intelligent guy) who tried applying his knowledge of how "dating" worked when he was posted to Bangalore for a year and "struck out" all the time until one day, at a party, he got drunk and asked me "Dude…

That may be true, but the article was about Indian families becoming reluctant to marry their daughters of to Indian expats living in the USA. I don't think there was any intention by the author ("Shefali Anand") to "hyuk hyuk" at Indians.

heh! You are completely right. I was reacting to an article i read on the web a few days ago (damned if I can find it now) about how Indian men do poorly in the dating game in the United States. I saw the title of the submission and connected the two. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that I was coding all night and am a little zonked. (It is the middle of the afternoon here and I've gone almost 38 hours without sleep.)

One of my (Indian) friends just got engaged to an American (Caucasian) woman and we had discussed some of this over the phone a few days ago. Must have been on my mind I guess.

In any case you are right. My comment doesn't have much to do with the article.

Re: Ineligible Bachelors: Indian Men Living in U.S. Strike Out

#46
post #22

I live in the South Indian state of Kerala. Here 'arranged marriage' means parents and relatives get a chance to background-check the future partner before you do. So for a girl, this means your parents check on the boy's character , his earning potential , the way his parents made money and other related aspects. If parents are happy, a meeting is arranged.If the girl and boy likes to go forward with a relationship,…

poda pulle nayinte mone. The sick orthodox views of the people of Kerala is debilitating to the modern man. One is expected to stay celibate till the age pf marriage which tends to be around age 25. Suppression of hormonal urges has a crippling effect on the mind. College life in Kerala is the worst all over India. Apart from the impossibility to have sex thanks to the conservative views of the mallu girls, there's a…

I was just trying to explain how 'arranged marriages' work in my family and that the success rate of the system is pretty good in my experience.

Sex at college is a different aspect. Its true that the social setup doesn't encourage sex while you are at college. But i think the reason is not just an 'orthodox view' of Keralaites. Males mostly stay with parents until they finish college(&& get a job) and are fully dependent on parents financially.'Work while you study' is almost non-existant here. Perhaps girls just dont want to take the risk of hanging out with someone who doesn't have any proven earning potential(yet). At the end of the day, getting a girl depends on how you approach the girl !

Sorry to hear that you had bad experiences with 'ragging' at college. I never had any such issues. Infact, my seniors were very helpful throughout my college life.

I see that you created an account just to make that comment with personal insults against me. Try sticking on to the guidelines and keep HN a nice place: http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: Ineligible Bachelors: Indian Men Living in U.S. Strike Out

#47
post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The concept and system of _Apartheid_ is not something that needs fixing. It has evolved and will continue to evolve to adapt to changing conditions and attitudes.

Well, obviously I didn't mean that Apartheid was a concept or system. And you know that.

[deleted]

Re: Ineligible Bachelors: Indian Men Living in U.S. Strike Out

#48

Or, maybe, here's a radical thought--the next time one of these men meets someone he likes, he could ask her out. The whole arranged marriage nonsense is a blight on the Indian community. Needless to say, it often leads to loveless marriages; further, the fact that you're making life decisions based on scant information results in bizarre situations like the consultant in the article who can't find a wife because the…

If it wasn't 4:30 in the morning, I'd dig up some info about the relative success of arranged marriage vs love marriage. Plenty of Western marriages end up loveless, and divorce is rampant here. It's not clear to me which system would seem more efficient to a hypothetical man from Mars (but as a not-so-hypothetical white American, people I know would think I'm insane for even entertaining the idea that there could be…

Marriages in America frequently break up over money, i.e., one partner wants to spend more than the other. I wonder if the Indian system helps avoid this problem. (Of course, India is a massive and diverse country, and there is no singular "Indian system", but whatever...)

> people I know would think I'm insane for even entertaining the idea that there could be redeeming qualities of arranged marriage

It's a sad state of affairs when people condemn you just for being willing to look at the evidence.

Re: Ineligible Bachelors: Indian Men Living in U.S. Strike Out

#49
post #38

If I have learned one thing about arranged marriages from my close-knit extended family of 100+, it is that no two arranged marriages are same. The ONE element that almost all arranged marriages I've seen do have in common is SOME strong referral or existing friendship between the two families. In that sense, they work a lot like VC referrals:) The type of arranged marriage most common to my larger family is a love m…

"All my uncles(including my Dad)"

I think the statement is mathematically incorrect.

Re: Ineligible Bachelors: Indian Men Living in U.S. Strike Out

#50

A more sensible interpretation is that marriage and courtship rituals ("courtship" extended to include "casual" relationships) have a heavy culture specific component to them. I had a Canadian manager (tall handsome intelligent guy) who tried applying his knowledge of how "dating" worked when he was posted to Bangalore for a year and "struck out" all the time until one day, at a party, he got drunk and asked me "Dude…

Please share the rules you are talking about. I think a lot of us Westerners would be interested to read about this foreign world.

I would too be very happy to hear a little about the indian dating game, particularly how it works in the bigger metropolises.

I've spent a bit of time in Kochi, Kerela, in the southwest, and while I spent most of my time working on our business, I couldn't help but notice how incredibly beautiful yet amazingly shy many girls were. We did hear a lot of rumors of decadent partying and dating going on, and had indian friends who seemed to hang out with different girls, but we failed miserably at locating these sweet spots.

Can't help but imagining that even indian youth needs to let of some steam sometimes and just party their asses off.

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