Chennai: Arvind Thiagarajan is an NRI who hails from Mylapore in Chennai. He is one of the many Indians working in California. He got married to Shruthi in the second week of August, just like many of his friends who got married this year. But what makes his marriage unique and remarkable is that Arvind was in the US when his wedding happened in Chennai. Yes, in a first of its kind wedding, Arvind’s childhood friend Venkatraman tied the knot and performed the legal formalities of registering the marriage on Arvind’s behalf as Arvind could not be physically present at the wedding due to professional commitments. To get a firsthand account of this bizarre and shocking incident, we contacted Arvind. Arvind gave a detailed response justifying this unconventional decision. This is what he had to say: “Yes, what you’ve heard is true. But this incident will not look unacceptable or shocking once you hear my story. There’s a background to it. After completing my schooling at P.S. Senior Secondary School in Chennai, I went on to do my electrical engineering from IIT Madras. There I got the president of India gold medal. Then I did my masters at Stanford and then joined a US based firm in its R&D division. Though I have an enviable professional record, my love life has been lacklustre. All through my academic life, I was behind CGPA and then at work, I was behind FPGA. While many of my friends had a new girlfriend each Valentine’s Day, the sad truth is that I have never had a girlfriend. In fact, some of my friends have had more girlfriends than the number of girls who are my friends. One of my closest friends, Abhishek just got married to his 4th girlfriend Priyanka. Interestingly, she was earlier the 4th girlfriend of my childhood friend Anand. My point is, somehow my personal life was not as eventful and colourful as my professional life. So like other members of my hopelessly single creed I sought refuge in one of the many matrimonial sites. But even then life was not easy. Initially I had made it clear in my matrimonial profile that I would like to settle in the US. But many girls with great photos rejected me when I ‘expressed interest’ because they did not want to settle permanently in the US. Then I made a strategic change in my profile and stated that I would like to come back to India in a few years and settle down in India. But then, many girls again rejected me because they all wanted to settle permanently in the US. Finally I had to modify my profile and include a disclaimer that though I am currently working in the US, I am willing to relocate to India, now or in the near future, or stay permanently in the US or quit my job and be a homemaker as per the wishes of the bride. This strategy did work. I met Shruthi on a matrimonial site and it was love at first chat, I should say. She is a software engineer working in one of the IT companies in electronics city, Bangalore. We had mutually agreed that we would stick to our present jobs for a few months after which she would move to the US and find a job here or I would move to India and take up a job there. But there was a hurdle in the form of my father. My father being a highly respected professor in one of the best colleges in Chennai, refused to give his consent to the marriage, as Shruthi’s father was not even a graduate - though he was a very successful businessman. I had to convince my father telling him that I will make Shruthi’s father do a ‘distance learning course’ from some university and ensure that he gets a degree. Finally after a lot of patience and struggle, the wedding was fixed for August. But a bigger hurdle came in the form of my manager. I had been to India just a few months back. My paternal grandmother was seriously ill and my father insisted that I should be there by her side when she breathes her last (apparently she had insisted) So I went to India, exhausted all my available leaves but finally nothing happened to my grandmother, and at 88, she is now as fit as Dev Anand and much healthier than most of us. Lack of available leaves coupled with some critical work requirement prevented my manager from approving my request for leave. “Why can’t you get married during Christmas vacation” – he asked. “Why can’t you celebrate Christmas in August?” – I retorted and even the slightest chance of getting my leave approved was eliminated. But in any case, I didn’t want my wedding to get postponed at any cost. This is when I had to make a difficult decision. I had already given ‘power of attorney’ to one of my close friends Venkatraman, authorizing him to act as the power agent and execute financial transactions on my behalf in India. Why not ask Venkatraman to register the marriage on my behalf? I thought. After all, registration of marriage is a legal formality. But being the first such case in Indian history, it was not all that easy. It took a lot of effort to convince the ministry of overseas Indian affairs and then the authorities in India to consider this as a special case. Finally they gave the go-ahead for Venkatraman acting on my behalf during my marriage registration. But convincing the family priest who was supposed to perform the religious ceremonies and solemnize the wedding was a bigger task. He was vehemently against Venkatraman acting as a substitute for me. He adamantly insisted that in 62 years of his career as a priest, he has never encountered anything like this. But finally his payment was doubled and that did the trick. The wedding went on smoothly. I watched my wedding online. As they say, all’s well that ends well. And yes, the Airtel ad is so true: Of course, ‘Har ek friend zaroori hai’. Shruthi and I are happy and that is what matters in the end. We spend a lot of time together, on skype. We watch Karan Johar films on weekends – separately together. We are eagerly looking forward to December when I’ll be visiting India and we are really excited about it!”
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