Krishnan - Hitched : the modern woman and arranged marriage

Published by Random House India in 2013

Copyright Nandini Krishnan 2013

Random House Publishers India Private Limited
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Random House Group Limited
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United Kingdom

The names of some of the interviewees have been changed to protect their privacy.

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EPUB ISBN 9788184004724

To Maruthi, Babu Mama and Ma

T he idea for this book first took root over a phone call. Meru Gokhale, to whom I had once spoken of how I want to write a satire on Indian marriages, asked me if I wanted to write a serious book on arranged marriage. She refused to believe both that she hadnt woken me up, and that I wasnt qualified to write it. She asked me to think about it for a day or two, and get back in touch. I was in a dilemma. Id known I wanted to work with Meru since I had first met her, not only because of the wonderfully fun conversations weve had, but because Ive simply loved every book she has edited. I knew she is that rare breed of editor who can tap the right buttons in a writers head without the latter even realizing it. But I didnt see how I could write a non-fiction work on arranged marriage.

As I thought about the book, I thought mostly of my own brushes with arranged marriage. My mother would rather regularly, in my early twenties, tell me hesitantly that there was an offer. I would usually roll my eyes and say, Whats the bid? Profiles would be emailed to me, and grammatically incorrect emails from prospective grooms parents forwarded. Most of these contained details of the boys exam results from high school to college, his salary, his designation and his personalityoutgoing, friendly, cheerful, vivacious, and in one case, inexplicably, rambunctious. It was hard enough to find a prospect whose hairline could be spotted, whose neck wasnt caked with powder and who didnt sport a Chulbul Pandey moustache. It was harder to find someone who didnt think Orhan Pamuk was the name of a book.

Most of my friends and I had spent our twenties whining either about our boyfriends, or about the sort of men we were being put in touch with. A lot of those accounts could go into a work of fiction. But how would I find people who had had arranged marriages, and who were willing to talk about them? And then, I realized that many of my friendsintelligent, smart, funny womenhad eventually taken the arranged route, and several of them were so happy that Id even forgotten they found their husbands through a maze of matrimonial ads, horoscopes and awkward conversations.

There are, of course, those who are firmly opposed to the idea of arranged marriage. One of my friends calls it mercenary, and says she knows people who marry based solely on the career progress and bank balance of their prospective spouses. There are those who are so resentful of the process, and the demand for tall, slim, fair, beautiful, intelligent working women who must also cook well, that they respond with physical specifications of their own. There are those who are disillusioned and frustrated by the process. There are those whose marriages were technically arranged, but read like love stories.

I began to put down a structure for the book, and realized it wasnt going to be either didactic or dry. Marriage is one of the most crucial aspects of a womans lifewhether she chooses to have an arranged marriage, wait for Mr Right to bump into her by accident, or do without marriageand a good part of our twenties and thirties are spent thinking about it. Will we meet the right person? Cant the right person be found outside an arranged set-up? Are we settling? How do we know someone is right for us? When do we have children? What do we tell our relatives when they ask about good news? What if we cant have children? Will we regret marrying the people we did? Can we study after marriage? What compromises will that involve? How about working after marriage? Is it possible to leave an unhappy marriage? Is having an arranged marriage an admission of defeat, a confession that we simply couldnt find love? Once were married, does it really make a difference whether it was love or arranged, or do we deal with the same problems and enjoy the same harmony either way?

Each of these questions yielded varied answers, ranging from facetious to poignant. To my surprise, I found that people actually wanted to discuss their marriages, explore their own reasons for getting married, and speak about the little pretences we all hide behind. A friend and I bonded over how, even if we were to have arranged marriages, we wouldnt want people to know it, and would have to think of romantic back-storiesHe saw me at a wedding, and asked his mothers friend to set me up with him; My cousin and she went to the same school, and she was at my aunts place one day; Our parents are family friends, and we used to play together as kids, apparently, but I dont remember; Both of us were pissed with our parents, and came in with the intention of rejecting each other, and then we realized wed gone to the same school and had crushes on each other; and so on.

In writing the stories of the women I spoke to, I grew progressively excited about the book, and it began to evolve beyond its original structure. At times, I would feel I was writing a motivational book, at times a dystopian novel, at times a Barbara Cartlandesque romance. Sometimes, it would appear that arranged marriages, for all the thought that goes into them, are simply wrought by destiny. Just when I was beginning to think there wasnt much difference between a love marriage and an arranged one, one of my interviewees would speak about expectations her in-laws had of her that had taken her aback. Someone else would tell me how, unlike boyfriends, husbands often didnt want to know about their partners pasts.

However, everyone appeared to feel that there are several levels at which one has to cope in an arranged marriage. There is a lot of pressure on the man too, especially when it comes to mediating conflicts between his wife and his family. Everything in an arranged marriage is a shade different from a love marriage. A bride is seen as conniving, for having got her husband besotted with her. When a couple lives in another town, or abroad, the wife is expected to stay with her in-laws rather than her parents when they visit. Protocol is important. All the women I have spoken to have had challenges to mount, and many had to figure it out for themselves, chiefly because they didnt know people who had shared the experience. Their parents and in-laws, too, have had to deal with certain things. As the mother of a friend told me, Everyone wants sons-in-law like their sons, and daughters-in-law like their daughters. That wont happen. You have to lower your expectations, or at least step back, and let your children take the call.