arranged marriage article

8/2/2019 Arranged Marriage Article

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http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-me-wedding26-2008jun26,0,74 56404,full.story

"Do you take this stranger?"

By Swati Pandey, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

June 26, 2008 GORAKHPUR, INDIA -- It was near midnightat the Railway Club, a posh spot at the train station inGorakhpur, close to the Nepal border. Hundreds of guestshad gathered four hours earlier to eat made-to-order dosasand Indian-Chinese fusion finger-foods, to watch green, red

and gold fireworks explode over palm trees and to danceto bass-heavy Bollywood tracks.

My cousin's wedding would soon begin.

A family astrologer had recommended the date andadvised that the wedding start after 10 p.m. and concludebefore 4 a.m. Those last hours would end six days ofceremonies, the first reunion of my maternal family in two

decades and my first full Hindu wedding. They would alsoend my uncle's efforts to arrange a marriage, and a future,for my cousin.

All of it -- the years spent selecting a suitor, the finalminutes of anticipation, the newness of the couple, a manand woman not shaped by former loves and heartbreaks --was romantic in a way I hadn't expected. Growing up in

America for all my 25 years, I'd long ago given up on thetradition, but by midnight, I had started to wonder.

What I never realized, as a googly-eyed adolescent whohad imagined eloping with a George Clooney type, wasthat "love marriage," as many Indians call it, is the


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aberration.

Arranged marriages are common in countries and culturesthat came belatedly to Romanticism and rock 'n' roll and

whatever else gave rise to what we call youth. It's difficultto quantify them because the term is such a broad one --encompassing a childhood betrothal and a parent's meresuggestion of a vetted match.

My cousin's arrangement was closer to the latter. Herfather found Vishal through one of my paternal cousins.Shockingly for this conservative swath of north India,

sometimes called the "cow belt," he set a date for them tomeet without a chaperon.

"He looked better in person than in photographs," GarimaUpadhya, 26, said, recalling their first meeting. "He wasalways laughing and joking."

They next met at their engagement party in Gonda,Garima's hometown. Two months after that they would be

married; the all-nighter wedding would be the most timethey'd spent together.

That's still more time than my mother had with my fatherbefore marrying him in 1969, in the same house whereGarima was raised.

They met face to face when my father looped a garland

around my mother's neck at their wedding. They moved tothe U.S. within months.

My father attended school while my mom improved herspoken English by watching daytime television, theteacher to so many immigrant women. Whereas Garima


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called her sister's cellphone only hours after driving offwith her husband, my mother had to save up for a short,staticky call home.

She tried to hold on to her old life and customs, but whenshe patted the part of her hair with sindoor, a red powdermany Indian women wear to denote their marital status,Americans worried that she was bleeding.

She wears it only for special occasions now, and so, forGarima's wedding, she applied sindoor and piled on theother many accessories of married Indian women: thick

gold bangles, anklets, toe rings, a wedding ring and amangal sutra -- a gold-and-black beaded necklace.

Beside her, I felt nakedly unmarried and young.

For five nights, the guests arrived at dusk at the house inGonda.

The first ceremony was the sangeet, a sort of bachelorette

party. A crowd of 200 women drummed tablas,danced andsang funny ad-libbed songs about the groom.

I had seen one sangeet in the U.S., performed on a stageby a handful of women. It was more a folk art display thana boisterous, inclusive party. Still, it was something.

The next day brought a ceremony that's rare in India

because it requires a body of water within walkingdistance. A nain -- a jack-of-all-female-trades hired topreside -- began the ceremony by painting in red ink athick line around each woman's feet, in the manner ofHindu goddesses and old-time Bollywood actresses. Theink would last longer than the days of celebration. She


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made sure to break mine at the heel, signifying that I wasunmarried.

Then the nain led us, a line of singing, sari-clad women

darting between motorcycles and rickshaws, to the nearestpond.

There, my mother dug a mound of dirt that we would takeback to Garima. In an earlier time, Garima would havesculpted it into a hearth for her new home.

My grandfather explained the ritual. "The bride is being

uprooted from her family," he said in his nimble English."And so the women uproot the soil."

While we sang and prayed, Garima packed and gabbedconstantly with her future husband on her cellphone.

Despite her unabashedly joyful voice, I still found myselfwondering why she decided to have an arranged marriage.All our cousins had had "love marriages" and had still won

parental approval, however reluctant. My parents havenever expected me to have an arranged marriage, even ifthey praise the practice and occasionally name-dropeligible bachelors.

Garima was never the shrinking Indian ideal of a girl. Shewas brash and essentially American like me, and alwayshad been. When I visited India every two or three

summers, we were inseparable.

At about age 5, in matching miniature bridal saris, we viedto see who would receive more compliments. A few yearslater, we were disrespectful to our elders; we talked backand threw tantrums.


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As teens, we bragged about boys, despite our meagerexperience with them. She was mostly obedient to herfather, who forbade her from talking to boys out ofearshot. I was shy, studious and either was ignored or

mocked by boys.

Now, Garima was lecturing me on love.

"Swati," she explained to me in her slightly patronizingEnglish, "love grows with time. You don't just fall into it."

It didn't matter that I had been in love before -- the kind

you fall into, the kind that does grow with time, but breaks,perhaps because no arrangement, no contract, no childrenheld it together. It didn't count because it wasunsanctioned by marriage.

My grandfather made this clear when he sat idly readingmy palm one afternoon, a small-time hobby for him, an 84-year-old criminal defense attorney. He observed the twocreases between my pinky and heart line.

"And you will have one great love," he said.

"But there are two lines," I said.

He paused, raising my hand to his glassy brown eyes, andstared hard at the unmistakable pair of lines.

"I see only one," he said. "And it is yet to come."

By my family's standards, my spinsterhood is imminent. Anarranged marriage had always been an appealing Plan B --if I failed at romance or a career, if I got tired of beingalone and wanted a family, my parents could simply findme a gainfully employed man, as long as I was still fairly


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young and decent-looking and virginal, not too tan or tooirreligious, not a smoker or a drinker. (I have trouble withsome of those; I won't say which.)

Garima explained why she opted for an arranged marriageone afternoon, after we had spent some time recalling theboys she had crushes on in high school.

"I know Papa would never choose anyone but the besthusband for me," she said.

I had heard the reasoning before -- from my parents,

mostly. It assumes that one's parents know one best. Thatmight have been true for Garima, who had never livedapart from family, who had never had an actual boyfriendand had few secrets to keep.

But by accident of birth, I had been an American child anddorm-dwelling student, a great keeper of hidden diaries, abeliever in privacy. Since I was 18, I had scrupulouslyhidden parts of my life from my family, collecting and

losing loves, as it seems women must to grow up. But whyshould I believe that the secrets I keep are what make memost me? When I'm in India, surrounded by the comfortand community of my big family, by Garima's glowingyouth and uncanny wisdom, that seems too American anotion.

For two hours before her wedding, Garima waited for her

groom.

She wore her wedding lehnga, a deep-magenta full skirtand fitted blouse, all embroidered with silver and goldthread and blue, pink and silver beads. She sat still so asnot to upset her veil, or her heavy gold-and-ruby nose ring,


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a hoop the size of a silver dollar connected to matchingearrings with a chain across her cheek. A necklace drippedfrom her collarbone to her waist, and a dozen bangleswere stacked on each arm.

She was overwhelmingly beautiful, and seeing her mademe indulge in a girlish daydream of my future wedding,which as a child I envisioned as white, but which I hadyears ago started to see in pink and red and gold.

Garima, her sister and her female cousins were hiding,waiting for the baraat -- the groom's party -- to arrive. We

peeked through curtained windows, hoping to catch aglimpse of the men dancing down the red carpet, and thegroom emerging from his horse-drawn carriage.

When the baraat finally arrived, as fireworks erupted andspelled, in English, "Garima Weds Vishal," my familygreeted them, offering the groom sweets and a quickprayer. We women stayed hidden, holding Garima's trainabove the dusty floor as she extended a solitary arm out atinted glass door to toss rice toward the groom.

Finally, when she appeared, she looked dutifullymelancholy. As the couple stood onstage before the crowdand exchanged flower garlands -- like exchanging weddingrings -- she had only the faintest flicker of a smile. Vishal'sgrin was broad, but mostly, Garima's lips were pouted, herhead bowed.

That expression held as the bride and groom walked seventimes around the fire, as the groom's sister tied a knotwith their two scarves, as their parents washed thecouple's feet. I was sure it was exhaustion, the oppressiveweight of her clothes, nerves, an act -- as the good, sad


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daughter. It couldn't be what my mother had felt at herwedding. I wondered as a child, seeing my mom'sexpression in photographs, if she had been forced intomarriage, if she loved my dad, if they should divorce.

But by the time the wedding ended at 4 a.m., it becameclear to me how sincere Garima's sadness was. She hadone journey to make alone, while her husband waited inhis car. It was the bidai -- the parting.

The family lined up to say goodbye. Garima's tears,initially just shining around her eyes, began to fall thickly.

Her shoulders heaved, and soon she was wailing, a long,loud, high wail, bursting forth from a sadness I couldn'tunderstand. It scared the emotion out of me; I felt like analien American, who would never know this strange mix ofpain and exhilaration that all the women in my family hadknown.

Just before Garima reached me, just as I had finishedrehearsing what I would say to her in the most profoundHindi I could muster, she cried for her sister, who rushed toher. She sobbed for her father to take her home, butinstead, they walked her to the car. Outside, the sun wasrising.

Usually, I am the one embracing a line of tearful relativesto say goodbye. This is what I did the day after thewedding, except Garima wasn't there. There was little

crying -- the wedding had exhausted us.

I thanked my grandfather for teaching me about someceremonies. He replied in short, sharp English: "Don't writeabout it. Do it."


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It might have been a simple nudge toward marriage, but Icouldn't help but hear the same infuriating drop-your-job,find-a-man advice of too many bestselling American books.

My grandfather, with his broad shoulders and bullhornvoice, just needed fewer words. And they cut more deeply,because I knew that I couldn't just "do it." It's too late forme to have a rite of passage that combines a wedding,prom and first date and moving out of your parents' houseand in with a man.

I moved down the rest of the line thinking deeply on the

tradition I was rejecting by living the way I do. Seeing thattradition as a boisterous, living spectacle had made itharder to dismiss, and harder to see my choices asinevitable or obvious or easy.

Garima's younger sister was last in line. We were now theonly unmarried ones in the family. Though that statussignified so much for me -- ambition and freedom, failureand loneliness -- for her it was an unremarkable fact. At23, she could switch it off like a light by asking her fatherto find someone.

She gave me a long hug, and I asked jokingly when Ishould book my next ticket, for her wedding. She smiledand uttered the most reassuring words I'd heard in a while:

"Don't wait for a wedding."

Epilogue: After a honeymoon in Goa and a month gettingto know the in-laws in Gorakhpur, Garima moved toVishal's apartment in Gurgaon, a rich, sprawling New Delhisuburb. He works as a computer engineer while she gets toknow her new city and circle of friends. She seems happy.


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For me, returning to the United States always requiresforgetting the realities of my Gonda days -- that pink canbe worn with orange; that hot showers are a luxury; thatmarriages can be made by people other than those doing

the marrying. It took a few weeks to readjust to my lifehere, but now that I have, only with deliberate effort can Irecall what appealed to me about my cousin's way ofmarriage. But then I imagine myself in her place, and it isnot unappealing.

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