Pouring over my pictures from yesteryears, I came across a couple of photographs which when viewed in juxtaposition show two dramatically different sides of my persona. One is of me as a young woman casual and relaxed in her jeans and the other is of a young lady all trussed up and sitting stiffly. Yes the latter picture is one of a young lady being prepared to meet her future mate. So today I am going to talk to you about how the arranged marriage set-up works based upon my own experience years ago in middle-class New Delhi suburbia.
Me as a relaxed university student completing her Masters...
Me not too happy to be dolled up in this lady-like yet at that time very constricting attire...Generally, once a young lady completed her undergrad degree, parents would start getting restless about finding a match for their pampered princess. But by the time, the more academically inclined girls completed the next degree, the parents got really determined to start looking around and essentially availing of every opportunity to drag their marriageable age children to social events where the chances of finding suitable matches were heightened.
I recall that once I completed my Masters, my mother often asked me to wear a sari at events where a number of guests were expected, specifically at weddings. While initially it was fun to feel all grown-up along with a sense of achievement that one had not fallen flat on one's face wearing the yet unfamiliar attire of six yards of material gracefully swathed around you , cleverly held together by a many pins to ensure that it did not unravel in public eye - the private terror of almost every novice Indian girl-woman - it became embarrassing after the initial excitement wore off. The matronly women at these weddings would not only check out your worth as prospective brides for their precious princes by blatantly sizing you up, they would sometimes literally while patting you on the cheek analyze your virtuous nature with the family elders, completely ignoring your presence. Just like that! While you pretended to be innocently oblivious, desperately wanting to flee from that setup. Instead you were trapped next to your mother feeling like a pin-cushion barely able to walk small steps in supposedly, the world's most elegant attire. The idea behind dragging the trussed up youngsters to such formal dressy events was to get them noticed as eligible matches ready for settling in holy matrimony with the ultimate hope of garnering marriage proposals.
A query that used to make me and other educated girls mad was when match seekers asked the assinine question as to whether the young woman was homely. Yes, being "homely" was a quality that was sought by almost every would-be in-law. In case you are wondering, if we Indians had some twisted concept of beauty, for some interesting reason, in India, the term "homely" does not mean plain-looking but rather someone with a proclivity for home-making skills and supposedly better family values than a professional girl. The emphasis is on the word "home'! I learned this difference the hard way when in my early years in the US, I called my perfectly attractive new American girlfriend, a stay-at-home mom as very nice and "homely". She almost whacked me till she realized that far from insulting her considerable charms, I was sincerely complimenting her on her baking skills. Needless to say, she ended up roaring with laughter. Of course,I never repeated that mistake. But in all seriousness, do check the lexicon, the word "homely" also means domestic. And even more seriously, being homely was a major marital prerequisite in the world I knew.
Indian culture is peculiar in some respects. While there is the admirable closeness of family and a lot of community feeling,there is also little concept of personal space or boundaries. Invasive personal questions that cross the line easily don't raise eyebrows. For instance, an older woman or man respectfully and generically referred to as "aunties" and "uncles" by the young ones could in such social situations ask without a second thought a young man directly what he was earning, his financial assets, his marital status and similar personal queries in order to check his suitability as a match. In this respect ,as a single woman in the dating world in US, after observing the lies or twisting of truth to a point where it is actually deceptive, I would not mind a few of these tough "aunties" and "uncles" to pry out the truth. But I digress.
This is my twenty year old son at an Indian wedding here in DC. Now the Indian-American kids born and brought up here have diametrically opposite views in terms of having their marriages arranged like back home where parents will start eyeing young folks as potential matches very early on. It is called planning ahead. I shudder to think, how my normally even-tempered son would react if someone approached him with that in mind and then asked those very personal questions....
In my case, I think privately, my mother was just making a token attempt to do the traditional thing about showcasing her daughter at these events because being a true intellectual herself and a feminist under the guise of a homemaker, she privately always pushed me to have a fulfilling career first. Yet, being a product of her times, I believe she also was torn about going with cultural flow or standing up for her emancipated beliefs. I do believe we struck a happy medium since I married after I had established myself fully in a rewarding career despite not very unsubtle social pressure to the contrary.
To be continued... Stay tuned-I have lots to share, but till then let us venture over to Carrie's Phriday Fiesta.
