Take a Bribe and Get a Bride

Marriages, they say are made in heaven. And for years people tried to live up to this saying by matching horoscopes of the bride and the groom to find that none of the heavenly bodies disapprove of the match. If Mars or Saturn is in the wrong house of the boy or girl even if they don’t actually own a house, off went the marriage.

While castes and horoscopes and the economic standards were the main criteria for pairing couples for years, nowadays a new yardstick has come into picture. Apart from horoscope tey also check the suitor's palms to see how well greased it is. Is the groom a government servant and does he take bribes?

No, the issue here is not the groom’s probity but rather the lack of it. According to a report in a recent issue of Mail Today bureaucrat grooms with clean hands stand a very slim r chance of finding a bride.in Uttar Pradesh. Parents who want to marry off their daughters there prefer grooms who get their palms well greased than the one with dry, empty palms.

Man does not live by salary alone, they argue. With onion prices skyrocketing, you can’t afford four square or round meals on your salary for yourself let alone feed your family. So greasier the palms, the better. The ad copy on this would read : Bribe milega to bride milegi.

So what would a babu who doesn’t have the heart to take bribes do. He would probably bribe the matchmakers to con the girl’s family into believing that he is a very eligible bribe taker.. It is bribe either this way or that way.

.And what happens when the cat is out of the bag after marriage? The angry wife would probably sue hubby dearest for divorce. So here are the proceedings of a divorce trial.

AW (Short for angry wife):: I don’t want to live with this cheat any more!

Judge: Why? did he do a Tiger Woods on you by having a girlfriend?

AW:Girlfriend? Hah! On his salary he can’t even maintain his wife! He conned my family into believing that he gets a fat under-the-table income. That turned out to be a -goddamn lie! He is too honest!

Judge: That’s confusing. If he is honest how can he be a liar.

AW:He is an honest liar.

Judge: That sounds like an oxymoron.

AW: No, he is a plain moron ignorant of the fine art of bribetaking.

Judge to HH (Hapless Husband not His Majesty): So what do you have to say in your defense?

HH: I can only say honesty is the best policy.

Judge (Sarcastically) Really? Then why did you lie to your prospective in-laws that your palms were well greased/

HH: Otherwise I ran the risk of remaining a bachelor all my life. A little lie for the cause of honesty is not a lie at all

Judge ( to AW): What kind of parents do you have? They did not even bother to check the prospective groom’s reputation before giving you away in marriage. Before getting my daughter married off, I hired a detective to check the assets disproportionate to known sources of income of the suitor and only when I found they were considerable did I consent to the marriage. Still my sympathies go with you.. I hereby grant you divorce and order police to book your husband for breach of trust. Meanwhile you and your lawyer meet me in my chamber, to finalise details of my payment.



Granted there are many hapless husbands like this who may want to take under-the-table payments but lack the finesse or guts for it., For their benefits grooming schools can be set up to train them not only to survive but to thrive in this big, bad corrupt world. Even an Institute of Bribe Management wouldn't be a bad idea.

Why only that? Like we have caste based matrimonial services, there could be bribe-based ones too. How about highbribegrooms.com or shaadigreasedpalms.com?

Newspaper matrimonial ads would run: “Wanted grooms for a fair, educated domestically trained girl. Only government servants e with assets disproportionate to known sources of income need apply”.

And the next stage could be that getting involved in scams would become a status symbol.. Scam tainted families would be more in demand at the marriage market and their members would be feted at social dos. And that could inspire the setting up of another marriage website: Ghotalashaadi .com. Clean reputations would be no reputations at all. .

That would serve such people right. Haven’t they heard the saying When in Rome do as Romans do? When in the big bad world try to be the biggest baddest bribe taker.

So wish you all a happy New Year folks and if you are a babu, may you have the greasiest palms of them all..





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Coffee lover even servants like to keep up with the Joneses. A peon BTW is a very important functionary in a govt office. He is the one who has to be appeased before he gives you access to his lord and master. He is his factotum. Have you heard this joke? A tiger from the forest entered a govt. office and hid itself under the large number of files. It went on eating bureaucrat after bureaucrat but no one noticed. But the tiger was caught when it made a crucial mistake. It ate a peon and he was missed immediately! Search for him led to the tiger's den among the labyrinth of folders.

 

Iswariy tks. The truth is girls' families care more about the wealth of the groom's side than how it was acquired. That is the tragedy.