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Do the stars get it right?


“100% success – download kundali matching app now” says an sms that I received this morning. It’s the marriage season again and even though we are in the twenty first century, the kundali matching business continues to flourish in this season. It has definitely become more technical with computerized kundalis made in seconds and reports being available online. There are mobile apps for this as well.  As per a UNICEF study 2 years back, 90% of marriages in India are arranged. Most of the hindu arranged marriages begin with the kundali matching as the first step as this system is considered the perfect way to predict a successful marriage. We can accordingly imagine the magnitude of the kundali matching industry.
The kundali matching often leads to discovery a lot of doshas (ill effects of star placement) and pandits make a lot of money helping people going through ceremonies to get rid of these doshas.  For the uninitiated, please refer to the description of gun milan here to understand the concept.  Simply put, it is a point system based on the 8 different astrological parameters. Anyways, I don’t intend this to be a thesis on the concept of gun milan.  What I was more curious of was the belief in the system and the success ratio. I learnt that the benchmark for the perfect match was the couple Lord Ram and his wife Sita. They had all 36 points (gun) matching which is considered the ideal match.

A successful and happy marriage would imply one where there is trust, togetherness, prosperity, family support etc.  A perfect match should predict all this for the couple right?  Wait a minute! I do believe in the lordliness of Ram and Sita but can we just look at that the above parameters again? 

Let’s check on the prosperity bit first. Ram and Sita got married and soon after there was a fight in the household and they had to leave their fortunes. They spent their youth living an ascetic life in the forest.  What about trust? Sita was abducted by Ravan. Even after so many years of dedication to him, Ram did not trust her and asked her to prove her chastity after her return from the clutches of the demon. Togetherness? Sita hardly had returned to a queen’s life that she had to sacrifice it all and go back to live a lonely forsaken life. Their children were born in an ashram and grew up there. Ram could never live comfortably with his wife and children. Poor Lakshman who got married at the same time could not even spend any time with his wife as he abandoned her and followed his brother into the forest. Their father died soon after their marriage. So where is the benchmark of a happy and perfect marriage? In plain and simple logic, if stars were to predict the success of this relationship, this poor couple had their stars completely jinxed.

I am neither a specialist in mythology nor in relationships. But I think what it takes for any relationship to be successful is two people who respect each other including their commonalities and differences. Perhaps spending more time understanding these aspects about each other may be a better predictive index than placement of stars at the time of birth...

 

 
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