I’m sure everyone is sick of reading “my parents want me to have an arranged marriage, and I’m like, totally annoyed and stuff” stories in the American papers. Officially I am annoyed by them too, though I actually find these stories curiously addictive even in their predictability — like bad pop songs on the radio, or celebrity gossip.
Sarita James has one of these pieces in the New York Times “matters of the heart” column from the Sunday Style section. Though she initially resisted her parents’ attempts to have her arranged off, at the merry old age of 19 she decided she liked a boy they had picked out for her (he was 26) and got engaged. Even at the time of the engagement, the boy’s family indicated that he still had to “see” two other girls, in order to avoid “formally offending” their families.
So he goes off to India, and doesn’t call for a week or two. Oh oh. The family soon finds out the boy got engaged to an engineer in Bangalore! And Sarita gets these emails:
Dear Sarita, I am so sorry for what happened. I wish I had gotten married to you. Matters were taken out of my control. I want to apologize profusely both to you and your family. Unfortunately, I can never explain what happened.
A second e-mail message, posted five minutes later, read:
Dear Sarita, I regret my indiscretion in that first e-mail. Could you please delete it? Please trust that my apologies are sincere. (link)
The snake! But the explanation is even worse than the content of those emails:
A few years later, I learned that a large dowry had been exchanged as part of his wedding. Most of it had been passed along to his sister’s bridegroom when she was married the same year. Not only had the suitable boy let me down, he had also perpetuated the injustices of the dowry system. (link)
So not only is the boy a flagrant yellow-bellied wus, he’s a sell-out to the dowry system. At the end of the article, Sarita indicates that she’s still single, and she’s not doing the arranged marriage thing anymore. Good for her; hope she never gets an email like that again.
Anyone out there have comparable war stories they want to share (anonymously, if you prefer)? I’m particularly curious about nutty things that happen to people because of the internet.
Glass houses:
Course not. Desi marriages and relationships in the West break up all the time. The next time you’re about to howl at the moon, she’ll appear – a recently heartbroken but recovering late twentyish – thirty something desi beauty.
If you’re the diabolical kind, you could always keep an eye out for the weak desi marriages out there and be the homewrecking desi dude from hell. Someone I know well had one of those.
I find that I meet more men now then I ever have. The problem is that I also spot bullshit and potential problems a lot earlier on when it comes to judging someone so where I was “open” because I was unaware when I was younger I no longer am in the same position. The age thing is a whole interesting experience for me. Most desi women tend to look younger, well at least all the ones I know so I’ll meet guys my age who will fall off the face of the earth when they don’t realize I’m not the 7 years younger person they thought I originally was.
I don’t go for significantly older guys because like significantly younger guys I find I don’t necessarily jive with them. I’ve met quite a few that have never been in a relationship. Something about that freaks me out. I also find that I don’t really meet “single” guys anymore. There are a ton of divorced or separated guys out there. Baggage you gotta deal with.
And lets get real, the 32 year olds would rather date someone in her mid to upper 20s then another 32 year old because the perception is that all 32 year olds are looking to get hitched tomorrow and are some how desperate. You can also feed a younger woman a lot more bullshit you probabaly can’t with someone older. My general perception is that there is no follow thru. I genuinely find men seek out “hot women” irrespective of age so average women who have passed 30 simply don’t get picked out. I’m speaking in the desi context. People continually are upgrading and flying around relationships and as they get older and get a stronger sense of what they are seeking tend to not settle for any one person. Whereas when I was younger I probably wouldn’t notice or think of the ramifications of some of the flaws in a guy.
Everyone I know that is married found their significant other in college or a few years after it. I didn’t really date in college so part of me realizes I missed out. So be it. Chances are also strong that women in their 30s have been in a longterm relationship or two and have entered the field of dating after many many years away from it. You get rusty at the game and frankly it’s too much effort at playing the game just to meet a guy. The desi cultural baggage on top screws it for everyone. Expectations and perceptions and biases.
Gargi,
Hardly. I met my now husband when I was 32 and got married at 34. He was worth the wait!
No.
But if you are looking for someone who is from the exact same background, with the exact same taste in music and the same attitude towards religion, who was born here or there but not there, who isn’t balding at all and doesn’t smoke except for maybe pot but does love grey goose, then yes. But how meaningful is all of that?
Sometimes we just need to inject some reality in this dilemma. If you’re dating guys who are in their 30s and you’re going to be shallow enough to hold a receding hairline against them, guess what? Slim pickins, bitches. We’re getting older. That’s what hair does. Guys aren’t angels either…if you think all women over the age of 30 have dimple-free thighs, you should date an airbrushing tool.
And if you are holding out for some Malayalee Orthodox or Catholic guy who is reasonably successful, 30+, likes indie rock of the early ’90s persuasion AND who also can’t relate to the HOKANA/VBS crowd…then you are me and you are stuck in the bed you’ve/your parents have made. JoAT is right– as we get older, we’re far less lenient about bullshit and we’re far more skilled at spotting potential douche-iness. But as my mom sometimes laments, that very inflexibility isn’t going to make my life any easier. “This is why you should get married when you are younger…you will compromise more.” Compromise or settle? My inner romantic swears he’s out there, that he’s looking for me and when the time is right (and it ain’t right now, honey) he’ll turn a corner and smash in to me on a busy nyc street…but my inner cynic says that’s a pipe dream and it’s settle or single. What to do? In the moment, stay. That’s what.
/fake Yoda, out.
Guys usually dont speak about being cheated coz it hurts their machismo and that topic never comes in a guy to guy talk. It happens with guys too, lets face it. Girls on the other hand are willing to share their bad experiences. As for the homewrecking desi dude from hell, the desi dude can be replaced with dude unless you love everything whitey does.
Wheatish,
Glass housess,
Maybe those creative desi girls weren’t so creative? Maybe it’s time to give the goris/sistahs/latinas/whatevahs a chance?
Gargi,
I’m beginning to think it is the case.
Sleepy, Lurker etc, I COMPLETELY hear you. I’ve not had any serious relationships yet, I keep blaming it on the fact that I’m probably very unattractive/uninteresting etc (which might be true). But the fact remains that I’m also terrified somewhere deep inside of how I’m gonna deal with my parents, esp my mom. She’s totally against the idea of relationships and wants to find a suitable girl for me after I get out of grad school. (Obviously, since a girlfriend now would ‘distract’ me from my studies. Huh.). And yes, that is after having a HORRIBLE arranged marriage herself. (Yes, she’s always done the ‘I kept our family together so that you didn’t have to come from a broken home’ thing). There’s some kind of psychology of ‘I want to make sure my son doesn’t go through what I did’ without realizing that she might be causing that to occur by her actions.
I’m just so envious of people who don’t have this sorta cultural baggage to carry. Why is this control freak thing so common in Indian parents? Why can’t they just let go for once and understand that their children don’t love them any less if they want to make some of their own decisions? It gets harder if you are an only son like me, when you are reminded at every convenient point of the ‘responsibilities’ that you have towards your parents.
MC, I don’t understand your bf. He has a f**king perfect older brother already. His parents WILL come around if he stands up to them. If he does, that is.
Add to that all the prejudices against Indian guys among lots of people, and yeah, brownness does seem like a curse.
glass houses
I am a guy who would wear the cheesy pink/turquoise/mauve shirts but alas didnt have a BMW. The girls just coochie coochied me into believing that they loved me and finally went for an arranged marriage or better(well settled in life) prospects. My desi friends did advice me “forget that bitch”, “be a man” etc but it is difficult.
I am not talking about desi men. I consider men from the Middle East and/or Surinam to be brown as well.
And I have already said, I am not in a position to choose between goras and browns. Meaning, there simply are no brown desis in the country where I live.
Wheatish:
Why on earth would you EVER want to waste your time being with someone who couldn’t (or didn’t want to) love you back?!
Your time (and your life) is too precious to waste on those who can’t appreciate you. Don’t ever forget that.
Anna,
I feel that some Indian parents in US are still stuck in 70’s-80’s “Indian mindset”…one which they carried along from India.
A few of my friends were having this discussion last week..they all felt that desi parents assume that they have some sort of extra authority on their children’s life. Almost all the desis that I have met here have had their college tuition paid by their parents..they seldom worked summer jobs in school, never washed cars or waited tables. I guess that some parents feel that they never “let their kids fend for themselves”..so why let them off the hook when it comes to marraige. This is total BS.
I would imagine most parents paid for the kids education out of love. Hard to picture them thinking they are buying controll over their kids future lives…that seems REALLY sinister sounding
Wheatish,
Ok, just to clarify, I am a 1-gen (fob), but I’ve been in the US for about 6 years. My parents are in India. Still, I guess the same issues apply. Sorry if I implied otherwise.
In case it hasn’t appeared somewhere earlier on this post, last week’s Newsweek had a follow up to their 1986 “a 35 year old woman has a better chance of being killed by terrorists than getting married” piece. If saying ‘I do’ is on your ‘to do’ list, then check it out. It’s a very optimistic piece. (*note: the above link is to a Wall Street Journal piece about the Newsweek article, as I couldn’t find the Newsweek link)
The premise of the article, as I interpreted it – that single women need reassurance that they probably won’t be spinsters – is annoying. Still, badgered my mom into reading it. Lo, now she’s out there broadcasting the many merits of getting married later to the rest of the Auntienet…
Technophobicgeek,
I may have covered many of the major reasons already in posts #164 & 165, although other reasons are a) an absolutely huge amount of very deeply conditioned (some would say “brainwashed”) behaviour & ideas, as I’ve mentioned a few times previously, and b) their social circle & cultural environment, at least the way they perceive these, actually condone and support such behaviour.
There’s a lot of circular logic often deployed by them to justify all this. And many of them are very good indeed at deliberately engineering no-win, Catch-22 situations.
It’s almost as though people are determined to be miserable and make life as difficult as possible (for themselves and for their children), whilst utilising the excuses of “culture”, “society” etc as reasons which somehow do not allow them to behave any differently.
Perhaps there’s an element of intellectual laziness at work too — it’s too difficult to actually change with the times and according to the environment, and actually figure out the “right” course of action oneself; therefore, it’s easier just to stick to what one perceives to be the “correct” attitude and actions as per this ephemeral-yet-monolithic construct called culture, society, and so on.
The ego-driven obsession with a) praise towards them by other people of their generation, and b) fear of finger-pointing by the same, can also be huge motivators for such stances.
Also, somewhere along the course of Indian history, micro-managing your (adult) children’s lives (and expecting unquestioning obedience to you and the “dictates” of society) has somehow become an entrenched part of Indian culture.
The education etc isn’t necessarily deliberately paid for in order to buy control, but I would say that it’s often “stored up for future reference” as a future blackmailing tool. It’s truly shocking that many desi parents regard such behaviour as perfectly normal, morally-acceptable behaviour, when it’s actually very unscrupulous indeed.
Why is this control freak thing so common in Indian parents? Why can’t they just let go for once and understand that their children don’t love them any less if they want to make some of their own decisions?
Hmmm…
Traditionally, its been partially about preserving jati-varna (remember Arjuna’s lamentation about varna sankara in the Bhagavad Gita). Though I might add that this hasn’t necessarily worked, as we, of Indian origin, appear to be all mixed up. 🙂 And this seems to apply across all communities, whether Sikh or Christian or Muslim.
In the last few centuries, India has been a very poor place, so its been as much about preserving or -in the North especially – improving family status. As the Chinese say – three generations up, three generations down. The family unit is more important than an individual’s agency. In the traditional framework, you married into your husband’s family. You befriended your co-sisters, learned how to handle your mother-in-law, to flatter your father in-law. There were lots and lots of people around. You all raised kids together. Frankly, your relationship with your husband may not have mattered very much. In the nuclear arrangement, it matters very much.
FOB parents are often blind to their motivations in choosing a suitable girl or boy. Cultural practices tend to ossify and continue on in inertia long after the rationale for them has disappeared. What value does caste have in the Diaspora? No value. And yet some parents are still tied to the idea of caste. There are fewer joint families, yet we worry about what brothers and sisters and uncles think! FOB parents cry when their daughters get married, because they are “leaving the family”, when the truth is the most girls left the family and lived on their own long before the wedding day. Money – in the sense of us slipping into poverty – is usually not an issue, but we worry about “earning potential”.
And then there are vanities that apply to people everywhere – like “status.”
Considering the fact that I’ve lived in Kosher households and stated in the past that if my son is to be circumcised, he might as well have a bris, there’s actually no need for your very cute parenthetical “work with me”. 🙂 I didn’t include “Jewish” in my shpiel b/c I didn’t think it possible. I’ve never met a Mallu Jew. Just one who was originally from Kolkata/Baghdad and he was already married at age 22.
Honestly, the only thing which made me pause in your description was age. I know, my hangup = my loss. More power to Demi Kutcher and Samantha Jones, but it weirds me out to be with someone younger than my sister, who is turning 28 this year. I’ve probably dated more younger guys than older in the last decade, but they were always around/less than 2 years younger…
Meena –
CAREFUL, betiya. you tread treacherous waters.
My eldest sister’s husband is gora, and although she’s happily married with two of the cutest kids EVER and my parents love this guy to pieces, it wasn’t without a struggle. I remember coming home for break once when my sister had planned on introducing him to the family. Before arriving I did what I could to prep my folks as best I could.
“Guys, you have to realize that he’s like any other guy, brown or white – in fact, better – because Sapna finds something special in him!”, I implored.
“Bakwaas! Special fesshal kuch nein!” father replied.
Just then, a red car rolled up the driveway. “Neat!” I thought to myself – “something cool and sporty!”. They got out of the car – a far from flattering Honda DEL SOL. My sister walked up the porch , towards my mother to greet her. My mom clutched her back, “Beta! tu kaise ho!!”. My father, with one eye still on the car, moved languishly towards them and caught the remnants of their group hug.
RALPH JIJAJI, an aspiring I-banker, was still standing in the driveway. Unable to make eye contact, my father and I stood, puzzled and frustrated. RALPH JIJAJI remained stoic as we were still unable to see through his reflecting silver Oakleys stretched across his face like gauze taped over a wound. Already, a sign of white deception, my father thought.
“hallo! hallo Mr. Ralph! velcome!” he said, while approaching this pasty-white dude-his-daugther-might-be-fucking space alien from Boston.
He lazily walked over, removing his hand, that was otherwise concealed deep inside the pockets of his JimmyZ hawaiian print shorts, “Howdy, PRICK-ASH! [Prakash]!!” as they now shook hands. “Oh no – you SO didn’t just call him that, and by his first name, too – he’s a doctor you idiot!!”
My sister caught HELL that day and was told to NEVER bring this clown by the house again.
… Years later, being the little daredevil that she is, told my parents that RALPH JIJAJI has proposed to her.
“KYA? MATLAB? HOW YOU MEAN? LET ME TALK TO HIM”. And that was it. My father blessed their marriage with his and God’s love, for eternity and with the TOTALLY MINOR CAVEAT that if he ever touched her in ANY way inappropriate that he’d “KILL” him. Yes, this two-second exchange has always been a timeless classic at get-togethers, BBQ’s and any other fun family event needing some livening up. …
Now, twelve years, two kids, three stock market booms and a few luxury cars later my parents return to HIS house to celebrate the holidays by way of cross-cultural potluck dinners with RALPH JIJAJI’S FAMILY.
RALPH JIJAJI’s ULTRA-WHITE XMAS-CAROLS-COMING-OUT-OF-HER-BUTT MOTHER: ohhh Lakshmi!!! these Samosas are sooo tasstyy!! dipping one in MUSTARD MmmMm, just divine!!
MOTHER: I’m enjoying this so much, too! such a freshness in your food!! How long did you boil them for!? stabbing at a baby carrot with the discipline of a seasoned fish hunter as it rolls across her plate
SISTER: Oh. ..look at the kids! They’re playing house and pretending to make aloo tikhis and hot-dogs! !!
EVERYONE: ahhhh!! so cute…so beautiful!! everyone falls into a heap of laughter
AND THE CIRCLE OF LIFE CONTINUES
Anna,
AFAIK, just my ex-bf. Who was eleven months younger. Sigh.
All this marital advice being thrown about by people who themselves are un-married reminds me of the SATC episode where Carrie is asked to address a few hundred women at a marriage symposium, and one woman gets up and asks: “Are you married?” To which Carrie humbly declines. For the next symposium, only a dozen women turn up.
I’m not one to advise you whether to have an AM or a LM, whether to take your parent’s advice or whether to marry a mama’s boy or a daddy’s girl. Frankly, if you need marital advice, you are not ready to get married.
There’s only one piece of information (not advice) that I would like to share. This is to do with late vs early marriages.
Human body needs sexual activity starting in the mid-teens (~13 for girls, ~15 for boys). By mid 40’s, most of the sexual energy is dissipated (Not saying there is no sex – just limited). So you have around thiry years (between 1/3 – 1/2 of your life span) to engage in sexual activity. Those who maximise this window of opportunity have happy, healthy (and even wealthy) lifestyles which continue into their old age. Those who don’t, get neck pains, back problems, hypertension, heart burns etc etc starting in their late 30’s to early 40’s.
Hence, it is optimal for your body to be “getting it” on a regular basis (at least three times a week). Women should be getting it starting in their late-teens/early twenties, and men should be getting it starting early-mid twenties. The process of getting it on a regular basis is left to individual choice (marriage, serial monogamy, dating, etc etc).
However, it has been proven in contemperary West, that married people have more regular sex than singles or live-in arrangements. There’s a lot of comfort when there is a guarantee that you will wake up to the same person everyday. The assurance in knowing the other’s body and needs, and the lack of pressure in having to learn yet another person’s tastes in bed can do wonders for one’s health.
So there. Yes – sex is a big part of marriage – don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.
The much vilified child-marriages ensured regular intercourse at the right age. It’s the closest thing to nature that society invented. I can still visuallise my grandfather, who at a ripe old age would get up at 5 AM, and drink a huge tumbler of water – through his nose. He would always walk erect, had no health problems, and was active till the day he died. My grandmother would do all the household chores, and more, without ever stepping into a doctor’s office for more than sixty years. She would cook for 30 people – alone. They were married when he was 20 and she was 14 (It was consummated three years later).
However, the generation after that was when men started getting married at 30+ and women at 25+. This generation had so many health problems. And the next generation (mine) is even worse. I have friends(male and female) who are mid-30’s and not married yet. They already have neck pains and back pains. DUH! Your body is trying to tell you something – morons. Stop kidding around to find the “perfect person” and get hitched already.
M. Nam
AC…..you never fail me, thanks for another intriguing bit about your family
“Prick-ash”… I can totally picture the “ultra white ma-in-law” dipping the samosas in the mint chutney
Classic! More such stories please, I need some lunchtime entertainment. 🙂
Wow, up to 266 comments. Can we see 300? Clearly there’s some pent up feelings in the young and brown community regarding our parents.
Anyway, all this chatter (to which I’m now strangely addicted) is bringing back my dating days. Of course, physical attraction, shared values, and a deeper connection were all prerequisite. When I was dating, I didn’t make BROWN a priority, but there were other considerations.
Oh hell, let’s just call them tests and get it over with.
Test#1 – Can she hike, camp, and romp around in the outdoors for a few days(without complaining)?
Test#2 – Can she handle my parents? On our first visit, I’d warn the GF that my ‘rents were prone to say inappropriate things and were a little (how you say?), eccentric. Usually their behavior was subdued on the first visit, but seeing how my GF might handle inappropriate (controlling, manipulative, etc) parental behavior over time was a big test. Afterall, my parents aren’t going to change. The GF wasn’t going to change. I’m sure as hell not going to change. Ultimately, the key was setting her expectations for absolute nuttyness. This way, when wildly inappropriate behavior or expectations surfaced it wasn’t a shocker.
By the way, the last in a distinguished line of GFs become Wife, and we’ve been hitched for 2 years now. My mother has an overt mission to convert her to Islam, which in a way is pretty funny given the beliefs of her own (now adult) children. The older I get, for example, the more I feel like secular Buddhism is a better choice. Who knows what my other siblings really believe. Meanwhile, Wife has had a couple of smack-down arguements with my mom, but for the most part handles it pretty well.
In addition to having a mostly happy marriage, my wife actually seems to get along with my mom a hell of alot better than my brother’s (Brown) wife. Go figure. Being BROWN might be outward indicator of having a shared culture and ethnic heritage, but there are other more important measures. The values one is probably the most critical, but only if you know what YOUR true values REALLY are.
By the way, I think knowing your true values/beliefs only happen in contrast to the values/beliefs of others and in this respect, we Amreekan born Desis are at a major advantage to our parents. Maybe that’s the root of the problem?
Wow…it’s…suddenly…all…so obvious and easy! Thanks!
SpoorLam, where are you? We need a “saffron balls” intervention, asap.
Interesting choice of the word “erect”, thanks for that mental image…
Sepia mutiny dating service…like a hipper shaadi.com. The sheer number of comments on this thread means there is a demand…
Meena:
Not to change the topic, but I don’t think Middle Easterners count as being Brown, particularly on Sepia Mutiny. For one thing, there’s the common Arab attitude toward Desis as being their menial servants, brought in to do jobs they won’t do, an imported Dalit class. Wouldn’t you say that distinguishes us?
Surinam… Where the hell is that? 😉
Really? Gee, MoorNam, didn’t know there reached a point in life when one has learned and experienced it all, such that no new information is worth anything. 🙂
p.s. — what makes you so sure that the comments in this thread are all coming from “people who themselves are un-married”? Are you a Cylon too, able to see through these simple-minded humans so easily? And here I was thinking I was the only one who had managed to infiltrate the Mutiny…..
Hooking up with a cylon (or any other sci-fi alien) is why captain Kirk is so damn cool…Now, wanting to marry an alien is even 1 step beyond my dorkyness threshold..
Janeofall wrote
A few years ago, I overheard some of the “uncles” talking about that (out of earshot of their wives). It was generally agreed that a test drive was required prior to marriage to ensure sexual capatibility. So, gotta tell you.. many (if not most) mature men would rather not teach a woman how to please them in the sack. It can be a long exercise in futility. My single whitey friends in their thirties have the same opinion.
Not that you need a reason to test drive. “If it feels good…”
Only Hindus with our Vedic science can do such feats as drink through the nose!
My grandfather could see through his ears!
And breath through his ass!
We are the greatest. We even know at what age our grandparents started screwing!
Can there be any doubt of the superiority of Saffron Balls over all other testes? Sino, Abrahamic or Negro?
Hail
FellatioMogambo!AC,
It’s not like I have a choice do I? 🙂 Besides, my desi parents with arranged marriage don’t care if I date an Indian, Arab, white, East Asian, black, or Martian. browndelicious,
I am not really aware of Indo-Arab tensions. Like I said, predominantly white country where I am from, very few desis.
Oh, and Surinam is a country in South America. A lot of Indians from Bihar mostly emigrated there in the 19th century. So the folks from Surinam are mostly the descendants of these Indians.
I have friends (male and female) who are mid-30’s and not married yet. They have neck pains and back pains. But these correlate with the presence of circular reddish bite-marks on their necks after long weekends in the Hamptons. I theorize that there are insects that bite single people. In which case, I will buy a bottle of insect repellent — that is, till my parents succeed in finding the ‘non-perfect’ mate for me. Then, I guess, the insects will go away. I can save on insect repellent and channel those funds to buy a house in the Hamptons. It’s all perfectly clear to me now.
Risible Invisible (167), that 50% divorce rate has been discounted a lot in the past year or two, to my great surprise.
Here’s just one reference to that:
Chandi (181), there’s a book based on a study that Dr. Judith Wallerstein did over 25 years, I think the title is “The Legacy of Divorce”. She looked at one community 25 yrs ago, when the kids were small, to see what impact living in a home with happily married parents had on the kids, as well as unhappily married parents, and also divorced parents. Then she revisisted the same folks when they were adults to see how their own relationships had turned out and – paraphrasing here – I think she concluded that the kids in the married homes (both happy and unhappy) were doing better relationship-wise than the kids of divorce.
MC – Dump him. If it’s taken him this long and he still hasn’t located his cojones, he likely never will. Plus, do you think he really knows himself well enough to know what he wants? What I mean is, aside from the whole parental situ, are you sure he’s not maybe also a bit confused in general, having cold feet and too scared to say that to you? If you scroll up to (72) you can read my tale of woe, which is only marginally like yours, but I too gave five precious years of my life to someone, and it turned out, he didn’t deserve them.
Shri MoorNam:
As I said, only Hindus with Saffron Sacks can do such feats.
I remember my grandfather, who like Shri MoorNam’s could also do anti-Abrahamic marvels. He could breath through his ass. I remember he used to go diving in the pond near our village, his face underwater for up to an hour, looking for fish and gold and other rare things that could help increase the tolerance of Hinduism. We children would stand by the waterbank fearful of his drowning, watching his bare ass over the surface, the only thing of his body that could be seen as he swam for Hindu glory, his naked buttocks glistening in the Hindu sun. Buffalo would splash elsewhere in the large pond, birds would perch on his crack.
Our grandmother would say, ‘Don’t worry children, we were married at six years old, in line with ancient superior Hindu Vedic system, superior to Abrahamics, more tolerant too. Your grandfather can breathe through his ass when he gets up at 5am, all because we were married at 14, that’s why he has no hypertension or back ache, and why there is so much Hindu glory’
We could only marvel at the wonders of Hindu civilisation, how child marriage was the greatest system ever invented since the Big Bang, and as his ass glided past on the water’s surface, breathing, we marvelled that it would only be a matter of time before the mlechhas were put in their place, with our early sex life marriage super Hindu powers.
Hail
Grandfathers AssMogambo!Absolutely, JOAT. Technophobicgeek anyone with a creative name like that cannot be uninteresting :). Do not allow yourself to be controlled so much by your mom…in doing so you’re really cheating yourself of your life and options and ALLOWING yourself to feel the curse of brownness you mention…not to mention proving the prejudices against brown men that you mention( e.g.keep away from them, they’re way too influenced by parents and won’t be their own people etc etc)! Why not do your own thing…that way you won’t resent your mom quite so much too, now or later :).
That is beautiful poetry. you should get a nobel prize in literature…
Sorry hate to be a stickler…It was a class at the Learning Annex about How to meet men not a marriage symposium.
You don’t need to be married to give advise on good relationships. Most mature adults by the time they’ve hit their 30s have been in relationships enough to understand what it takes to make or break them. I don’t need to get married to teach you how to pick up men or women for that matter. You don’t need to be hitched to know what it takes to be a hustler.
You don’t need to have kids to give advise on childrearing which I find mildly irritating when pointed out. You can tell the difference between a good and a bad parent simply by observing and being a mature adult. Having an opinion about it doesn’t require you to actually give birth.
An interesting subtext to this conversation would be analyze trends of arranged marriages among those second generation Indians raised in rural areas (especially in the rural Midwest and Southeast), as opposed to those in more urban cities (with a higher percentage of Indians as well as intermarriage – Chicago, NYC, etc).
Test#1 – Can she hike, camp, and romp around in the outdoors for a few days(without complaining)?
I love this test. I’m a single dude and within the first few dates I make sure to go on a hiking expedition that involves at least some scrambling over rocks. Figure if she can’t handle the Billy Goat Trail (a rather rocky trail just outside of D.C) without complaining, what’s she going to do if “forget” to take out the trash for a couple days?
And apologies for not using the quote-thingy. I’m technologically challenged.
SpoorLam:
Although some of your comments are funny, if you keep this up MoorNam might stop posting on this blog; I hope it’s not your intention to drive him away permanently. You may not agree with what he has to say (I don’t, in most cases) but don’t silence his voice.
I do believe that MoorNam’s powerful saffron balls would never let this occur.
I didnt even realizethey were the same person…