Ever since I got my nano, I have been obsessed with downloading podcasts. Since there isn’t a Sepia Mutiny podcast for me to download (ahem) I do the next best thing and listen to a Desi Dilemma, a podcast by a woman named Smitha Radhakrishnan. This week’s series on ‘Desi Love’ perked my ear up- seeing as how the search for a ‘suitable mate’ is always at the forefront topic for most mutineers (or so it seems).
“There was a clear message from the Indian community about dating, that it was somehow inextricably linked with the most dangerous, scary thing that could befall an ABCD kid; an identity crisis.”
As has been mentioned before on this blog, as an ABCD youth one often had to deal with the projection by your peers that the only people you were expected to date is that one other desi in the school, even though you had nothing in common with them. Forget the fact that you weren’t allowed to date; if you had been, there was no one there for you to date, in the often confusing bi-cultural high school years. For me, this reminds me of senior prom. And prom reminds me of how my mother wouldn’t let me go to prom unless I went with my gay guy friend because only then would she know nothing would happen to me on prom night. How’s that for bi-cultural confusion?
Though in the realm of desi pride now, growing up there was also the conflict of trying to fit in and be as American as possible. I recently received the following e-mail:
I came to US at a young age, I faced discrimination from those who were born here… they acted like they were too good for me…Then as I made closer friendship with Americans to avoid all the bulls***t south Asians were giving, the new comers from south Asia started giving me the same crap. Eventually I became this “white boy” among SAs..Of course, I have learned to deal with such issues as I’ve grown up …But this question has always lingered in my mind… why do SAs hate each other? What makes US born’s better than those who come here? And how is it that those US born’s turn SAs so quickly during college years, and see those whom they disdained for being SA in the first place still as different?
Now that I’m older and in the ivory tower I can use big words like assimilation and racialization to analyze the divide in the generations, but really, when you’re just a kid in school, all you are trying to do is fit in. Being able to analyze this factor of bi-cultural identity now doesn’t make dating for a 20-something female any easier. In fact, knowing the internalized identity issues simply makes searching for love all the more confusing. There’s desi chick lit trying to manuever around it, and I regularly read a various group of blogs by single desi females all talking about similar issues. We are bombarded with desi dating websites, as well as pressure from family. Until that tab for Sepia Destiny is created, what’s a single girl got to do?
As Smitha asks in her podcast, and I’d like to further pose to you on this lazy Saturday afternoon,
“Are there things about being desi that give us a different set of expectations about our love life and our marital lives than our non-Indian peers?”
quit trying to be so profound. more manish!
huh! who snuck a turd in your egg basket?
taz is to the blog what fruitcake is to christmas, and what chai is to pakora parties.
BTW… i heard a desi wish someone a happy good friday the other day… umm.. thought i’d share.
dating while desi…is more complicated than Sudoku puzzles
More complicated than solving a Rubick’s cube under 30 seconds…
well, there’s the whole: “beti, a marriage is between two FAMILIES, not just two people.”
i’ll admit…i went to a HS where i was the only South Asian…maybe even Asian, for that matter….and until college came around, I thought I was white. then i went to college (UT….15% brown….30% in natural sciences and engineering), and found myself unable to relate to FOBs, and the brown kiddos from Houston. i went through phases of being brazilian, senegalese, indie rocker…etc etc.
and now i’m just waiting for the Sepia Destiny tab….
lol That is a little funny though. Some ABCDs clump together into little Desi cliques in order to hold on to their culture, while others assimilate and become white-washed or black-washed or yellow-washed. The same is true with those born in India; they either remain FOBs forever or become what I like to call IBCDs, like me.
i wonder if at some point it will simply become about finding someone with whom you can share your life with unencumbered with whether s/he is indian or hindu or whatever. where the authentic connection is more important than whether or not they can fit into the mold we are told to fit into. where i understand that there are certain facets of a person that do matter for the ease with which the shared life can end up being, but isn’t it also true that the most challenging things in life are also the most rewarding? so perhaps that challenge will end up creating something more meaningful and worthwhile. but i think the criticism is that this is highly idealistic thinking.
No wonder, I can’t seem to get the hang of it.
I agree, and its not any easier for the guys either. However, I do find desi girls far more attractive, perhaps for the same reason that Thai women find Thai food more nutritious?
but isn’t it also true that the most challenging things in life are also the most rewarding?
or the reason for a societies high divorce rate?
the comment about “why do SAs hate each other so much” … good question – I don’t know. in my opinion, for what its worth they hate everyone else equally.
The most blantantly racist remarks that I’ve heard uttered by anyone in my few years in the united states have been by indians… all kinds, fobs, abcds whatever.
something culturally wrong with us if we can only tolerate clones of ourselves.
Oh Taz you have managed to invoke such deep thoughts in the deep pores of my soul with your short little visit. I dread the day you will be gone from SM.
Oh being desi and American all at once is all screwed up if you ask me. It’s like having a devil and an angel on your shoulder everytime you are attracted to someone. You psychoanalyze the possibility to death long before you even smile or get to say hello. Messed up I tell you messed up. In my next lifetime I’m coming back as a fish or a bird. No more desi chick for me thank you very much.
Ofcourse it’s complicated for us because non Indians are open to the possiblity of love with anyone. We (well me and people I know so don’t want to generalize) have expectations and stipulations that need to be met before we’ve even met the person. Ugh.
echoing JOAT…I don’t know if there’s any SM precedent for this, and so be that as it may, this might be up to the mutineers to decide – but is there any chance Taz could stay forever? 🙂 Its going to be hard seeing this wonderfully but temporarily doubled female representation on SM halved when she leaves…sniff
Are there things about being desi that give us a different set of expectations about our love life and our marital lives than our non-Indian peers?
The ‘expectations’ become even more confusing and complicated, when you were born and raised both in India and the U.S.; end up living in the U.S. being an American – where initially you start out being a FOB and slowly move towards being an ABCD, but in the end you can’t decide if you are a FOB or an ABCD.
How about an SM podcast.. I guess it’s high time we had one. They’re easy enough to do and I’m pretty sure a lot of the SM readership would welcome it.
but i think the criticism is that this is highly idealistic thinking. You said it, sister!
I never quite understand why dating is such a big deal in the Indian American community (both ABCDs and FOBs). Last week I met a long lost (FOB) friend who is going to marry his (ABCD) girlfriend, and he spent an hour explaining their respective stands on dating. The essence of his speech was that he had dated casually before but did not believe in “getting serious” before he met this girl, while she has been in “a few stable relationships”.
I found it most amazing (and more than a little awkward) that my friend felt the need to explain himself, and to almost apologize for his own and his girlfriend’s dating history. This is the first time we had met for seven years, and he launches into this within minutes of saying hi.
In India, where I live and have dated for several years, you either date or you don’t – it never is the defining issue of your life. And I have never had a discussion with friends about “my stand on dating”.
Another incident springs to mind. On a visit to America last year, I met a (rather attractive) brown girl in a bar. When I asked her about the local nightlife, she said “you know, as an Indian I am not supposed to go out much – it is against our culture. I maybe go for a drink with the girls once in a while”. I was shocked not only at her presumptions (“against OUR culture”), but also her defensive and rather apologetic attitude. Does it stem from the fear of being branded as “too American”?
I sympathize completely with the plight, but I don’t think desis are alone in this kind of situation. Say a person is Mexican-American, they could be confronted by the same thing. Or people of different regions of the country, different social backgrounds, religions.
I think it is very complicated though, and frankly kind of hard work to navigate these issues. Some people seem to just get it though, and hats off to them
no offense to the incredibly conflicted dating-troubled people here, but at some point you have to step back and look at everything from a viewpoint unencumbered by cultural baggage and tradition: date someone who is a good match for you, regardless of skin color, heritage, and most importantly, what your family will think. it is really easier than you think to do this – it just takes a shift in your mindset.
Dish – it’s great to do this, until one side or the other throws down the gauntlet. Then you end up having to choose, and one side makes you pay. I’ve been in a couple of long relationships with non-Indians – last one was six years long. One of my parents hated the guy, and had a number of crises in which I had to basically put my bf on the backburner while I ran to play nurse/therapist etc. My ex did not get why I had to take on this burden (I’m an only child). Non-Indians don’t always understand the dynamics at play in Indian families, nor the responsibility you feel. For a lot of them a spouse or bf should always come first. Anyway, it’s extremely stressful and painful to get caught in the middle.
I agree. Think of it this way. You need a female (Taz) to balance out the extra male (Fofatlal). Or perhaps you need 00-era lip piercings (Taz) to balance out 70s-era sideburns and glasses (Fofatlal). I’ll leave the other justifications to you.
I agree Dharma Queen. It’s more than just mindset. The weight and the impact of most of our families on our lives and the constant negotiation we have to engage in between them and our personal lives is staggering. I’ve been with non-browns with much more frequency than the brown and no matter how interested, open, educated my non-brown partners have been, at the end of the day, the role of the dutiful (and I use this term loosely) daughter and my refusal to make my romantic relationship the single most important focus in my life, always kills it. However, I’ve known that statistically, I’m much less likely to get along in any kind of romantic partnership with the brown guys – so what to do.
As I grow older however, I think my eyes are being opened to the existence of brown guys who are just as interesting, as queer-positive, politically aware, feminist, critical and with just as great a taste in music as the whiteys I’ve been with – and with a wealth of knowing stories about mom to share to boot. I’m not making any decisions either way with this whole bi-racial issue because the older I grow, the more complicated it all becomes, but it’s been gratifying and a relief to know that there are sexy brown boys with sexy brown brains that I had just never encountered before, thanks to the circles I moved in. Payal brings up a very good point about us “inbetweens”. What do you do when you’re both a FOB and an ABCD and neither? What do you do when no matter which side of things your partner is on, there’s always an entire set of issues about which you feel alienated from them about? And why are we so issue-laden as a community? Aaak.
Also – Taz, my fellow labretted Bengali sister, you gotta stay. Gots to.
Thank you Taz! Allow me to gripe: Non-desis assume desis won’t date non-desis. And its not just ABCD youth who have to deal with this. I’ve had a white guy recently complain that, “Indians are the most endogenous group of people when it comes to dating.” I’ve had a black guy tell me, “Too bad there’s no one here for you to date,” referring to the dearth of brown at my grad school. (He’s dating a white girl.) I think all of us have non-desi friends/Co-workers who say, “I know a single Indian guy/girl. I should set you two up.” My well meaning friends rarely put much thought about personality or compatibility into the set up besides, she’s Indian, he’s Indian. I adore my desi boys (especially those with “smooth skin the color of café con leche” :-P) but I’m equal opportunity when it comes to dating.
Brownfrown – thanks so much for your comment. I often feel I’m in the wilderness when it comes to all these issues in dating non-Indians, because most of the desi people I have known date desis, period. Which seems false and mechanical to me. If someone desi comes along, then great, but in the meantime…
“Are there things about being desi that give us a different set of expectations about our love life and our marital lives than our non-Indian peers?”
Number one question on my mind right now. Unfortunately, I should be doing something else other than procrastinating on this site and answering this question.
SEPIA DESTINY!!
Hmmm…. just a couple of inputs:
Re: the issue of meeting a desi who has the same interests as you – particularly if you aren’t “mainstream” (regarding music, politics, social life etc): Most people are “mainstream” period, regardless of their ethnic background. The percentage of desis isn’t huge to begin with – thus, when you try to find a partner who complies with both criteria of “non-mainstream” and “desi” you will soon discover like-minded individuals of the same ancestry are few and far between. Hence, you may have to date outside of your ethnic background/desi community. Yeah, it’d be nice to find a fellow desi, but don’t sweat it. I’ve gotten over myself being the be-all and end-all of the desi lineage. Even the whole “non-mainstream” criteria can be ridiculous at times, esp the older I get. I really don’t give a shit anymore if someone has heard of yo-la-tengo or not – bah – forget the pretentious crap – the definition of cool in my book has really changed for the better.
Re: Complying with Family Wishes: I understand that this is a difficult one. I’ve been there… but at the end of the day, your future family or possible future family (and thus, spouse) comes first. Note this is not advice to star-cross’d tweens, but rather for those in their mid-twenties to thirties and beyond. Sooner or later, you’ve got to live your life! Best of luck…
I apologize if I am not making any sense. It’s extremely hot and humid right now and I just had a couple of brewskies to cool off!!
Metric Ang, While I get your sentiment behind what you’re saying – I’ve long gotten over wanting to date hipsters, scensters, bass players, and nerds who are nerds for the hip aesthetic appeal (not to exlude any of those people – except maybe scensters) – I don’t think that a search for someone who’s “non-mainstream” is as superficial for most of us as you may be suggesting. Even though the Yo La Tengo is a definite plus, it’s more to do with similar political and societal convictions than anything else.
Your point about economies of scale is a bang on. However, that doesn’t really change the fact that for a lot of us, bi-racial relationships continue to be problematic for certain reasons while desi relationships continue to be unlikely for others. It was once much easier to date non-desis back in the day when I was blissfully unconcerned with my issues of identity and of constant displacement, but the older I get, the more the desi leaps up at every inconvinient moment, to bite me in the ass, so to speak. So now what?
As for the family stuff; ideally I’d like it to be so my future family, whatever form that takes, and my biological family are equal priorities that get along with each other. It’s a little heartless if I up and take off into the Canadian wilderness with my partner and leave the ‘rents to deal with whatever aging in this country entails. The problem is, that if I’m stressed out constantly about their crappy relationship with each other and if they both think that my infatuation with the other is a sign of my oppression or my delusion, things just get ugly… for me. So yes yes, it’s my life, I’m an adult, I have to be with whoever is “right” for me yada yada but as a self-admitted overanalyzer and a desi person of no place, trying to figure out what that could possibly mean with any degree of pragmatism is an incredibly complex and daunting prospect.
Speaking of here’s a link to Achar. a sitcom on the AZN channel about a Paki guy and Asian girl, complete with overbearing obese Punjabi mother/mother-in law. It’s horrible but we are starved for desi media portrayals…
Studies and Razib have shown brown females and males raised in the states outermarry at a fair rate, around 20% percent. Maybe this guy was talking about his own failures with brown dating. A guy gets dissed by one brown girl and by nature he’s going to make a generalized statement based on this one experience. A unattractive acquanitance of said to me, “Indian girls don’t date outside their own race’, I was too nice to mention the real reason he was having trouble with women. Brown, white, or otherwise
awww brownfrown…. I completely understand what you are going through! Believe me you. Especially with the ‘rents. I suppose the “answers” are different for each person, and you’re just going to have to find the right balance for you. I know that sounds like a simplistic answer, but maybe, there is no one definitive answer. Each of our parent sets have varying degrees of craziness on the sane to crazy continuum – from Abhi’s uber-cool, supportive dad to fearful parents who make their kids lives a living hell; as such, we are all going to have various methods of coping with the generation and cultural gap.
And as far as dating outside the desi community – it’s definitely frustrating when you date someone who seems to have all the liberal ideas you do – but then you discover they’re just spitting out rhetoric and have no real idea what visible minorities, woman, and desis have to deal with. I completely understand that there are very few people that can transcend their own life experiences – I can see how not having to explain yourself and your experiences would be easier with another desi. I’ll give you that one.
I don’t think wanting to date non-mainstream types is superficial – especially when it comes to political ideas – one less thing to argue about.
Finally, it would be nice to have someone who your parents approve of (while I hope that everyone can find the perfect mate for EVERYONE) but sometimes this doesn’t happen. Actually, this doesn’t happen quite often. So, what do you do? I’m not suggesting you leave your parents to go off into the sunset with a fling! No, no, noooooo….. but your parents should have to compromise a little – it definitely sounds like you’ve sacrificed/compromised alot yourself. I think this is especially hard for us as women, who feel we have to be nurturing. Sometimes parents can take advantage of this…. and some are very manipulative.
I do get you and I appreciate your thoughts and dilemma. Rest assured, your sentiments are shared by many here at the mutiny. I don’t think your feelings are superficial at all, and if you ever want to contact me to chit the chat, I’ve linked my addie. 🙂
Metric Ang and Brownfrown – Lord, do I hear you both. It is such a relief not to get either the blank-stare-don’t-you-think-they’re-a-bit-overbearing reaction from non-Indian acquaintances, or the I-never-liked-him-your-love-life-is-not-important act from the parents/relatives. There can definitely be manipulation, and on both ends. Your non-Indian friends/bf can want you to be like them – ‘liberating’ you as it were, from ‘oppression’ – while your Indian parents/relatives exercise control through emotional ties.
Unfortunately, some of us are pushed into making a choice. One side or the other or both don’t compromise but attack eachother ceaselessly, without regard to your happiness. In order to make this choice, you need a certain ruthlessness that doesn’t come naturally in your early twenties, for example, when you want to tell people to give peace a chance.
Dharmaqueen, brownfrown, metric ang — reading your comments truly makes me feel relieved that I’m not the only one contending with these issues. You don’t know how many times I’ve told my mother that I could “never marry an Indian because I’m too … different.” It’s not even that I’m “too good” for the md/jd/IT/i-banking clones, but I honestly believe they would never be attracted to someone like me. While music and politics a marriage does not make, my tastes in certain things are so far outside of mainstream culture that I really think my chances of finding an Indian guy who is compatible with me are slim to none. I’ve started to become a little bummed out about this stuff lately, to be honest. The majority of my ex-bf’s have been white guys — great guys, too, and we didn’t break of for obvious cultural reasons. But there’s a new part of me that would really like to find a brownie to settle down with and I just don’t know where I’m going to find this Prince Charming … er … Prince Rama 😉
Milli, I’ve been there – besides being raised in a pretty white town, I took up philosophy in school – not exactly a brown-dude magnet. My tastes were outside the mainstream too, and as someone without any mansion-on-a-hill ambition, I figured few desi guys would be interested in me. I was rarely asked out by Indian guys, just white guys. Even the desi guys I hit on, there was just never any spark. Like someone said earlier, don’t stress. If you’re dead set on a desi, have a couple of flings at least and get it out of your system, so you can move on.
echoing JOAT…I don’t know if there’s any SM precedent for this, and so be that as it may, this might be up to the mutineers to decide – but is there any chance Taz could stay forever?
could she?! love your posts!
🙂 metric ang & dharma queen & millivanilli – I just came back from a brown girl’s feminist social group a few maladusted brown sisters have started up in my city and I thought of your posts often. We’re small (and open to displaced brown boy feminists too) and our “meetings” usually consist of sitting in restraunts, being very loud, drinking lots, eating lots and talking about the our (always) biracial relationships, our families (usually insane moms, clueless dads) and our alienation from other desis – romantically and otherwise. We started our group thinking we might turn it into political activism but realised that what we really needed was to nurture ourselves by just being around people who felt just as confused as we each do. And in this city, with a pretty tiny population of “alterna” desis, that’s not very easy to do. None of us have very many answers but it’s comforting to be around other people with questions and angst and seemingly functional yet totally bewildering double lives.
Anyway, it’s been great to share my thoughts with you and to hear your thoughts on these issues – I think it’s important to remember that we are pioneers in a sense; there is a whole generation of us growing up more inbetween and with more pressures than anyone preceeding us. Maybe we need to give up on the very idea of an answer and enjoy the process of exploring the strange place we occupy and the even stranger interractions we have with the people around us. Maybe it’s in the giving up that we’ll be freed. disclaimer – I blame this cheese-fest on all the wine we just downed
interesting note on ‘finding lasting love’ issues described by all in different forms above:
-i’m guessing most of the people who post on here are hindu/muslim, and i’m neither so i have a slightly different set of experiences relating to this…
-but here’s a v scary thing to be worried about taken from an old indian aunty i know is a ‘match-maker’ ie blind dates of introducing people who are ready to get married and setting them up on dates vs. meet-me-then-marry-me-the-next-day style…
-people describing as a conflict between dating white boys but then wondering whether in the end they should end up with a brown boy…listen to this:
-this old lady admitted that while in the past she used to get people coming to her because they thought this was best for them, nowadays she is more likely to get girls who are feeling: -down in general about life or going through a bad patch career wise etc. -on the REBOUND from a bi-cultural relationship -feeling defeated by constant pressures from their families and community in general
-i’m not making any judgments on people who decide to date people unassisted vs ‘assisted’, but i’m just saying that for those who choose this option from a place where they are unhappy in themselves this may not be the best way to go.
-we won’t be ‘liberated’ by non-SA’s or ‘held back’ by our own, because most people are an unqualifiable and complicated mix of both, but i’m just saying it was v scary to hear this old aunty cackling away about preying on poor culturally confused souls or heartbroken rebounders like a vulture on the lookout for fresh meat…
-i do not believe that there is some intrinsic quality that makes it easier for some to relate to other SA’s, I think its an environmental thing that gives us something in common. For people with a strong sense of individuality it takes more than shared experiences of being desi to make them feel really connected to another person. if that other person happens to be brown AND also get along with them on an individual level, then problem solved for families. if not…make beautiful hot bi-racial babies. Once those aunties see those light-eyed gorgeous creatures, its possible that all may be forgiven…
Bingo. You said it. I always feel like there are some issues only desi parents understand. Why I won’t follow my heart and move to SF but choose to stay on the east coast because my parents are getting old. Why my parents opinion is important to me. I share a complex and close relationship with my family and I’d hate to have to make excuses for it to someone non Indian. Only another Indian understands the idiocyncracies and complexicities of our cultural baggage.
With all due respect I think it’s very easy for people to say “oh screw the baggage and tradition” you’ll be happier. But many of us actually enjoy that baggage and traditions no matter how much it binds us and find strange comfort and identity in it. Sometimes the “good match” is someone that understands who you are and where you come from and what your priorities are. And for most of us it isn’t always about what the family will think but family is a huge part of our lives and imporatant to most of us, what is so wrong I say about making harmonous choices that make them happy as well?
I remember when I had a profile on Match once and I was seeking someone Indian I used to get a lot of disgruntled non desi men telling me I was being narrow minded and myopic in only seeking an Indian man. I hate to be made to feel like I should apologize for it. We are all perfectly entitled to what our hearts desire, whether it’s a brown man, a midget or a martian!
sorry meant to say
Bingo. You said it. I always feel like there are some issues only desi
parentsfriends understand.also brownfrown:
love the wine-fuelled rants 🙂 keep goin gurly with your feminist group too!
-also ive noticed that conventional desis sometimes feel threatened by alterna desis too which is why alternas may feel judged/looked down on by them. they think people listening to alternative music or wearing independent designers or even not doing their hair in beyonce styles means that alternas are judging THEM… its like a big awful misunderstanding that could just be solved with WINE 🙂
-even the checked-shirt wearing, hair parted down the middle quiet brown boy in the corner could turn into a v different person with some vino in his system…
What I never get is why are WE the generation that is going through this social dilemmas and not ABCD’s of the previous generation, people our parents’ age who were brought up outside of India must have faced just the same amount, if not more, stigma then usual? so why do we feel the pinch but they seem relatively content?
Is it MTV? hahah
and adding on, I do not think arranged marraiges are all that terrible. I get very annoyed by all the desi girls going and “omg, you are getting an arranged marraige” or by non indians who go “omg, that is so victorian”
I think we have become more enlightened, as have our parents and I do not think urban indians are subject to the “see that boy/girl? You’re marrying him tomorrow”
If you think about it, its just a family dating service. What makes us any different from the scores of Westerners who log on to eharmony.com or friendster.com. At the end of the day, its about creating opportunity, finding someone you like, clicking with them and hopefully it will progress. If you meet a boy you like that you may have got to know through shaadi.com, so what?
Why stigmatise and propogate the stigmatisation? I do think that our parents are going to force us to marry any indian boy for the sake of him being a doctor or sitting in silicon valley. Even India Indian parents are becoming more enlightened, the fascination of the green card is waning and yes,well, I do not deny they pressurise us with all the nonsense about “i’m getting on in years, need to see my grandkids” but at the end of the day, they want us to be happy too =]
Moreover, I think that to many of us desi kids, parental approval is important and this is why we feel the pinch. We are unable to say SCREW YOU and run away for love. We need our parents to approve and want them to like the person! So, what is so terrible about letting them on in the process a little?
And to my way of thinking,albeit, romantically =D, whether you fall in love or get an arranged marraige, there is a reason why you meet your other half. And if you are fated to meet him ,then arranged or chancing upon him in a coffee joint or whatever doesn’t really matter =)If its fate, shrug
Excuse any incoherence, its late for me here and my eyelids are drooping =)
sorry, I just can’t seem to shut up 🙂
And well, coming from Singapore, let me tell you bi cultural dating is no easier here either and its definitely not exclusive to desis. The Chinese get it, the Malays get it and the Indians get it too. I have friends whose parents seem really liberal, letting them club, drinking with them, letting them hang out till the wee hours of the morning,( supposedly contrary to what good Asian girls should do ;]) but yet the minute, one of them started dating a malay guy, the supposedly westernised chinese mother and father were ranting on about culture. Hypocrisy, perhaps but we all face the same issue.
At the end of the day, what they(we) are afraid of is the disintegration of the culture. No matter, how much you try to retain much of it, there will always be compromises ( not necessarily a bad thing because we do have some idiotic cultural superstitions) and traditional beliefs that you were unaware that existed within you starts emerging. And since, marraiges are compromises anyway better, it be with a person who understands your background better than a person who doesn’t!
And well, if it meant to be, it is meant to be 🙂
This is fun y’ll. Enjoyed hearing JOAT, brownfrown, and metric ang air their desi love dilemmas. As an older FOB, (not old, you get me, just older than y’ll) just about to divorce my desi husband who was a friend for many years in grad school, a sad end to a relationship based on so many Utopian projections, I can totally relate from the other side (been there, done that). I always had a fixation on “smooth skin the color of café con leche” and was frustrated by the desi types usually available. I had no experience of dating until well into my twenties, and always felt ‘Orientalized’ or seen through scary borderline-clueless too-liberal glasses by non-desis. So to fast forward the story, our marriage floundered on the rocks of commitment to parents trumps romantic companionate love. I found my ex turning into a traditional desi hubby, slowly forgetting respect for my obvious professional achievements and personal attractions (such as they must have seemed to him in rosy haze days), returning to ‘family-comes-first’ and becoming mama’s boy. Now, I was pretty accomodating and of the grin-and-bear it personality in my marriage even if everyone else knew me as a fiery feminist. My hubby used to be a cool musician, general rebel, with a great sense of irreverant humour. Suddenly everything was sacred, and my behaviour wasn’t reverent enough. My point is, that even if you think you’ve achieved a union of all possible worlds, satisfied your own romantic desires and parental aspirations, ultimately the two-faced commitment dilemma comes back to haunt you. I am very close to my parents and I’ve often asked myself if I wasn’t tolerant enough of my hubby’s late blooming commitment to his. But as someone pointed out in this discussion, one has to have a core commitment to the marriage or relationship first. I found that I couldn’t rest content with an ‘arranged marriage’ type of married life in which I came last, parents, sister, uncles and aunts came first. This is not just because we chose each other in a ‘love marriage’, but also because it’s too late for me to be satisfied with just the security of marriage. We do look for that special friendship, companionship etc, and that is a state of being not very accomodating of responsibility/duty/obligation to parents. And I agree that non-desis don’t understand this dilemma. One of my ex-bfs was a Nepali for christ sake, but having spent most of his life in the US, he just couldn’t understand how my close-ness to family could actually impact my life-decisions. And he just couldn’t reconcile it with my ‘independent’ personality. Hell, even I can’t! It’s very troubling. At other times I think, what if you had a demanding job which kept you away from your SO/spouse more than they would like? Wouldn’t you just factor it into your life? Well, why can’t obligations to parents occupy the same place? You’ve got another job to do and it comes with the territory. Like it or lump it. You can’t, however, give your SO the impression that he/she doesn’t come first–that goes downhill, very fast.
Hey all,
This is also a wine and beer fuelled rant. Just came in from a bar with not one desi male to prey on. I’m also in the I-want-a-cafe-con-leche-skinned man phase, though don’t really want to admit it…have to address Sudz point about the ‘older’ generation. I think they had their own set of very significant problems. Women were just ‘busting out’, working, demanding things. Imagine the upheaval for both males and females. Besides which, the older generation which came to North American were the first which had to flail along without the support of the joint-family system, which, twisted as it was, was entirely rational and worked for most people. When I think about what the older generation went through, I think I am just a whiny spoilt little drama queen.
But Sudz, your point about involving the older generation doesn’t work – that presupposes the ascendancy of the family over romantic love, something most people born in the West have trouble stomaching. People born here are programmed to place romantic love highest, and in the individualistic society we live in, it makes sense to do so. You’re not going to live with your family, you’re going to live with your lover. Why should you involve the older generation in such a decision, when you are the only one who has to live with it.
chandi,
-your post was v inspiring and moving. and its so good to hear about other experiences of people who are (a little!) bit older than me who’s still at the point where all i’m thinking about is sunshine and rainbows in relationships.
-i think the part about how to prioritise your family etc. is very important. i think that some (not all) desis who have issues with dating for their family vs for themselves will admit that deep down, if we really wanted to be with someone, our families would accept us and still love us and not disown us at the end of the day. would there be dramas, guilt-tripping, and threats? hell yeah. would any threats to disown us actually be followed through? no.
-also, despite initial disapproval, hurt etc. they may also learn to understand and respect our choice to prioritise our partners over our families NOT in our whole sense of ourselves as a person, but in our relationship with our significant other. no family, no matter how conservative, would want their children to be unhappy in relationships because they were the focus rather than the relationship itself.
-i have seen this issue come across in my own extended family and no amount of guilt-tripping etc. is going to convince me that ultimately its better and healthier for everyone involved to be true to your own value system of putting your family alongside not above someone you really care about. love and concern are limitless, not something scarce that we allot to our highest priority.
Chandi, Feel for you. We born in the West desis sometimes forget that the cross-generational conflict we face is also actually an intra-cultural one. My Indian cousin, who married on his own, is facing the same sort of struggle with his mother – who is domineering and expects to be number one in his life. Meanwhile, he and his wife are in love, and naturally for them, the relationship comes first. Must be even harder for him, I think, because all around him are people telling him not to be selfish, not to neglect his mother, not to pay so much attention to his wife etc.
I think, pardon me if this is a cirular argument, its just that we cannot possibly conceive of living individualistically apart from our family and I think its programmed into us. And that’s the crux of the problem, family is important to us and we cannot, like our western counterparts, choose consciously and say to “hell with you”. Its not really a conscious choice of involving them ,it just happens. because The very fact that we feel torn, shows that their approval is important to you. Family is a concept we are familiar with, its just that when you throw in the idea of romantic love, the struggle to balance emerges, because to us, they are equally important.
I’m just saying that that pretty much embodies who we are and comes with the territory.
Are there things about being desi that give us a different set of expectations about our love life and our marital lives than our non-Indian peers?”
I’m not so sure about this. Of course my situation is a bit different than that of the average desi living abroad. Since I live in Europe, where desis are few and far between, I think my parents have given up hope a long time ago of me ever finding a desi partner. That, and they already share quite a liberal point of view. They have always made clear to me that they don’t care what nationality or culture my future partner is, as long as he has a good character.
What the point is of the paragraph above? Well, that I’m not really sure what the expectations of our parents are about the love lives of us(desis). My family is not overbearing in the least and has been through several indian/non-indian marriages. I do think that my parents would be pleased if I dated a desi. I don’t think that is ever going to happen though, partly because there simply are no desis in this country, but also because I think Indians from outside Europe have certain perceptions about Indians in Europe!(And I’m not talking about the UK.)
Bottom line, what ARE the expectations of desi parents regarding their children’s romantic lives?
P.S. Please excuse my English, I tend to butcher it a bit since the official language in this country is not English.
echoing others, here’s a disclaimer: i’ve had a lot to drink so take this with a grain of salt 🙂
“-i think the part about how to prioritise your family etc. is very important. i think that some (not all) desis who have issues with dating for their family vs for themselves will admit that deep down, if we really wanted to be with someone, our families would accept us and still love us and not disown us at the end of the day. would there be dramas, guilt-tripping, and threats? hell yeah. would any threats to disown us actually be followed through? no.”
exactly. exactly.
many people here are (understandably) worried about what their family will think. your family just wants what is best for you. believe me, THEY ARE GOING THROUGH THEIR OWN STRUGGLES AND DOUBTS. have they raised their children properly? were they too controlling? or did they let american culture influence their children too much? is that even a bad thing? these things trouble indian parents. in the end, they will always love you incredibly. this is one of the strongest aspects of indian family, and why i am truly proud to be indian. both parents and ABCDs are going through crises at this moment in history. in the end, i suggest that the best thing you can do is to let go: become a citizen of the world. care for your parents, they brought you into this world, love them as any indian should. if your potential partner doesn’t understand, try to make them understand; if they still don’t, i see it as their problem.
i’m sorry if my earlier post made this seem easy, it’s probably not. but it really does involve simply a shift in mindset: towards caring for all people, and finding someone for you that also has that equivalent sense of caring.
on an unrelated note, i need to find some of these “alterna desi” girls – hook me up yo! 🙂
Umm. .. that was probably me. Happy Easter-on-the-modern-calendar! (Sorry, Anna).
Are you ready? My family hasn’t had a desi-desi marriage on this continent.
46 years, baby.
So why? Probably because we lived in White Central (Toronto in 1960 was 60% English and Scottish. Italians and French made up most of the rest. I ain’t lying.) and the family thought it better to marry Christian whites rather than non-Xian desis. The younger generation is all beige & has grown up with brown-white as the norm. Now I’m looking for alterna-desis. We need more brown! Specifically, ABCD, educated, intelligent, artsy brown!
And yes, I am being narrow-minded and myopic, and if this is my goal, I’ll probably end up with an illiterate Swede. Feh.
whee! Dishoom – you’re right. The parents are going through their own crises of identity and it seems more than just the Missisipi Masala variety. My parents are urban, they’re very well-travelled, they’ve led interesting lives had thier share of scandalous pasts (they did grow up in urban India in the 70s and cavort with hippies and the rest of it) and picked their own partners and made mistakes and yet what they really want now for themselves and also want their kids to accept unconditionally is a slow, sedate, safe, suburban life. They would never openly admit that they want our partners to be brown, but with anyone else, the judgement comes pouring down every time we interact.
So where is their crisis coming from? Maybe we’re feeling the ripples of third wave feminism? Maybe the fact that a lot of the issues facing desi women – and men – are more than about just working outside the home and being on an equal footing with men, assimilating while hanging on to certain cultural markers. Maybe it’s the fact that as this generation comes of age, many of us reject much of that traditional family/work paradigm but want to hang onto others. We aren’t all becoming engineers and doctors and dental assistants (not to knock any one of those things). Some of us are becoming philosophers and jewellery makers and bakers and performers and musicians and activists and we’ve rejected the certainty of the (North) American dream and in a lot of ways, the more normative modes in which to express our “desiness” as well. I think we’re a different kind of community (as diffuse as we seem) from even people who are perhaps 10 years ahead of us. A lot of us don’t want the mainstrea, but we don’t want to outright reject everything about our families to live a “radical” lifestyle – for which there is some significant desi precedent. For a lot of us, our needs and desires may be in some way “alterna”, but it looks like we still want to maintain our ties to our family and have them accept our decisions, not just tell them to like it or lump it and take off to a commune.
This unfortunately is the curveball that many young desi marriages fail. I’ve seen mothers of friends and even aunts in my own family turn into total psychos after their sons get married. These women never were this way. They just changed overnight. But I also have a white friend going thru this right now. She’s getting married in October and her future MIL has been totally insane feeling insecure and feeling like she is “losing” her son.
The problem unfortunately is that some baggage in our culture needs to be offloaded by our generation and not passed onto the next one. And that baggage is the sad and strange sense of “ownership” and unhealthy “obligation” towards a child. Too many moms and some dads don’t let go of their child even after the child turns into an adult and enters another relationships. I’ve lost track of fights and even broken marriages among people I’ve known from meddling in-laws and sometimes even parents.
However if you’ve been a mama’s boy your whole life and suddenly find a woman and shun the mama it ain’t fair to the mama! You need to wean parents off early on. When I simply can’t coax my schedule sometimes I have to fess up to my family that I can’t visit and obligate them to understand. I don’t want them to feel like I could drop anything and everything at the drop of a hat at anytime and run to them and get used to that notion. Emergencies not counting. Imagine I’m single now, if I had a husband, home, children I wouldn’t want parents to be suddenly disappointed.
Interestingly again it isn’t just with Indians. I have an Italian girlfriend who has a 7 month old and she has to hear “oh I haven’t seen my granddaughter, you are keeping me from seeing her” from both sides of parents and is really struggling with it because her issue is “when the hell do I spend time with my child and my husband if I’m at my parents or in-laws every weekend, where is my downtime.”
Balance and learning to say no. For now sometimes it works, mind you I still have fights with my parents because I choose a social activity over going to see them every weekend and sitting on the couch doing nothing. I’ve learnt to make them feel guilty however in turn 😉 I’ll simply say “Fine I’ll come visit you every weekend and at this rate I will never meet a man and never get married.” Works wonders!!! hehehe