The Arranged Marriage Algorithm

“So, Prithvi, we have heard that Indians mostly have arranged marriages. Is this true? How does that work?”

I was out at dinner with a bunch of business colleagues when I was asked this question. Conversation around the table paused. My colleagues were clearly interested in hearing about Indian arranged marriages. These colleagues included smart people from Brazil, Denmark, Poland, Bulgaria, Canada and Britain. I needed to come up with something truthful, credible, and that showed India in good light.

I had a hunch that this perception of Indian arranged marriages was shaped by Western media coverage of normal, happy girls from, say, suburban Birmingham, who are married off, against their will, to tribal chieftains in Kandahar province. These stories are true, and are terrible tragedies. However, my knowledge of this world in negligible, and comes from the same media reports as my Brazilian or Bulgarian colleagues.

My marriage, and marriages in my immediate family, have all been “love marriages”. However, several very good friends of ours have had arranged marriages. These couples generally are educated, professional, affluent, cosmopolitan, urban Indians. As far as I can tell, the texture of these arranged marriages is not all that different from love marriages. If anything, some of the most lovey couples I know - who cuddle together in company, and address each other as “honey” and “sweety” - came together through arranged marriages. I actively dislike the terms arranged and love marriages, partly because of the implication that arranged marriages are loveless.

I told my colleagues that while media reports about girls abducted to be married off against their will are true, they entirely outside my experience. Within the relatively privileged circles I inhabit, arranged marriages are quite common. However, here, they work quite differently from the media stereotype. Here, arranged marriages serve exactly the same purpose as the compatibility matching algorithms in dating websites like eHarmony.com or Match.com.

A couple brought together by an arranged marriage algorithm have a number of things in common. Their parents get along, or at least, are not contemptuous of each other. They are from similar social and economic backgrounds. They have similar levels of education, and are likely to have similar attitudes to a bunch of stuff. All these are good statistically significant predictors of marital success. What the arranged marriage algorithm, or the eHarmony.com algorithm, does not predict is chemistry - the magic electricity that crackles between, say, Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton. Which is OK, because the arranged marriage algorithm works just fine, as long as individuals can keep exploring options until they find someone with the right (or reasonably good) chemistry.

This gambit worked: Everyone at this table was a quant. It led to some companionable geek-talk about how one could improve the quality of these algorithms (should one hold out a control sample, of couples who are intentionally mis-matched, to train the matching algorithm?) until my Bulgarian colleague chipped in. She was one of two women at the table. To her, algorithms to predict compatibility are worse than useless, regardless of whether they’re authored by clans or by eHarmony.com. They totally miss the point. Chemistry is not just one more factor in a marriage. It is the central thing, the only thing that matters.

This served a nice segue to a set of stories about how women are more romantic than men, and my defense of the Indian Arranged Marriage was successfully concluded.

Homogocene at the Istanbul Sheraton

Homogocene: the term ecologists and evolutionary biologists use to describe the current era, when ecosystems are becoming more homogenized, when tough generalist species take over large portions of the globe, pushing out the specialized species that developed in isolation.

I was in Istanbul recently. Typical business trip: airport, hotel, conference, hotel, airport. I had no chance to go exploring, to soak up the atmosphere of the eternal city, a title Istanbul deserves every bit as much as Delhi or Rome.

I did, however, have a ray of hope. We had a formal dinner on the night of the conference, with live entertainment. This live performance might give us some local flavour. Maybe a local poet would recite Jalaluddin Rumi’s poetry, and interpret Rumi’s immortal words for this English-speaking audience. Maybe we’d have some mesmeric, mystical Sufi music, with a black and white film of dervishes whirling playing in the background. Even a contemporary Turkish pop act would be cool.

Instead, we got a couple of guys wearing jeans and t-shirts, carrying guitars, who perched on stools in front of mikes and did cover versions of The Eagles, Dire Straits, and Eric Clapton. They played Tequilla Sunrise, Walk of Life and Hotel California. They finished with an impassioned rendition of Wonderful Tonight, which was especially well-received at my table, which comprised entirely of grown men with families and advanced degrees in quantitative disciplines. We solemnly clinked our glasses together, and congratulated each other on how wonderful we looked tonight.

From Wankhede to Trent Bridge. How? Why? What Next?

How could India lose like that? India are the world number 1, the world champions. And yet, we lost to England. Twice, By big margins. How could the team which won the World Cup just three months ago, playing with so much spunk and conviction, suddenly turn so spineless?

This question feels especially important because I was in the stands at Trent Bridge for three days. I took in the spectacle, the packed stands, the ever-changing conditions, the many pints of lager. I enjoyed the camaraderie, the corporate hospitality and the banter with knowledgeable English fans. I cheered a Rahul Dravid century. Yet, despite all that, I came away from the game feeling miserable, physically beaten up. How could India lose so abjectly? After being so far ahead of England?

The most common explanation flying around is that India play too much cricket, are therefore under-prepared for English conditions, and are carrying too many injuries. This is true. A less greedy cricket board would have scrapped that West Indies tour to give the team a chance to get acclimatized. I'm just not able to see that as an explanation. India have always played too much cricket. India have always been underprepared.

Looking back, India have never been a dominant world #1, obviously better than the rest of the pack. India, Australia, England and South Africa have been pretty evenly matched, player for player, ever since Glenn McGrath and Shane Warne retired. What made this Indian team special was that, despite their brutal workload, despite their limited bowling, they would reach deep within and conjure up exceptional performances when it mattered. This team's great moments have all been about fighting back from adversity... Eden Gardens 01, Headingly 02, Lord's 02, Multan 03, Adelaide 03, Bombay 04, Johannesburg 06, Jamaica 06, Trent Bridge 07, Kanpur 08, Madras 08, Perth 08, Napier 09, Durban 10...our success tasted that much sweeter because it never came easily. India's ascent over the past decade was the result of not just skill, but also exceptional spirit.

Yet, the World Cup, the ultimate prize, remained elusive. In 2003, India played like champions, until the heartbreak in the finals. In 2007, another heartbreak. In 2011, Indian team believed they were destined to win. Belief - vivid internal images which are (literally) the stuff of dreams - is a much stronger force than the will. That belief, that sense of destiny, lifted India during the 2011 World Cup whenever they needed to raise their game.

Now, India have won the World Cup. The dream has come true. This team's destiny has been fulfilled, their most soaring ambition has been realized. The movie is over, the credits have rolled. Now, they are emotionally flat-lining. They no longer have the emotional energy to lift their game, the way they have done over the past decade.

Ironically, the other team I've watched emotionally flat-lining after reaching a cherished goal is England. An entire generation of English players grew up dreaming about winning the Ashes. Nasser Hussain, Duncan Fletcher and Michael Vaughan gradually turned England into a tough team with a winning habit. In 2005, England played out of their skins to beat an exceptional Australian team and win the greatest Ashes ever.

Having scaled this summit, England wandered into years of mindless, meandering, mediocrity... meltdown in Pakistan, a 5-0 whitewash in Australia, Freddy Flintoff's adventures with a pedalo, losing in New Zealand, Pietersen's spat with Peter Moores. England finally recovered their sense of purpose only after Freddy Flintoff retired, after Andrew Strauss and Andy Flower were firmly established as the captain and coach, after they had a clear and motivating goal to focus their minds - beating Australia in Australia.

I don't think the return of Sehwag and Zaheer is going to fix the Indian team. The team, collectively, needs a renewed sense of purpose. The tough cricket in England this summer might help shape this purpose. In the meanwhile, we India fans may need to spend a season or two remembering everything our team has achieved over the past decade while this new purpose takes hold.