“We are sorry but we can’t proceed further, our son wanted a girl with a good height”
“Beta you are pretty but if you lose weight, you will look better”
“Your daughter is very open-minded, hamari family mai mix nahi hopaegi”
Pakistani families’ increasing obsession with arranged marriages and then the heinous hunt for that “perfect girl” has given rise to a number of social plagues. The barbaric practice of making a girl present herself before a bunch of absolute strangers with a cup of chai is plain toxic. For the most part of this rotten and awful culture, the process of scrutinizing for that perfect match is going from one family to another, sipping on tea and having the audacity of throwing unbound judgments at the girl’s face — which eventually leads her ending up in an existential crisis.
This hunting for the perfect girl has become a lousy and an awful practice, which only remind girls of being treated as mere objects like in Sunday Market where they have to exhibit themselves to stranger aunties waiting to shop the best option for their princes like sons.
Unfortunately, matchmaking — from being a sacred practice has given emergence to a blooming money making industry! To be rejected or to be accepted, people are judged on the basis of financial standings and physical attributes. This leads young candidates to question their existence and to find flaws in themselves for “not being a good enough match” —gradually smashing self-esteems!
Kanwal Ahmed of Soul Sisters Pakistan has also highlighted this awful rishta culture in one of her episodes of Conversations with Kanwal, named Chai Trolley Culture.
With all these contemptuous practices, it’s high time our society gets rid of this “rishta culture” of putting up girls for exhibition and of shattering their self-respects!
