Hindustan Times
A-range marriage
A few days ago, I was witness to a conversation that reinforced my anti-arranged marriage stance.
Like all respectable Bohri families, my mom inducted me at a very early age (when I couldn’t protest), in what we call a ‘menij’ group. This is a same-sex, around same age group of assorted Bohri boys or girls, each of who, in alphabetical order, has to host lunches from childhood through puberty until adulthood. Think of it as a lifelong Bohri kitty party, except we don’t flash diamonds and win heaps of cash.
So, I have this set of what I refer to as my “Bohri friends” who are completely cut off from my life until that one day in a month when we meet to eat. They don’t know everything about me, and vice-versa, but we do share a certain sense of camaraderie. They’re quite different from me, in a sense they’re more Bohri than I am. And I am the self-confessed black sheep of my community.
Most of these eight girls are a few years older to me, which is why three are married and two are engaged to Bohri chaps who come from a very good family and hold a very good job. These are the standard qualities that all potential Bohri bridegrooms must possess. Now the remaining two singletons and their parents are in the process of hunting down a suitor who meets the aforementioned criteria.
So over steaming sizzlers and iced tea, we were discussing such marital matters, when they said something that made me choke on my red chilly potato. One of the single girls said nonchalantly, “I have rejected about six guys by now.” One of the married ones said very matter-of-factly, “I went through 10 before I said yes.” An engaged girl added sagely, “I went through a dozen before I found mine.”
But…but…how mechanical, I sputtered aloud. Yes, they agreed at once. “It becomes a routine,” said one without a hint of sarcasm. “You get used to it.” But, why oh why would you volunteer to be part of this mechanized marriage system of meeting, analyzing, approving/rejecting?
What about the boy-meets-girl, they fall in love against parents’ wishes, elope to Switzerland or Goa, get hooked, come back and win their parents’ approval or die trying? Ok maybe not the death part.
But where’s the romance in this parents-meet-parents, then boy-meets-girl, they like each other to a respectable degree, parents approve of parents, they get married in front of hundreds of people they don’t know, live stably ever after and maybe hope to fall in love?
One of the singles said, “I used to think that too, but I’m 26 now and I need to get married. Since I’m not with anyone, I realised this is the only sensible way to go about it.” I turned to the recently engaged one who met ten prospective suitors. She met, approved and engaged the eleventh one in the span of two months. Did you meet and immediately fall in love with him, I asked, desperately hoping she would say yes. “Of course not,” she said. “You can’t just fall in love like that. But I like him.” EXACTLY! Why would you settle for liking someone when you can love someone else, I asked. It works for us, they said, surprised at my utter dismay at these revelations.
I get it, ok. It’s convenient, it’s appropriate, and it’s reliable. Most of them are even happy. But happy doesn’t quite cut it for me. I need an ecstatic, passionate, mushy, corny, crazy, intimate, I-love-you-till-the-end-of-time marriage. I can’t settle for liking. I need loving. And this orderly manner of arranging such matters kills all the romance, all the love in the process of finding someone you’re hoping to spend the rest of your life with.
I’m not judging people who have an arranged marriage. In fact, it really does work better than most love marriages do. Neither am I against marrying within my community. But I’d like to meet a Bohri guy by chance, rather than be made to meet him under controlled circumstances.
Am I being impractical? Sure. Am I being unrealistic? Maybe. Am I being naïve about this whole love stuff? Seriously. Am I going to turn 30 and still be single? Perhaps. Am I going to regret waiting endlessly for my beloved life partner? I think so. Am I going to change my beliefs for now? I think not.
(16 votes, average: 4.38 out of 5)
Loading ...Posted by Tasneem Nashrulla on Thursday, October 8, 2009 at 12:11 am
Filed under Quarter · Tagged anti-arranged marriage, Bohri, camaraderie, corny, crazy, ecstatic, intimate, married ones, menij, mushy, parents-meet-parents, passionate, suitor, then boy-meets-girl, unrealistic
I don’t think you are being impractical. But perhaps you are being just a teensy weensy little bit unrealistic about “ecstatic, passionate, mushy, corny, crazy, intimate, I-love-you-till-the-end-of-time marriage” and love
Love isnt always a rush or a life-long high. By that token fuzzy, mushy feelings don’t always dominate a marriage or a long term relationship. You may not always “feel” in love, but it is the committment to the relationship that will see you through.
I know arranged marraige’s dont work for me. I prefer meeting someone, getting to know them, fall in love and then enter marriage. Arranged marraiges work for a lot of people - I dont understand why - but good for them. Each to his own.
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That is awesome! arranged marriage work only for a certain kind of people (meek, conformist).
Lot of what we perceive as “love at first sight” is just “lust at first sight”, just expressing fact and totally unrelated to the post.
But seriously I come from a Gujarati culture and the really really pretty girls are usually the most shy and reserved, the only way to be with such girls is through arranged marriage. I don’t know if this is just a plague affecting Gujaratis or most Indian sub-culture as much (the plague being that the most obviously good-looking girls are usually shy and tend to be in a shell).
If you look at arranged marriage as just a way to meet like-minded people, it would not be so bad. Unless, you are fine with picking life-partners up at a sleazy bar or a club. I suppose nothing wrong with that too. But yea, I am 25 and still 2-3 years to go till I even think about getting married.
Have you given yourself a time range ?
gr8 post BTW , hehe.
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Hi,
I am a regular reader of your bolgs, i like your style of writing.
I do agree with you, it becomes quite mechanised, but then as you said that arranged marriages are more succesful & most of the times parents know us the best.
regards
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brilliant Tasneem.. I ws discussing the same with a few of my married female colleagues. A single gujju male at age of 27 understands every word of this..
Seriously.. single at 30 is very hip and suave!
One of your best ones..
Mayank
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You must always wait for the one, always. Nothing else should do Tasneem, except, as you rightly say, true love. I thought I wouldn’t get the one, so I was happy to stay single. But then, in my late 30s, out of the blue, it happened. So, settle for nothing less.
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My parents would still make you gag at the overt displays of affection(candle lit dinners, random presents and long drives are among the only few that can be mentioned without being censored ) ,25 years into their arranged marriage.
Despite being fed on a staple diet of boy-meets-girl, falls for her, elope get married and then go jump off cliffs :),ok maybe not the jumping off part, I have encountered a slight problem with starting off the chain.
Yeah, the boy meet girl part.
IITs(not showing off. Its just that they are a class apart when it comes to gender dynamics) certainly doesnt give you much leverage in that department, whatever it might do for your pay packages and offers of “rishtey”, the ratio of adams to his ribs being 25:1. Add Kanpur to the equation and you would get a measure of how desperate the situation is
Wonder if being a hopeless romantic helps much in the current scenario. Maybe Mumbai has more Wodehouse educated fair maidens!
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Jaya Reply:
October 9th, 2009 at 12:00 pm
Hi,
i agree , the toughest is the boy meet girl part.
This is the biggest dilemma in India.
Clubs and bars are pretty sleazy and everybody will not like to frequent that, so what is the other way to meet good guys???
Meeting on the train, on the street??
Seriously this is the biggest problem!!
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JD Reply:
October 12th, 2009 at 1:57 pm
I invariably end up surrounded by millions of M-somethings on the train and if lucky with a couple of F60s and F10s
I tried the streets. Came close to a lynching.
The internet is actually a pretty good gateway but there is always a lingering suspicion that you are talking to an intelligent computer program or worse, to a gaggle of your wingmates sitting in the next room and chatting with you on the alias sweet_18 at something .com.
So perhaps it IS my parents who shall decide my fate.
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Gibreel Reply:
October 13th, 2009 at 5:57 pm
New found respect to IIT’s. JD marked the problem pretty.
The IITians I know remain in a different zone.
Hey Tasneem
Thats an excellent narration…………..You are absolutely correct & very practical about the love marraige funda & dont worry you wont regret later on as it is rightly said “Sabar ka faal mitha hota hain” so enjoy this hunting period..
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Hi tasneem……….
i have going through ur blogs over a period of time but this is the first time i m ever leaving a foot print here………totally agree with ur point…….i dnt understand the concept of arrange marriage…….people say love will take a start between a couple after they are married…c’mon gimme a break…….its not Love,it is adjustment…….anyways……u carry on with enthusiasm gal……….hope to see more and more exciting stuff from……..takecare bbye
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Know of three nieces in my family who got married at ages 35, 38 & 40 respectively to guys they clicked with (and vice versa of course) and are still blissfully married.
I tell my quarterlifer to find someone she can get alongwith and not be in a hurry. But the family (read wife, inlaws, aunts etc.) is intent on marrying her off “before she passes the age and gets set in her ways”, and I consider that sentiment in todays times to be supercilious.
So I dont know about your dad, but you can picture me with sword in one hand, shield in another, viking helmet and roman sandles, valiantly warding off hostile forces!!
Follow your beliefs, girl, way to go!!
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excellent!!!!!!! tasneem , after reading ur blog it seems u r just echoing my thoughts!!! falling in luv with a correct guy is the most beautiful thing that can happen to some one. luv marriages are risky but if its eally genuine, i dont think any arrange marriage can match it. i haveseen people living together since 40-50 yrs of their life and i dont think they could b happier if they had their mariages arranged.
i know peole who are together since their childhood, when they were nothing to the dusk of their life when they have achieved great hts. its really wonderful to see each other grow in such a way.
must fall in luv, for once!!!!!!!!!!!!
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Excellent! It’s a refreshing relief to encounter your sunny attitude to the issue, rather than the desperate one sometimes depicted by some characters in Naomi’s blog. My take is: hold it off if you can, because living a humdrum life to conform to supposed ’social norms’ (read: family pressures) is not worth the pain of giving up your freedom.
And that’s what it sadly is in many (most?) Indian marriages, quite different from Western ones (not unalloyed blessing anyway) where you at least retain a modicum of individualism. I want to tell this to all my nephews/nieces/sundry relatives of marriagable age, but mostly dare not as it could be taken as a reflection on my own familial matters! (:-)
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I don’t refute what is said abt. arranged marriages, but even love marriages break up. It all depends as to how a marriage is handled by the partners concerned. Before marriage one may like a particular trait of a partner but after marriage it may not be tolerated- an e.g. So one must be very careful when taking that step whether in an arranged or love marriage. All the best. Cheers.
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Hats off yaar!!!
Am really impressed by the last paragraph…..tats the spirit…Am sure you will find d right guy…one of ma 4nd had earlier mentioned about this culture of yours(he z also 4m ‘bohri’ family)…..was really interesting ……..eagerly awaiting for your next blog……
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A very wise man once told me: “I am all for waiting for the love of my life to appear. It’s just that I’m afraid that she’s come and gone but I didn’t notice because I was too busy drinking beer and humming the Family Guy theme tune in my head”
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I think be it arranged or love marriage - at the time the 2 people tie the knot - they are very much in love with each other - else its an insult of marriage.
And Love ?? Well - everyone deserves love - and love is worth waiting for.
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>Am I going to change my beliefs for now? I think not.
You think you may change your beliefs later? I would not call momentary fleeting convictions “beliefs”! Would you?
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Love is a sentiment ,an emotion one can feel many times and gain pain or fullfillment but is confused with working of marriage.Marriages work on respect and understanding the basis of arranged (love) marriage. What you are talking of is the spirit free love and perhaps you want to be greedy and work it into a marriage of respect and undertanding but then love will be disciplined and dont forget role playing and expectations and it wont be spirit free.Don’t you agree?
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Wonderful Tasneem…
The way you depict the emotions is awesome. I am new to this blogging field but truly likedyour way to make make people think and realize.
In India, we only say that Marriages are made in heaven by God…but the when the clock picks you then we only became the non-followers of this proverb. We try to hype our thinking ..our perception and more importantly our planning to the one’s whom we want to be really happy..
But I am not clear why we want to show off how much care we do have…how much planning we have done…..and became unpleasent hamper to our loved ones.
The answere to this may be the human physciology or the so-called Indian culture or our caring nature.
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Hi Tasneem,
Firstly, loved this piece!
I got married about 6 months back and it was a textbook marriage to the tee. Parents meet parents, parents meet girl and then boy meets and girl. Btw, this was the 7th guy i had met in the entire process going on since a year.
Although the first meeting wasn’t enough to get married, but it was enough to decide if i want to get to know the guy better…we spoke to each other for 3 months before we got down to saying ‘yes’. And maybe we weren’t actually in love when we got married, but we were great friends! And i guess that is what we kind of do or look for when we meet someone at a party or in college or anywhere else. Some of us are quite ok with going on blind dates arranged by our friends, or hook up with a friend of a friend of a friend. But when a similar blind-date is fixed by our parents, why do we freak out? Just coz they might have different criteria for choosing a “good boy”?
Maybe our parents are hung-up on arranged marriages, coz that’s what has worked for them, or atleast most of them….or is it that even the most modern of parents think its ‘wrong’ to fall in love before you’re married…or maybe they cant help being parents and dont think their kid is grown up to take such a decision on his/her own?
Look at the brighter side…parents give their girls (in normal cases) a chance to meet multiple guys before they zero-down on one. Atleast we’re not forced to get married blindly to someone they pick, and our opinion does matter!
Coming back to me, I’m glad I listened to my parents and got married to the guy I did. I’m quite hopelessly in love and extremely happy today! So although it maybe ok to stick to your beliefs and wait for your Mr. Right, maybe it’s worth taking your chances at times with a not-so-Mr. Right guy.
All the best and Keep the Faith!
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If you believe in the institution of marriage then it does not matter whether it is an arranged marriage or otherwise. The tradition of child marriages, that has resulted in parents overshadowing the prospective candidates. I can’t fathom any other reason for “arrangement” for marriage. Love before or after marriage is your luck !
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a little progress. yes. but there is still a lot to happen.
i am waiting for the day when oxford dictionary will remove the word ‘marriage’ . because it has become extinct.
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gr8 post…
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As a fellow bohri girl I totally understand the situation!. I’ve never understood how you can “get used to” seeing boys for marriage purposes… I always thrown a fit after meeting boys this route cause it always takes a lot out of me emotionally even if its just hi -hello- what do you do kinda meet -
Why do I still do it ? What if the next one is interesting enough to meet again and again and again till you feel the sparks? I definitely dont believe in love at first sight or in “two weeks - you just know this is the guy”. Its such a complicated topic … so many ways to see this. I’m open to meeting boys through my parents but I definitely want that mad - crazy love story and I’m not giving up on that … ever !
Really good post ! We shouldnt let go of what we want cause everyone else is rushing into things!
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“Am I going to regret waiting endlessly for my beloved life partner? I think so.”
I think it’ll be worth waiting… every minute, every hour, every day… best of luck!!!
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first of all its well written blog nd has good points. the following points are just my view.
does arrange marriage mean that you are forcefully loving the other person - i think it doesnt work in that way. Probably its like a chance to meet the other person, probably that person is the one you were waiting for. As long as there is understanding, faith between the two, I think that relation would prosper I guess. It always nice to love and be loved. Probably you can see arranged marriage as the chance to meet the person and make it work towards you.
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nicely written !! i believe that people ultimately do settle for arranged marriages coz they realise that their quest to find that elusive love has gone in vain and they do not want everyone around them to go bonkers with them definitely not growing younger with each passing day . They just rely on their fate and enter the marriage market . Most of them end up compromising and adjusting coz fate can be generous for only a few . Love in today’s India is still somewhere caught up in the tussle with our parochial society .
its good to find ppl. who like you who are willing to walk that extra mile … way to go young lady !!
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Totally agree wid u!!
A-range marriage is just a marriage of needs.
I am 20, in IIT, asked one girl out here but she refused.
Actually in Indian culture, girls are totally brainwashed by their parents about the beauty of an a-range marriage. But in real, it is just a mirage.
Ah! this india, no this IIT, seems like I will remain a bachelor unless I find a girl like you :P.
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