One of our teammates, Arun, got married last month, and it was surprising how he ended up meeting his partner. He’s from Chennai, India, quiet guy, a solid midfielder, never late or flashy. We joked around about how he was more disciplined than our gaffer. He never talked much about his personal life, so it caught all of us by surprise when he announced that he was taking time off to get married, going down to India next month.
Naturally, the group chat exploded. “Wedding?! You kept that quiet, mate.” He just smiled and said, “It was arranged.”
I’ll be honest: I did not have much idea about how arranged marriages worked these days. I thought it was family pressure, awkward meetings, strangers marrying strangers kind of thing. But Arun explained to me how much it has changed now. He met his wife through an Indian matrimonial website. It’s a site specifically for people from the Mudaliyar community, one of the many castes in Tamil Nadu. It’s common back home to search for partners based on caste, region, or even horoscope is what he said.
He was not defensive about it; he just stated the matter of facts. His parents had created a profile for him, and after a lot of back-and-forth texting for months, he found a girl who shared the same values as him. They had video calls and spoke for hours. He flew home in the summer, met her in person, and within a few weeks, the wedding was on.
The pictures were something else entirely; colours were everywhere, and laughter, excitement and joy were visible. Arun was in a gold sherwani, and his bride was smiling behind layers of jasmine flowers; the whole ceremony looked like a festival. No tuxedos or best men, just rituals, blessings, drums, and a sea of relatives I couldn’t keep count of.
When he came back, we all wanted to know more and more about his big Indian wedding and bantered a lot. When one of us asked, “So how’s married life, mate?” He just smiled, same as always, and said, “Peaceful.” Which got me thinking: we love to chase romance in clubs, apps or chance encounters. But he found it in tradition and community. I’m not saying one way is better than the other, but it’s mad how different the world can be inside one dressing room.
Just like how football brings us together from everywhere. From inner-city London to rural Tamil Nadu. From Tinder to Mudaliyarkannalam. And somehow, we all find our way.