Okay. This one is for you dozen tipsters who are jonesing for our take on this article about “”love-cum-arranged,” marriages that appears in today’s NYTimes.
Yawn. Haven’t I read this article like a dozen times before? It’s always half of an article where they drum up the angle that they wanted to write in the first place instead of doing any real reporting.
These young people may have come of age in an America of “Moonstruck” and “Dawson’s Creek,” but in many cases they have not completely accepted the Western model of romantic attachment. Indeed, some of the impetus for assisted marriage is coming from young people themselves – men and women who have delayed marriage into their late 20’s and early 30’s, said Ayesha Hakki, the editor of Bibi, a South Asian bridal and fashion magazine based in New Jersey.
“That has been the most remarkable trend,” Ms. Hakki said, citing the example of a male acquaintance, who, after dating on his own, turned to his parents for guidance.
As Madhulika Khandelwal, a historian who has studied Indians here, said, “Young people don’t want to make individual decisions alone.”
[cough]-bullshit-[cough]. It’s not that young people don’t want to make “individual decisions alone” and have decided that their parent’s “guidance” is best. No. It’s that they are giving up and no longer want to fight “the system.” Ladies in their late twenties can only pursue self-absorbed or commitment-phobic guys (and there is nothing wrong with being commitment phobic 
) for so long before they throw in the towel and opt for “traditional,” by default. Likewise, guys are forced to deal with women who are too neurotic to date mostly because their parents are breathing down their necks to get married. We (Indians raised in this country) turn to our families for the exact same reason as someone of another culture would turn to their’s, except for the fact that there is more pressure to turn to them. This article and others like it always seem to dodge the truth in order to accentuate the exotic “embrace” of our culture. What the article describes is more than just being set up on a “blind date,” which it compares it to. Lots of cultures practice the art of the blind date, whether through family or friends, and it isn’t particularly newsworthy. When journalists single out Indians they do so with the implication that the family’s fingerprints are all over the entire courtship process. If that is the case then explaining it away as a willing “return to tradition” makes my eyes roll. Here is some more bullshit:
The embrace of more traditional habits is apparent in other ways. Weddings are often elaborate and last three or four days. Families of the betrothed often still consult a Hindu astrologer who schedules wedding ceremonies according to the stars. When Anamika Tavathia, 24, was engaged to a young Indian she met in college, his family visited hers to propose on his behalf and the priest determined they should marry on June 26 of this year between 10:30 and 11 a.m.This fall is expected to be an unusually busy wedding season in Indian communities, because many couples postponed weddings last year when many days were deemed inauspicious.
Are you f*cking kidding me? I guess the Times decided that the article could use a bit more masala when they added that last sentence. As a quick aside though, I made up a drinking game for when I go to Indian weddings. Any time someone uses the word “auspicious” you take a shot at the reception.
Despite its groundings in pragmatism, assisted marriage is spoken about among some young Indians in highly romanticized terms – implicit in it is the cinematic idea that immediate attraction should result in an eternity spent together.
Damn. I hope that’s not true because that would mean that a lot of my close friends are totally abnormal.
Kesha Petal’s sister married a man to whom she was introduced through her aunts. She decided to marry him the day after they met. “A lot of my friends,” Kesha Petal said, her eyes gleaming, “tell me you know in an instant.”
Oh, oh. I just vomited all over myself. Speaking of weddings though, did you guys see this long-overdue article in the Guardian?
The wedding beast, I fear, is swallowing us all, and Liz Savage, the editor of Brides Magazine (circulation 68,000), confirms it. The British bridal industry is worth £5bn a year and growing, and Savage cites a faintly nauseating buffet of factors. First, people are increasingly paying for their own weddings, thus unleashing a torrent of Personal Romances-style fantasies on us all. “Fathers of the bride are no longer automatically footing the bill,” she says. “Couples have more money to spend and they want the wedding to be an expression of their personal style.”The key driver, it becomes clear, in the excess of the modern wedding is pseudo-sophistication and grisly one-upmanship. “Our tastes have become much more sophisticated and glamorous,” says Savage. “I got married nine years ago and there was none of this fuss over the menu and what we were drinking. Then you wouldn’t have dreamed of turning your nose up at the wine but today we are putting ourselves under far more pressure … Our readers spend more time thinking about the reception than anything else. The attention to detail is amazing – the choice of napkin ring, how they are going to tie the napkins and how are the place settings going to look. It doesn’t matter if they are traditional or getting married in winter or abroad, our readers want to surprise and delight their guests. People are much more creative and imaginative today. They want their wedding to be talked about and to give their guests the best they can. They really want the wow factor.”
[begin rant] It’s true. It’s far worse for Indian weddings though. One of my closest friends and his fiance were in town a couple weeks ago to do some wedding shopping. They both advised me never to get married because the actual wedding will suck all the life (and money) out of you. Everything has to be perfect and you have to invite guests that you will never talk to again in your life. I for one will never buy a diamond engagement ring. I’d rather spend the $14,000 on a 4 week 5 country honeymoon, and I won’t have to worry about some kid in Sierra-Leone getting his limb chopped off for a rock that in reality is worthless. I also can’t stand the way that women shake hands when they are newly engaged. Also, please, please, please save your money and do not make a “wedding music CD” for your guests. Nobody wants to listen to the music you guys do the dirty to. [end rant]
BTW, BB, you are funny. The whole skeleton boy thing had me rolling….
There you go Freedom, you’re getting in the spirit of things, you rotund turnip-loving breadbasket. Although I did say we should insult fat and ugly people. As I am anorexic and beautiful, I’m exempt.
DD: Mingers. British slang for an unattractive person.
There are now three funny boys on the block – me, Bongo and Uncleji and we are all British.
Why thank you Doc. I hope that when I inevitably die in suspicious circumstances, you rummage around my insides and nobody else.
Ann On, that’s a neat list, but the aunties and uncles of my acquaintance would probably prefer a WASP or East Asian to a Muslim: Muslim suitors would probably join blacks at the bottom of the heap. My mother is convinced that Muslim men, no matter how liberal or secular they seem, will eventually ‘get religious,’ and then it’ll be face veils and halal for any unsuspecting Hindu bride. Manish is right about the more conservative culture being the bottleneck, and in my experience, Hindus who marry Muslims usually end up converting. Mind you, I once attended an arranged(!) marriage between a Hindu groom and a Muslim bride. They’ve now got two kiddies, one with a Hindu name and one with a Muslim name.
Wow, cross-cultural and arranged is ineffably cool. How did that come about?
BB – many a man says that they’d like me rummage around their insides when they learn I am a pathologist. Ha ha. Seriously – I weigh 120 pounds and have lost 4-5% body fat in the past few weeks thanks to my personal trainer, Rayna. Thought you would like to know.
Now, stop playing on the internets and go study your medial books 🙂 And I will do the same….
Oh, god, medical books.
I am scared of you now.
I think a laughing pathologist sounds scary.
You’re not scary are you?
I divorced because my nice, family values desi husband drank and drank and drank and treated me like a dog. But we don’t discuss these things in our desi culture, do we? It’s the goras that have all the problems, right?
MD, i’m truly very sorry that this happened to you and I don’t disagree that you did the right thing. No one should stay in any marriage where they are being abused. My rant was more along the lines of people being too absorbed in ‘my wedding/my choice’ and making life choices that ultimately come back to harm them. Granted many ppl make these mistakes in good faith, but in my opinion, many of these mistakes are avoidable if young ppl here in the west paid more heed to their parents values and didn’t just write them off.
like satti and aborting or killing female babies? treating daughter-in-laws like indentured servants? While I have mixed thoughts on the topic of divorce, I certainly can’t support a culture that preaches to my sisters that they should STAY in a marriage where they get beaten up or treated like absolute trash, just because societal pressures are too much for the parents to face
of course i’m not advocating this type of crap either, and any parent who knowingly puts up w/ this is a piece of shit and deserves nothing less than the beating of a lifetime. And from what I understand, sati is now pretty much tamed out w/ the exception of a few pockets of weirdos that didn’t realize it’s the 21st century. Feel free to correct me if i’m wrong.
Look, i’m not saying that nothing is wrong w/ indian culture/values, but i’m saying logically, what is perceived in the US as antiquated, exotic and at time questionable customs is still in my opinion a better solution to marriage than the typical “i’ll find my own and marry whomever I want whenever I want” philosophy that is more prevalent these days.
It’s just in my opinion, there is a sanctity of marriage that is increasingly being marginalized in the Western world, and too many media outlets paint assisted/arranged marriages as some sort of ‘weirdo’ setup. Mind you, I refused to be arranged myself, i didn’t mind an assist, but my parents version of assisting was finding a haevy girl and trying to convince me that “everyone gains weight anyways so what’s the big deal?”. I just feel western reporting of our marriage beliefs and cultures overlook the values underneath it and shroud it in more of a mystery/exotic/antiquated background, when it deserves the same respect as the Christian wedding beliefs camp.
So let’s see, parties offended: desis, white folks, christians, fat people…just about hit the jackpot.
Manish, the couple in question were Guyanese, which may be why there weren’t strenuous objections over religious differences. Indians from the diaspora (by which I mean the Caribbean, Africa, etc) aren’t as divided by religion as Indians from the subcontinent: unfortunately though, they tend to direct their hostility at their black neighbours. They were both attractive enough, but they were in their mid-thirties, which probably shrank their prospects considerably.
But they don’t. Since so many Americans these days turn to online and paid “assistance,” parent-arranged marriages are often portrayed as a legitimate and reasonable option for those who can still take advantage of them. It’s exotic, yes, but seldom belittled in the US media these days.
Since so many Americans these days turn to online and paid “assistance,” parent-arranged marriages are often portrayed as a legitimate and reasonable option for those who can still take advantage of them
I’d like to see examples of this. Not contradicting you, just would like to see some for my own education. In my experience you still get a majority of ppl who are bewildered to hear that as an indian you “didn’t” get an arranged marriage. I think there is increasing interest and that’s good, but it has to be reported accurately as well…south indian arranged marriages are 180′ different than northie, etc etc. I don’t feel that enough detail has gone into this aspect.
Also, as I am approaching 30 yrs of age and constantly bemoaning my 20s passing by, I find myself increasingly getting cranky at many things. I wonder what’s going to happend to me when i’m 60.
I don’t have the exact reference right now, but I’ve read in more than one place that the much-touted 50% divorce rate is quite inaccurate and the real rate is much lower.
expectation vs. variance. half the marriages end in divorce, but there are a few people who marry and divorce a lot. the mean is kind of deceptive in this case (the median might be better).
My unmarried friends and I have a drinking game where we have a shot anytime an uncle or auntie approaches at a wedding and asks anything along the lines of ‘so beta, you’re next, right?’ or ‘when is your day?’
I’m 30 yrs old and my 5-years younger brother just recently got married. I stopped counting at 24 shots!!! Needless to say, I don’t really remember his wedding all that well…
there are many orthogonal vectors at work here, but verbally they often get conflated and bundled. for example, i have absolutely no issues with kumar’s assertion about maintaining traditional cultures on the individual level.* myself, my gf is an atheist, and my last gf was a lapsed unitarian-universalist (some of you will get the joke). i did date religious people when i was a lot younger, but the values difference was pretty big, and i realized in the end that they all assumed i would ‘see the light’ (hindus complain about this issue with muslims in mixed-marriages, so i can relate).
but the problem-objection i have is to cases like below:
a friend whose parents are taiwanese, doesn’t know chinese very well, dates white guys, still tells me to “i have marry a chinese guy.” when an acquaintance from singapore asked what region of china her family was from (her parents are emigres from the mainland from what i gather), she said they were “mandarin.” that is like responding to the query what region of india you are from with “hindi.” in other words, there was very little chinese about her, but she still wanted to “marry a chinese guy” (i lost touch with her, but to my knowledge, she’s never dated an asian guy yet, but told her 3 bfs who i knew well that she would still marry a chinese guy, and not them-this broke up all the relationships in the end).
another friend, whose parents are cantonese from hong kong, talked about how it would be great to marry a cantonese speaker (his chinese was very BAD) so they could talk to his grandparents. his fiance at the time was a mandarin speaker from taiwan (she knew the taiwnese dialect too, but he didn’t know that). 1) i thought it was disrespectful to his fiance to tell his friends this 2) again, he was a “born again asian” who didn’t eat chinese food, didn’t worship in a buddhist temple or a chinese church or do anything asian aside from asian pacific student union meetings.
my point with the two particular examples is that i have a “gut” aversion to people who think that there is an ineffable connection with “their own kind,” even though culturally or values-wise there might be a big disconnection. living in the american culture those who deviate from the mainstream norm make choices. the vast majority of ashkenazi jews joined assimilationist reform and conservative temples and synagogues (90%). a minority are traditionalist to some extent. this last minority are the ones who rarely outmarry. there are a practice [halakah] and values based reasons for them to “marry their own kind.” and own kind is not always what you think it might be, i knew a girl who was an orthodox jew raised in brooklyn who was genetically half chinese because her mother had been adopted in china when her parents (jewish) lived in hong kong. her parents later became orthodox jews, ergo, so did their adopted daughter. this woman married into the orthodox community and had 10 children (or something like that). granted, they look a bit different, but obviously they are authentic jews.
stuff like “authentic” is loaded, and people generate their own authenticity to some extent. these defitions and identities are always debatable (a minority of orthodox, going back to jews, do not consider the non-orthodox jewish religiously, but since 90% of jews are non-orthodox, the majority of orthodox have accepted a broader view of religious jewishness in the states. not so in israel where one is ‘religious’ or ‘secular’).
in relation to the brown-arranged-marriage debate, i think the key point is that there is a lot of variance in the brown american community. to simplify, there are relatively deracinated people like me, whose brown affiliations are minimal (my food preferences and my genes). people like manish who are more immersed in desi american culture and fluent in the idioms of the subculture, but who take a broad view of their identity. than perhaps there are people like kumar who have more explicitly defined concentric circles of affinity and identification and emphasize a continuity with a traditional south asian cultural stream which can not (will not) be subsumed into the broader south asian american culture. on other axes, we have attitudes toward things like eating with your hands,** or arranged marriages. etc. etc.
in reference to american brown people this diversity needs to be more well known in the mainstream. articles like THE NEW YORK TIMES make arranged marriage and traditional indian weddings seem totally normative among 2nd gen people. is this so? i’d like to see data. the brown identity is in flux. some, like gc and i, will probably not contribute to it in perpetuity (our genetic descendents will not be predominantly brown identified). there will be others who maintain a brown identity throughout generations. but in the present, we are all part of the brown culture more or less, because what we look like defines how others perceive us (on a personal level this is easy to change really quickly of course).
my own personal opinion is that that the dynamic process of identity formation occurs via interaction with the greater society. perceptions of the mainstream of a minority can reshape the minority itself. i have read sociologists who say that native american attitudes toward the environment over the past few generations have become very close to the mainstream perception of them as they internalize the mantras that the media and other expressive organs generate. my chinese american friends above have a particular concept of “asianness” which seems perfunctory (race) but warping their life (choice of partners). i think some of this is due to the rise in “yellow power” (my friend in APASU always had a ‘driving while asian’ story for me). i don’t think this is a good trend for my country in the long run. my attitude is that unless you are preserving a set of values or cultural traits that are very deviant in reference to the american norm, it is best for this country if people amalgamate. as for my asian friends above, i think what they might have with their fellow deracinated asian marriage-partners is a sense of alienation, not a common sense of chineseness (which they don’t really exhibit on a deep level).
** my parents, FOBs (well, 25 year FOBs) stopped eating with their hands 5 years ago after my father read a paper about hygiene and frequency of common colds and what not.
117 comments? Wow. Everybody stop talking about marriage and go find someone and then register on IndianWeddingSite.com
=)
Madarchod:
Thank you for your gracious response. I see that I misunderstood the point you were trying to make, and I apologize. I tend to agree with you – there is a sanctity to marriage. I really believe that.
Punjabi Boy – I rarely do autopsies; really it’s a small part of any pathologist’s practice. Most are involved in diagnosing patient specimens (biopsies, etc) or running the clinical labs. I am a dermatopathologist – look at skin biopsies/excisions and teach and procrastinate on ‘off’ days when I am supposed to be working on a talk at home, like today. I am not a scary laughing pathologist; I am gentle as a lamb 🙂
Dating is new york sounds harsh, i think this article is more about escaping a world you wouldn’t wish on your enemies in terms of being cruel. thats what i think its about. there is no way it was meant for us desis. you’ve got to be kidding me….the new york times does not run front page stories based on desi’s for their own sake
this is about another way to date in a world of dating insanity
Ann On, that’s a neat list, but the aunties and uncles of my acquaintance would probably prefer a WASP or East Asian to a Muslim
Most FOB Hindu parents would put fellow desi Indian Muslims only above blacks and I have had loads of people confirm this.
For Urdu speaking Indian Muslims in the US here is the list :
Urdu speaking Muslims (Indian or Pakistani wont matter as long as they are citizens of the US and settled here)
Desi Muslims with elementary urdu speaking skills like Kashmiris etc.,
Muslims of any other brown origin like Bangladeshi or Arab or Afghan or Turk or native white muslim countries like Bosnia etc.,( Lotsa desi muslims are marrying bosnians these days)
White convert.
East Asian Muslims or Black Muslims.
Practicing Christians or Jews in same order as above for men only.
Any other and they will demand conversion or try every trick in the book to torpedo the marriage.
Any other and they will demand conversion or try every trick in the book to torpedo the marriage.
personal exp. speaking?
Abhi clearly struck a gigantic, throbbing, love-lorn nerve 😉
Don’t worry PB, when I get my blasted blog up and running, I’ll be featuring lots of pics from a forensic pathologist friend of gnarly deaths and injuries. Fun for all the family, you’ll love it.
Wedding drinking games – great stuff. The last one I went to was a Bangladeshi affair (that means bhangra and Bollywood, Polish waitresses and Indian food OBVIOUSLY). Thankfully nobody’s asking me when I’m getting hitched, so the drinking game I played, admittedly with myself…and soft drinks, was to down a drink every time there was a cross word, Asian weddings seem to bring out the worst in people:
“I can’t believe she’s doing MY dance! That bitch! She knew I was going to do Mar Dala!”
“Put it DOWN! Pick it UP! God you can’t do anything right. Where is it? Where are they? They’re late! Oh they’re here, why haven’t they started?!”
“These caterers aren’t as good as the Hinduja’s wedding ones” “Oh God here we go again, blah blah blah, the Hindujas this the Hindujas that”
“They’ve messed EVERYTHING up! I wanted sob the tables names handwritten in gold on mottled wafer, they’ve written them on EGGSHELL! That’s like a poor man’s paper! Waaaa!”
Etc. Ah I’m being unfair on Asians, ALL weddings are like that.
razib:
“…have more explicitly defined concentric circles of affinity and identification and emphasize a continuity with a traditional south asian cultural stream which can not (will not) be subsumed into the broader south asian american culture….”
After reading your latest comment (#117), I found myself agreeing for the most part. I’ll just note my dissent from the notion of ‘tradition’ implicit in the extract from your comment above.
Tradition, at least in the sense I employ it, does not mean a retreat from the broader culture in the sense that, say, Hasidic Jews seemingly do. Rather, for a number of reasons, tradition in my sense involves an engagement with the broader culture for a number of reasons. Not least among them, a better understanding of one’s own tradition. Perhaps a good example of what I have in mind is the 20th-century Indian philosopher J.L. Mehta, or going back a bit more, Kumarla Bhat.
Tradition, conceived in this manner, is not a threat to the democratic ethos and culture of this country since the possibility of changing one’s mind is an implicit condition of engaging in argument and counter-argument. You may well dismiss this as a merely theoretical possibility but I think the product of JL Mehta’s study of/with Heidegger and Halbfass or Kumarila Bhat’s engagement with the Buddhists were not empty achievements.
Certainly, I don’t wish to disrupt this country’s fabric: It’s provided my family and other KP’s (and so many others) with a safe harbor. I think America has little to fear–and much to gain–from traditionalism in this sense.
Btw, I don’t mean that all I ever do is contemplate Mehta and Heidegger. Far from it, I’m a vigorous consumer of all sorts of Western products, ‘high’ and ‘low’. 😉
Kumar
Any other and they will demand conversion or try every trick in the book to torpedo the marriage. personal exp. speaking?
Nah, because they thought they were getting ‘5. Practicing Christians or Jews in same order as above for men only.’
With her parents being religious, they attributed her parents religion to her because according to my parents you always have your parents religion.
In Islam men can marry Christian and Jewish women.
In the Desi culture however there are atleast some problems with men marrying christian or jewish women. The Arab men and their families are way more comfortable with marrying Jewish or Christian women. The Desis are more leary of marrying Non Muslims (even christians or jews) because for the Desis the Non Muslims usually means ‘Hindus’, marriage with whom is impermissible period. Leeriness towards marrying Non Muslims has now become a part of the desi culture and they feel the same hesistancy when their men marry christian/jewish women, even though it is permissible under Islam. In the Arab world, apart from the Muslims the ‘other’ are the Christians and therefore they dont have the same leeriness about marrying Christians or Jews.
MD
no apologies necessary, i tend to rant a lot and don’t realize that I’m not always conveying my intended point.
*leary – leery 😉
This is an interesting read, especially since the race issue has come up, someone forwarded it to me so I donÂ’t know which newspaper it is from. If nothing else it is worth a few laughs! Hey donÂ’t hate the messenger, I just cut and paste…
Dear Editor:
I’m sorry but I would like to challenge some of your Indian male readers. I am a White female who is engaged to an Indian male, good-looking, educated and loving. I just don’t understand alot of Indian female’s attitudes about our relationship. My man decided he wanted me because the pickings amongst Indian women were slim to none. As he said they were either too fat, too loud, too mean, too argumentative, too needy, too materialistic or carrying too much excess baggage. Before I became engaged, whenever I went out I was constantly approached by Indian men, willing to wine and dine me and give me the world. If Indian women are so up in arms about us being with their men, why don’t they look at themselves and make some changes. I am tired of the dirty looks I get and snide remarks when we’re out in public. I would like to hear from some Indian men about why we white women are so appealing and coveted by them. Bryant Gumbel left his wife of 26 years for one of us. Charles Barkley, Scottie Pippen, Montell Williams, Quincy Jones, James Earl Jones, Harry Belafonte, Sydney Poitier, Kofi Anan, Cuba Gooding Jr. I could go on and on. But, right now, I’m a little angry and that is why I wrote this so hurriedly. Don’t be mad with us White women because so many of your men want us. Get your acts together and learn from us and we may lead you to treat your men better. If I’m wrong, Indian men, let me know. A Disgusted White Girl
The Response: Dear Editor: I would like to respond to the letter written by A Disgusted White Girl. Let me start by saying that I am a 28-year old Indian man. I graduated from one of the most prestigious universities in Atlanta, Georgia with a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Business Management. I have a good job at a major corporation and have recently purchased a house. So, I consider myself to be among the ranks of successful Non-White men. I will not use my precious time to slander white people. I just want to set the record straight of why Indian men date white women. Back in the day, one of the biggest reasons why Indian men dated white women was because they were considered easy. The Indian girls in my neighborhood were raised traditionally. They were very strict about when they lost their virginity and who they lost it to. Because of our impatience to wait, brothers would look for someone who would give it up easy without too much hassle. So, they turned to the white girls. Nowadays, in my opinion, a lot of Indian males date white women because they are docile and easy to control. A lot of Indian men, because of insecurities, fears, and overall weaknesses, have become intimidated by the strength of our Indian women. We are afraid that our woman will be more successful than us, make more money than us, drive nicer cars and own bigger houses. Because of this fear, many Indian men look for a more docile woman. Someone we can control. I have talked to numerous Indian men and they continuously comment on how easy it is to control and walk over their white women. Non-Whites like Ahmad Rashad, Denzel Washington, Michael Jordan, Morris Chestnut, Will Smith, Kenneth “Babyface” Edmonds, Samuel L.Jackson,and Chris Rock all married strong Non-White women. And, to flip the script, there are numerous white men, in and out of the spotlight, who openly or secretly desire Non-White women over white women. Ted Danson, Robert DeNiro, and David Bowie to name a few. I just don’t want a disgusted white girl to be misinformed. When Non-White Egyptian Queens like Hatsepshut and Nitorcris were ruling Dynasties and armies of men in Egypt, you were over in the caves of Europe eating raw meat and beating each other over the head with clubs. Read your history! Indian women were born with two strikes against them: being Non-White and being a woman. And, through all this, still They Rise! It is because of the Indian women’s strength, elegance, power, love and beauty that I could never date anyone except my Indian Queen. It is not the fact that they come in all shapes, sizes, colors and shades that I love them. Their strong spirit, loving and nurturing souls, their integrity, their ability to overcome great obstacles, their willingness to stand for what they believe in, and their determination to succeed and react their & get the highest potential while enduring great pain and suffering is why I have fallen in love with Indian women. Indian Royalty
Ummm.. cinnamon rani (#129), I think someone search-replaced ‘Black men’ to ‘Indian men’. The emails and the examples don’t make much sense in the Indian/SA context.
Does everybody realize madarchod = mother f**ker. Just informing non-hindi people.
Does everybody realize madarchod = mother f**ker. Just informing non-hindi people
i realize it
Al Mujahid for debauchry
Most FOB Hindu parents would put fellow desi Indian Muslims only above blacks and I have had loads of people confirm this.
FOB Muslim parents from India and Pakistan place fellow desi Hinus underneath blacks and I have had loads of people confirm this.
Good catch Babloo. I missed that too the first time I read it but it seems obvious in retrospect.
Babloo, I realize it too.
And I think Ann On as well.
Bong Breaker, hilarious post!
FOB Muslim parents from India and Pakistan place fellow desi Hinus underneath blacks and I have had loads of people confirm this.
Campa-Cola, I was not implying that FOB Muslims are any less prejudiced than FOB Hindus. In my comment # 121, I clearly laid that out.
I can confirm this. Though prefences can be strange, my parents don’t mind blacks cause my aunt married a black guy and he gets along with everyone. I think they also prefer non-desi muslims (excluding arabs) over desi-muslims which is pretty screwed up.
Also my dad tends to be pretty laidback but he prefers catholics over protestants (or was it the other way round ?) for reasons I don’t understand.
My mom wants me to marry a nice Indian hindu gujarati patel-leva girl.
She knows its not very realistic, because her son is too American (we live in canada), but thats what I should be aiming for.
i have read that “post” before where it was about african americans
HOLY CRAP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I never clicked on over to the NYT: the pictures of Anamika’s wedding – she is my cousin!!!!!!!! Dudes, this was a love match!!
Six degrees of desi separation on SM. I am so gonna call my Mom right now.
Where else but the NY Crimes will you get a writer who cites MoonFackinStruck as a cultural signpost for 20somethings. So many thoughts…too many…
I would love to add my own anecdotal stories/ grossly bizarre generalizations/Zenn diagrams of endogamy rates but it’s a been a busy day at the factory, it’s the start of the weekend and I’m South Asian and we all know what that means… it’s my solemn duty to make new special friends in the East Village of whom I have no intention of marrying and sharing my superior millenia-old culture and traditions with.
Wow, This ‘Indian royalty’ person is either masquerading as a guy, or has been well tutored by his ‘strong’ Indian wife.
Wait…wasn’t part of the problem that Indian guys go back to India to marry Indian ‘chaste, docile and submissive’ wives?
Since when did white women become ‘docile and easy to walk over’? I thought the problem was the opposite…I am just so confused now.
And if anyone complains that keeping one’s virginity makes one ‘stronger’, my BS alarm will go to red alert. I have an instant allergy to anything that sounds like my mother, unfortunately.
Hmmm…the ‘black men’ thing makes sense for cinammon rani’s post. Sigh…great righteous indignation lost to no purpose 🙁
I’ve never seen “Dawson’s Creek,” but Moonsucked was awful. I’m an Nth generation American, and even I haven’t accepted that “Western model of romantic attachment.” shudder Those who do initially accept that model, will have it beaten out of them after a few rounds of New York dating.
Wait..wait..this seems to have wandered far from Abhi’s rant against the Time’s glossy ode to love: India-estyle…
Do the incestuous couplings of “Dawson’s Creek” really represent the “Western model of romantic attachment?”
Marrying into your own religious, ethnic, caste, class, etfuckingcetera in order to preserve your culture is a pretty lazy way of going about preserving it, innit? What – you can’t keep cooking (and feeding your kids) samosas and pakoras, attending temple, speaking (and teaching your kids) your language, live your ‘values’ with someone non-desi? Look at all the half-breeds on this site! They, like many other half-desis I know are far more actively involved in desi culture than most of the full-browns of my acquaintance!
Arranged marriages might be modernized ‘assists’ now, but some still involve that lovely practice of dowry-demanding. How is it liberating to be assessed like a cow at a livestock show? I love my mom, but she has quite a knack for disliking the nicest men and being amused by jerks. So your parents always know better than you how exactly? Especially when you’re thirtyfackinyears old..shouldn’t you be able to judge character for yourself?
Cinnamon Rani– Those letters are fast becoming an urban legend, like Oprah’s Tommy Hilfiger interview. I had originally seen them on one of the mixed-race listservs, supposedly printed in a black women’s magazine.
I suspect this was doctored up to serve a brown purpose, as all the celebrities cited for mixing with gaure are black men.
Sorry to be the Mythbuster
word, cicatrix. You my girl. 😉
Cacatrix,
sure, one can preserve ones culture without marrying into one’s “community”. and i bet there are some arranged marriages with dowry, and other demeaning practices toward women (and toward men as well). and I’m sure there are non-desi people who practice desi culture
that does not mean that a desi person can marry another desi person and get married, and they both don’t practice their culture in a progressive way, and they were introduced by family or friends
dude I used to be able to type.
I’ll take a page out of MD’s book and re-explain myself
desi people can marry other desi people and be progressive about it, get help from family and friends, and its all good.
if you don’t need to marry a desi, do you don’t not need to marry one either
ps truth be told it pisses me off a bit that in order to have the freedom to marry a non-desi/whatever the case may be, people have to down people who do choose to date desi.
i know there’s pressure to date desi, and i bet a person feels the need to justify themselves, but still, its a bit lame.
we can poke holes in every culture and generalize about why it would be a bad idea to marry into its norms.
ok, i must go. have chai.
Well the attorney in me has psychotically tracked down the person who started to forward the Disgusted White Girl/Indian Royalty letters and itÂ’s from the Atlanta Daily World, forwarded to me by my sister in law who got it from one of her fellow residents at Emory. And it has not been changed so it is actually some pissed of desi and gori. And btw Indian women are indeed the strongest women in the world! Think of your mum and you will know what I mean!
Rani,
no way dude. there is no way a desi person wrote back calling himself indian royalty. i mean please
Anyway who cares! Eventually the whole world will be brown or some undistinguishable color. If some white girl wants an Indian boy she can have him! God knows she going to get hell when she meets his mummy!