The arrangement of love

My earliest memories are of Indian weddings. One particular instance still stands out, where relatives were intent on matchmaking a cousin of mine at a family wedding. She was at that time looking through a handful of suitors, so my aunts offered friendly advice.

There were also arguments in favour of an arranged marriage, which I scoffed at. While some of their points make sense, others still sit uneasily. Arranged marriages are made to avoid as many clashes as possible, my soft-spoken aunt explained. Economics, culture, schooling, even a family’s affinity to cricket matters, she half-joked. “I am crazy about basketball and don’t care about cricket,” I said. Cricket is not a girl-friendly sport and neither are tomboys a marriage-friendly prospect.

“Then we’ll just have to wait for you to outgrow your childishness,” she said, but it stuck; that an alternate sport didn’t fit into an arranged marriage was heartbreaking.

A while ago, we were on the phone and she gently enquired about my marriage prospects. I reminded her of my love for sport and its unsuitability to arranged marriage. Since my cousin’s wedding, I had gone on to study abroad and had worked as a journalist around the world for almost a decade. “You are lucky that you go out and talk to strangers for a living. How many other girls in our family do you know who do that?” None.

Times have changed, but even so, tradition remains. Even though they are increasingly visible in the job market, most Indian women still live at home until they marry. And they usually marry someone their parents choose, or, family approval is the foremost predicament in a “love marriage”. “It’s not that girls don’t meet boys,” she said. “They just don’t meet the ones they ought to marry.”

Which is where I begged to differ. From colleges to offices to parties, I knew friends and cousins who were happily exploring their own options, and they were doing it with little or no assistance from families.

Of course, who they formally introduced to the family was still ultimately judged by the same set of aunts over cups of steaming tea. From a balding patch to whether or not the potential bride or groom had chosen to live with his parents or her in-laws were all burning factors.

While little had changed in the scrutiny from my aunts, there was a marked difference in those willing to take such a bold step. When my cousin’s bride-to-be was introduced to the family, she shook everyone’s hands while wearing a pair of jeans instead of a traditional salwar kameez or sari.

Another gave his daughter a Muslim name even though his father, my uncle, is a staunch Hindu. Both cases caused much debate and hand-wringing from the elder set of relatives. Then there was me, the unknown factor.“You are different. You always have been. You have gone and done things that we don’t understand,” said my aunt.

Maybe. But rules of scrutiny and approval would still apply to my choice.