Thinking of love, dating and marriage on Valentine's Day

Valentine's Day is probably the right occasion to contemplate love, dating and marriage.

- BASAB DASGUPTA

When I lived in India, marriages meant arranged marriages. There were occasional "love marriages" whereby a couple eloped and got married by registering at a courthouse or a couple in love persuaded their parents to organize a traditional wedding ceremony; but those were few and far between.

I was stunned to learn about the dating custom in the US after coming here. Apparently, any man can invite any woman to a dinner and/or a movie and if the woman agrees that could be the beginning of a relationship, which could evolve into an intimate one. There is no fear of what others would say or scolding from parents or social pressure to immediately get married. Virtually all marriages start with dating since there are no matrimonial ads and there is no one to arrange it.

When the famous Bengali novelist Sunil Ganguly came to the US, an American woman asked him what the young people in India did since they did not date. Mr. Ganguly wrote that he realised at that moment that there was no "youth" in India. People just jumped from being innocent children to mature adults.

I have heard about dating and various "dating apps" in India in recent years. It was a pleasant surprise to see that India has advanced enough in its cultural development to let young men and women "date" and find their spouses by themselves. I do not know what fraction of marriages result from such dating, but I wonder what dating even means in India.