The Descendants

R,

Saying we’re married feels very grown up, but the reality is, we lie in bed till 10am on weekends, eat lazily, bathe when we want, and act more like convivial  roommates than responsible adults. There are days when I feel like a student; but if your dad’s retiring, then that makes us pretty old ourselves.

It’s very easy to be in love when it’s just the two of us, and we’re fairly low-maintenance people to begin with. Add elements like a child and parents who need our support, and it all becomes very complicated very fast. I’m jumping ten steps ahead of myself over here, given that we’re not expecting a baby; two out of four parents are working; and all four are in good health with a reasonable amount of savings, touch wood.

Just because they don’t need us right now doesn't mean they never will. Even if they never need us, we may want to be closer just so they can watch their grandkids grow up. It’s a Hallmark-y idea, I love the idea of three generations getting to know each other. I enjoyed living with my dad’s father, and spending summers with my mum’s parents. It definitely made me a different person than I would have been with a nuclear family. It seems unfair to deny our parents & kids a similar experience just because it’s not required of us.

Two adjoining houses, or one big one? Which city will be have to live in for both sets of parents to be comfortable, and for us to have decent job prospects/local schools? Those are just the big questions. Much as we like each other’s families, it will be a radical change in our lifestyle. I think we may have to do some actual growing up at some point in the next three to five years.

-A.

Gold Standards

R,

Single TamBrahm girls are meant to always wear a gold chain, with a matching pair of bangles and earrings. Once they get married, the chain is replaced with a thali/mangalsutra and toe rings are added to the ‘must-wear’ list. Oddly enough, though a finger ring is presented at the marriage, this isn’t mandated daily wear… most practical when you consider the amount of food consumed by hand.

I’m sure these traditions are well-intentioned, and probably originated in a desire to give a girl a financial security net in the days before women had out-of-home careers (cue weepy movie sequences where women are seen selling away every last bit of gold).

Maybe there was a moral code of decency in the olden days, where stealing a woman’s marriage gold was equivalent to raping her in a temple. I doubt such qualms are felt any more. Which begs the questions - Aren’t you just asking to be robbed, going about in real gold? Is it feasible to be trotting about your body weight in gold in India’s blazing heat?

There’s nothing practical about our society’s attachment to the metal, especially to the sacred mangalsutra. Yes, it can hold safety pins very efficiently, but it’s a clunky huge chain that matches very few outfits worn in 2014. I started looking for it in pictures shared on social media and realized no one I know is photographed wearing one, other than at the wedding.

What are the new definitions of morality then? Is the decent thing  to wear it to religious and social functions, or to any occasion where you may run into a conservative relative, so that they can keep up their illusions about what married women should and should not wear? Or should you have the guts to disown it completely, and say so to those who enquire?

I don’t really have an answer, but I suspect we may be one of the last few Indian generations who’ll struggle with this. I can’t see us being too fussed if our children swear off gold altogether, and use the money saved on other things.

-A.

YOLO in NOLA

R,

We really only have two shared interests -  we love each other, and travel. When I stop to think about it, it's kind of scary how little we have in common... but I don't usually get the time to think about it, because we're either travelling, just back from a vacation, or planning our next one :)

Last night, we got back from our engagementiversary/valentine's week celebrations at New Orleans. Who knew a city in North America could be so charming? An All Saints game + Mardi Gras parade on Saturday night showcased Bourbon Street at its eccentric best - you could totally imagine it was still the 1920's and the Jazz Age had never ended. 

I don't want to glorify alcohol, but it fueled some incredibly beautiful scenes that night - most memorably, outrageously overdressed people on every balcony throwing beads and dollar notes into the crowd below. There wasn't a cab in sight, so we walked two miles back to our B&B, and every drunk we eavesdropped on was making surprisingly lucid proclamations. It was like something out of a Fitzgerald novel, and I was very tempted to just walk the streets all night recording what we heard. 

Sober, N'awlins is still surreally inspiring. I didn't see a single piece of art we didn't want to buy. The most average live music was better than most, and the really good jazz performances blew my mind away. Life slows down in Lousiana - each meal took an hour, every mouthful carefully savored. There was nothing about the city that resembled anything else we'd seen or done in the past. This is why I love travel: you can never take anything for granted when the world's always surprising you. 

I tried to take photos because I realized we hardly ever remember to - we took 15 trips last year and have less than 100 photos to show for it. Sadly, I got caught up in just experiencing NOLA, and took very few pics. I don't regret it, I wouldn't have wanted to interrupt the flow by whipping out a camera. But I thought I'd paint you a quick snapshot with words while it's still fresh in my mind. It's hands down my favorite city in the US.

A.

A spoonful of sugar

R,

Remember last Valentine’s, when you super sweetly put together a hand-cooked candle-light meal of mac and cheese? It was the cutest thing ever, especially since I’m well aware that you think that even ready-to-eat meals are a pain to put together. You obsessed over how the pasta was dry, and offered to put in more water, or add cheese, or… . I hope you remember that I said it was perfectly fine and I loved it.

It was perfectly fine, and I did love it, especially considering the effort you’d put into it. If you’d served me burned pasta with no cheese, it would still have been perfectly fine and I would have loved it. I realize it’s harder to feel similarly magnanimous about the daily meals I cook you – there are so many of them that you have to start taking them for granted a little, or it would be slightly absurd.

It’s great how low maintenance we both are. For the most part, you’ll eat anything, and I really only have to put together one meal in the night, since your office feeds you (and how!). There are no unreasonable demands to make things the way your mother did, or the way my mother did, and thank God for that, because they’re superlative cooks. However, here’s where our opinions diverge, never to meet again.

She thinks: So much repetition when I make dinner every day for the rest of our lives! How do I make this more exciting? What can I try making today?
He thinks: Damn foreign country, I can only get decent food at home. I hope it’s daal-chawal.
She thinks: Stuffed okra? Pumpkin curry?
He thinks: Daal-chawal. Please God, daal-chawal.
She thinks: Fine, if it’ll make him happy, daal-chawal. Again. Hmm, I wonder what would happen if I added aamchur?
He flips his lid. Consistency, woman, where’s the consistency! How can I lust for daal chawal if it’s a different type of daal each time you make it?

Harrumph. I see your point, and I’ll take it, albeit grudgingly. Since you only like about five dishes anyway, I suppose I could write down a recipe and stick to it and make you the same thing each day of the week. That sounds so incredibly boring to me, but I know you’d love it.

I’ll just have to explore my diversity as a cook with my own meals.

In return, I’ll ask for just one thing. You’re mighty vocal when a meal displeases you by not being what you expected it to be. I’d greatly appreciate it if you were to give me a token verbal indication when you’re happy with the meal as well.  I believe that’d be the recipe for a happy marriage, food wise. I even wrote it down.

A.

To settle or not to settle?

R,

Indian girls grow up hearing about the princely groom who’ll ride up on a white horse and whisk them away to live happily ever after. While the horse will always be white, the groom could be any one of a thousand people whom she meets while her parents help her find the perfect groom. I think it’s only fair that she at least expect him to be a prince and not some random stable boy masquerading with a crown on his head.

Do you remember my friend, T? Her parents first started ‘looking’ for a groom when she was 21. I can barely remember what I was like at 21, but I’m confident I would’ve been too immature to know for sure what I wanted in a marriage. It’s always easier to find a reason to say ‘no’ to a match, than to feel confident about saying ‘yes.’ So T said, “No,” “No,” “No,” and then “No,” again, to sundry bumpkins and hopefuls.

It would’ve been hard to find a good match for her any way, she’s so smart, and ruthlessly funny. I’m not saying she’s egoistic to the point of no compromise (although I certainly was at 21), but she’s far from being the demure doormat that’s ‘perfect marriage material’ for most Indian grooms. They’d likely still have put up with it anyway, she’s gorgeous! She, on the other hand, didn’t see what she’d get out of marrying someone who was significantly less sharp than she was.

Glossing over several painful years of futile matchmaking, she’s 28 now. Cue gasps of horror from the Indian aunties and uncles, neighbors and passers-by. Is it just me, or does India have a collective biological clock that acts like a bomb counter ticking down as females remain unmarried past 25? 

I lost touch with T, but every now and then, we chat about the latest prospects thrown her way. She told me about a blatantly gay groom, whom her mother introduced, with the sage advice, “Marriage cures everything.” While T isn’t ready to compromise on that variable yet, she confessed that the longer she held off on marriage, the less rigid her expectations became. As she grew older, she no longer got the ‘cream of the crop,’ such as it was. This means a motley set of widowers, unemployed men, and outrageous dowry demands are thrust her way. 

“At this point, if I meet someone whom I turned down at 21, I’ll probably be mellow enough to think they’re perfect marriage material!”

It was funny, but also sad – what’s the point of wanting because you didn’t want to settle, if you’re eventually browbeaten into settling? It’s impossible for me to judge, because we got engaged at 23 (cradle snatcher!) – how am I supposed to know what they’re going through, and whether it’ll be worth it? Sure, we all have these grand notions of romance, but marriage is essentially about saying, “Ok, I’ve seen all there is to see and I’ll take this one.” 

So for those of my friends who are more pragmatic than romantic, maybe it makes sense after all. As for the rest, I hope they hold out until they get the fairy tale ending they want.

A.

Irrationality at Daybreak

R,

This morning, I woke up at 5am to see you off at the airport. (It must be love.) Then I realized it was -9 degrees out, and decided filmy expressions of love were overrated.

Ever since then, of course, I've obsessed over whether I jinxed your trip by not seeing you off. It’s a long flight, as all company-expensed flights tend to be, which means I've a long time to sit and stew. I realize it sounds slightly macabre, so let me put this in perspective.

All our parents’ friends are hale and hearty; their parents are only now calmly, peacefully, passing on. Meanwhile, in the last couple of years alone, we've heard of so many road accidents causing fatalities among our peer group.

The newly married groom knocked off his bike.

The father taking the bus home to celebrate his daughter’s second birthday.

People with their whole lives in front of them, wiped out without warning.

Errant drivers pay nominal bribes to any enthusiastic policemen who bother following up (who decides how much a life is worth?). Both parties get on with their lives. Meanwhile, the young widows left behind are looked at suspiciously by relatives who dub them unlucky. They get stuck in no man’s land.

Which unlucky parents would want to support their daughter beyond the lump-sum payment they dished out at the wedding? What devil-may-care Indian groom wants ‘used’ goods? She could live alone and support herself with her job, but let’s not delude ourselves into thinking that won’t invite pointed fingers and constant vigilance from her erstwhile in-laws, sundry relatives, and even the rare landlord who agrees to let out a place to a single woman. We may not expect widows to shave their heads and wear white saris anymore, but they’re often no less conspicuous in Indian society than they were fifty years ago.

I do realize we live in Canada where the roads are a hundred times safer – I joke all the time about crossing roads more slowly here because no one would dare deal with the lawsuits if they ran over someone, accidentally or otherwise. I’m not that great with math, but the likelihood of a road accident is probably one in ten thousand. All of which is to say that I’m not really worried.

You & I are blessed with parents who, I think, love us unconditionally for ourselves, as well as because I’m your wife/you’re my husband. When I hear about road accidents, I worry about the idea of my life without you. Even then, I’m aware of how lucky I am to know that that’s all I have to worry about. If only all Indian women were allowed that luxury.

Stay safe and call me soon.

A.

Pride & Prejudice: the Indian retelling

R,

It is a truth, universally acknowledged, that an Indian woman with an ounce of common sense, has many an arranged marriage horror story to narrate.

I realize I’m not the most objective judge, but I think you’ll agree with me when I say my single friends seem no less marriageable than the brides described in newspaper personals. I’m guessing those brides are the golden standard if their parents feel secure enough about their virtues to trumpet them about town. 

The ideal debutante is almost always described as pleasant. My friends are certainly pleasant to me, and to anyone else they deem worthy of it. I don’t expect them to suffer a fool for a husband just to prove how placid they can be. They’re not exactly auditioning for diplomatic positions, after all. 

How can I tell the prospective groom’s a fool? Well, who else comes in demanding that his bride be ‘ambitious,’ but earn less than him; ‘outgoing,’ but give up any and all her friends after marriage? I’ve heard the whole gamut of stories, from the groom who wanted someone to look after his ill mother (may I suggest a caregiver), to the one who asked if they could live together for a couple of years before he committed to a marriage (yes, but that’s not how marriages are arranged!). My friends have been told they're too egoistic for the average Indian male, and need to set their standards more realistically. 

Those are ridiculous stories, the kind you can regale your grandchildren with, assuming you ever do find a sensible, smart guy. Then there are the ones you don’t want to tell anyone. It’s far too common to hear of men who mysteriously discern that you’re ‘modern,’ and try to make a physical move at the first meeting. And their mothers who suggest it’s the girl’s fault for leading him on. With what, a Bharat Matrimony profile? 

The wisdom of Indian elders suggests that arranged marriages are ‘safer’ and ‘more decent’ than love marriages. I beg to disagree, based on the scenario above. I also don’t see how imagining your life with a whole new stranger every three days is more morally sound than imagining your life with one person, whom you know and love.

I’m not saying arranged marriages don’t work, my parents’ marriage inspired me to want an arranged marriage. Stories like these make me thankful that I didn’t have to get increasingly more frustrated with the process by trying it out for myself.

A.