Arranged marriage is not just a crapshoot, as many believe it to be. It is a planned and business-like approach to marriage. A man’s parents want certain qualities in their daughter-in-law, and a woman’s parents want certain qualities in their son-in-law. What the children want usually does not figure in the equation. The parents try to find the perfect match and hope for the best.

Women like Sowmya get caught in no-man’s-land. They have no qualities that anyone is looking for, which means that they have to settle for someone who is in the exact same position, someone who has been rejected by numerous suitors for being less qualified. It’s like finding a job. The job you get is equivalent to your qualifications and what you want does not really matter.

Despite having a bachelor’s in Telugu literature, Sowmya had never held a job in her life. Working, my illustrious and narrow-minded Thatha said, was not for women of our class. And what job could she get anyway? With her education, at best, she could be a secretary or a clerk. Unacceptable to Thatha. Those were careers and jobs for people with a lower socioeconomic status than his.

In the food chain of the Indian academic world, doctors and engineers took the top spots. Ma had been pleased when I got through the entrance exam to get into an engineering school. After all, that ensured a good marriage match for me. It also meant that I could get a job that would not embarrass my parents and would be appropriate for a woman of my social station.

However, Sowmya could not get a job equivalent to her social status because she was not academically qualified, just as she couldn’t get the life partner she fantasized about because she was not physically qualified.

The sad part of it was that Sowmya accepted it as her fate and did nothing to change any part of it and write her own destiny.