Convene to Discuss Problem
NEW YORK — Indian filmmakers, authors, dancers and other artists gathered Monday at the Asian American Writer’s Workshop to discuss the community’s ongoing obsession with arranged marriage and food.
The idea for the meeting, which attracted the who’s who of artists in the Indian diaspora, was borne out of the anger and frustration author Lara Mookhey-Schmid felt after thumbing through Sonia Prasad’s newly released The Exotic Arranged Marriage Spices Club at Barnes and Noble.
“Arranged, Re-Arranged, Aloo Gobi and Me, My Vegan Arranged Marriage, Mistress of Spices, I could go on,†Mookhey-Schmid said. “I noticed that desi artists are using food and marriage as culture symbols over and over again. It’s a cop out, and it’s getting old.â€
Mookhey-Schmid’s recent book, This Book is Not About Indian Food and Does Not Involve Arranged Marriages, was shortlisted for the American Book Award. The award instead went to Farha Mirza’s book, My Chicken Tikka Masala Marriage: It Was Arranged!
Meeting attendees were not shy about expressing their views on the food and marriage issue.
“The Exotic Arranged Marriage Spices Club is an intertextual study of how arranged marriage is enacted in non-Indian, non-Hindu spaces,” said NYU English professor Manorama Chugh. “Unfortunately, that’s all it is.”
Others are not so diplomatic.
“I’ve read this crap twenty times before,” said UCLA history professor Vinay Pal. “Enough!”
Participants acknowledged the growing problem, and decided to place a moratorium on weddings and certain foods.
“Arranged marriages are definitely out,” said Laila Ranveer, a filmmaker and meeting facilitator. Foods that made the list included tamarind, rice, dal, spices, the word “masala,” and fish (only for Bengalis). Participants also agreed that characters in their works could no longer longingly remember their mother’s/aunty’s/grandma’s/maid’s homemade cooking.
Sonia Prasad, however, was unfazed by criticism that she is focusing on arranged marriage because it’s a safe topic in ethnic literature.
“Perhaps my focus on arranged marriage is a bit too much for you, but that’s probably because of your Eurocentric way of perceiving my culture,” she said. “Shit, all Indians talk about is marriage. What’s wrong with making a few extra bucks off of it?”
South Asian audiences so far have negative reactions to her book. The most ardent fans, for some reason, are unanimously American females who are not of Indian origin.
“Wow, it’s so fascinating to learn about the exploitative and repressive means which the Indians use to control women,” said Lynn Babcock, a publishing editor. “Oh, and I really do love Indian food – so spicy!”
Note: Many thanks to the anonymous tipster on the newstab for the tip, and to my buddy Ansour for the inspiration.
“The Exotic Arranged Marriage Spices Club is an intertextual study of how arranged marriage is enacted in non-Indian, non-Hindu spaces,†said NYU English professor Manorama Chugh. “Unfortunately, that’s all it is.â€
“Wow, it’s so fascinating to learn about the exploitative and repressive means which the Indians use to control women,†said Lynn Babcock, a publishing editor. “Oh, and I really do love Indian food – so spicy!â€
LOL. You’ve captured the voice of the South Asian academic establishment! Bravo! I’d like one of Anna’s buddies (the one who goes to Brown lol) to have a conversation with these profs!
Hilarious. The sad thing is, you really had me going for a minute there.
Hahahaha. Very funny Naina
What about cookbooks? What if they reference weddings or elephants/camels or bindis/saris/veils? Would they have a liking for Mamaji’s Kitchen?
Heh, Heh
Yeah Naina knows what I mean! Thank goodness I thought I was crazy or something, wanting to scream reading that synopsis on Amazon.
I really think we’ve reached a low point in diaspora fiction. It’s become so endemic, this kind of laughable cliched earnest pap, curry-spice-mango fiction. It infects Britain and America. It’s all over the place. It’s amazing. This stuff actually sells! That’s why these writers keep getting book deals. Loads of people love this stuff! Incredible.
Ha!
Another one for the “list”: The Dowry Bride.
Masalasploitation.
Yes, I particularly like your Prof. Babcock, who sounds like many academics I know (unfortunately).
BTW, what was Mookey-Schmid’s novel about, if not food or arranged marriage? Was it simply an existential meditation on being alone — and eating bland food?
I used to want to fight this trend, but now I see that it’s impossible. I now want to write a novel about an ABCD named Kumar who has an arranged marriage with a girl from India. After initial namecalling fireworks and friction (in the vein of many Sepia Mutiny comment threads), the relationship takes off as they work together to start a masala beef hamburger franchise: “The Burger Sutra.”
Another one for the “list”: The Dowry Bride.
First three words in the book: “on a dark, sultry night”…
WTF??? Pardon my french…
Is there some sort of cloning project going on in some secret basement in India to mess with our minds?
sp
Ah, I would love, LOVE to read a book titled This Book is Not About Indian Food and Does Not Involve Arranged Marriages! Please! Someone copyright that title!
Foods that made the list included tamarind, rice, dal, spices, the word “masala,†and fish (only for Bengalis)
Double-penalty for mentioning, specifically, hilsa (ইলিশ)
Dear Amardeep
I was going to sue you since you clearly have stolen my idea for the definitive desi food cum romance novel. HOWEVER, I just realized you did not mention green chillies in your synopsis. Therefore, I forgive you while I write the same book as yours BUT with a critical difference that fresh, fragrant green chillies make. And, I assure you my book will sell many more copies than yours because of its tanginess!!!! or hotness!!!…
sp
Dammit!
You had me going there for a minute, and I was all set to fire off an e-mail to my friend, explaining exactly why me (and many others) didn’t think The Interpreter of Maladies is the best book ever written…
Is this for real?
I have lots of friends who were once members of ISKCON (hare krishna movement), and most of the one’s over 40 had arranged marriages. The “temple authorities” and leaders of the “movement” would arrange marriages, practically randomly, and mostly between people who were big “collecters” (solicitors of money in airports and other places). They figured to match such moneymakers would result in more money for the “movement”. Usually after marriage the “collections” declined though. More than 50 percent (probably around 90 percent) of such arranged marriages resulted in divorce, of course… how could they not?
ISKCON also went through a period in the late 70s to mid 80’s wherein they were marrying off 12 – 18 year old girls to men over 30.
My exposure to the arranged marriage system consists of the above type of stuff and my Indian friends who also had arranged marriages through their families.
And I am the King of England.
Can we please get people to post a link when they make claims like this.
I laughed out loud at this post. Of course the icing on the cake has to be PG’s post # 13
PG:Are you for real? I think you are trolling as usual
How about extending the moratorium to certain words: “mehndi/henna”,”vermilion”, “turmeric”,”elephant-headed god” ?
Just visit any ISKCON community and speak with the “elders” (“senior devottees”) there about the “old days”.
I would suggest speaking to the women alot too to find out exactly what they went through.
And as for ISKCON’S child sexual abuse cases…. they have been in the news since around the early 90s when the gurukulis took the organization to court.
Nope. Speaking from personal experience. I was once a sort of “member” of ISKCON.
And what exactly is “trolling”? — sharing personal anecdotes?
PG: This is a post about popular fiction and arranged marriage. Not ISKCON, not child abuse, not your perceptions on the practice of arranged marriage. Kindly stop threadjacking. I’m asking you nicely.
Whats with the decapitated picture of woman in saree theme?
I think the moratorium on all listed cliches in diasporic cinema either. No more long wedding sequences, no more entire movies about weddings, no more Om Puri playing dad!
ok, my speaking handicap is back.
I meant the moratorium should extend to cinema as well.
Say what you will about these books, but the first time I read about arranged marriage from what could have been my parents’ perspective came from the last story in the Interpreter of Maladies. That was the one story I liked in that book, and that was b/c 1)it was probably well-written (I can’t really remember now) and 2) it gave me a perspective I’ve never been able to get from my aunties/uncles on how people in arranged marriages really make it work.
Remember Kaavya from Harvard? I remember a friend and I were discussing her last summer. My friend has some famous family members who are in the publishing industry and she was very sympathetic to Kaavya – she really felt the editors and publishers put so much pressure on the child b/c South Asian American books are the “in” thing and they wanted Kaavya to create that. It was kindof surprising that this notion was so mainstream – the notion of South Asian angst lit being so popular. I guess it continues to be the “in” thing.
Well done, Naina.
I saw Kavita Deswani speak this weekend (writer of Salaam, Paris and a bunch of other icky pink books) and she was being interviewed by this white chick lit publisher. The conversation went as predicted. She asked all these indepth questions to the other panelists, and to Deswani the first question she asked was about Gere/Shilpa fiasco and arranged marriages…. Not that Deswani’s any better- she revealed that her editor gives her an idea, and that’s what she writes her book on. Sounded like her books were pandering towards publishers to get published. The token exotification writer, if you will. The whole panel turned me off even more to the Desi Chick Lit genre.
Oh and I forgot to mention- The reason why Daswani wrote Salaam, Paris (a story about a Muslim supermodel) is because her agent told her, “Writing about Muslims is HOT right now.”
So true.
any suggestions on ultra-contemporary FOB desi lit? I mean set in the past 5-10 years?
That is depressing!
Has anyone ever met one of these writers? Do you think they are aware of all the things Naina satirises, or are they just really cynical?
Red Snapper, probably a bit of both. I know of one who claims that she likes to make sure she is “relevant” and so looks to her agent for ideas.
Thanks DDiA — really interesting, thanks.
After reading about Kiran, Preity, and Rani in The Hindi-Bindi Club, it inspires even more captions for poor K-Jo in this picture…
Something along the lines of “I know Pradhan wanted to use Bolly-names that people would recognize, but why did she have to change mine?”
This would have been totally perfect for April Fool’s Day. Loved the titles :0)
I don’t know, I’d actually never heard of her until the bunker sent me to cover this meeting. 🙂
A friend and I sometimes joke that we will make our millions by writing a novel featuring a tan twenty-something protagonist from NJ who disappoints her parents by dropping out of medical school and steadfastly refusing any sort of arranged marriage. And yes, there’s lots of chai drinking and nosy aunties! Seriously though, I was just in Barnes and Noble yesterday and I was amazed at how much brown chick lit there is out there now.
One of the many things that has always bothered me about this genre is how it is assumed that the main characters can never be happy if they date/marry a fellow South Asian. If you read enough of these books (and I am slightly embarrassed to say that I have read or at least browsed through my share) you come away with a sense that the only way the child of South Asian immigrants can achieve connubial bliss is if they reject all of their brownness. The heroines all inevitably marry a WASP from the suburbs and never eat food with any discernable taste ever again. The young American-born South Asian men the aunties try to set them up with are also always portrayed as stiff and awkward or as closeted gay men who don’t want to disappoint their parents. It’s really ridiculous. None of the chick lit books I’ve read seem to even attempt to capture the love that exists in our community and how great it can be to have a large extended family.
Plus the main characters of these books always have easy-to-pronounce names like Maya, Meera, or Meena. They are never named anything like Lakshmi. Ugh.
Lakshmi
That’s probably a function of how they actually see the world, from a perch above the brown fray, as well as market considerations. Mainstream readers dig that view of the world, it affirms their prejudices, and so on and so on. It’s simpleton fiction for simple people.
Awesome. It was like you were channeling Bharti Kirchner.
Funny stuff, Naina. I love it…
ANNA, or anyone from the DC meetup, what was the term we coined? Mango Overdose? Something like that…
I may be off the mark (and swiftly corrected, I’m sure), but I feel like Bharati Mukherjee is falling away from the stereotypes in her older age…. her fiction’s not as masalafied as it was in the late 80s/early 90s.
Also, it seems to me that even among mutineers there are many fans of Lahiri and Chitra Divakaruni, no? Truth is, SO much fiction in any subgenre, is a tired retread of so many other works in that subgenre. Pick one: twentysomething male identity crisis, Clancy-esque intrigue, Anne Rice. Bottom line: the publishing machine produces more unoriginal, insipid “breezy reads” than truly noteworthy, groundbreaking lit, and The Masalawallah’s Monsoon Wedding Under the Mango Tree is hardly the only example. And sometimes, all we’re looking for is summertime beach reading, after all…
Truth is, SO much fiction in any subgenre, is a tired retread of so many other works in that subgenre
Thank you, thank you. I am now your #1 fan, kusala. I’ve been saying this ever since Lahiri first won major accolades for Interpreter, but mostly, I just get ignored. My non-desi friends in particular absolutely love the book. I think they feel like they’ve been given an inside look into something they didn’t really understand before. And well, lots of people just seem to want to “get their India on” these days.
First, Lahiri is talented, comparing her to Divakaruni is like comparing gold and garbage. Secondly, Divakaruni has no fans on this site that I’ve read, on the contrary, almost every time her name and work is mentioned it produces sneers and growls!
…and that’s the heart of the issue, right? Modern fiction sucks. There must a desi Dostoevsky lurking around here somewhere.
… i growled and sneered.
(and meant post-modern in 39)
First, Lahiri is talented, comparing her to Divakaruni is like comparing gold and garbage. Secondly, Divakaruni has no fans on this site that I’ve read
Interesting. I think Lahiri has a slightly better writing style, but there’s not enough to separate them to justify the “gold and garbage” comparison. When I read Interpreter, I thought many of its themes were eerily similar to Divakaruni’s Arranged Marriage, if slightly less depressing.
It’s ironic to me then than Lahiri has so many fans on SM, and Divakaruni hardly any at all.
Yes, I think the gold and garbage comparison is apt. No magic spices in Lahiri’s work for a start. That’s just one thing, quite apart from the difference in the quality of the writing.
If we compare
to Mistress of Spices, Red Snappers observations fir perfectly. I couldn’t read Divakaruni after that one and I never finished
. Maybe that’s an unfair comparison?
(darnit, sorry)
Well, we’ll just have to agree to disagree then, Red Snapper. I didn’t really care for Mistress of Spices, but Divakaruni’s Arranged Marriage (which, like Interpreter is a collection of short stories) doesn’t feature magic spices either.
I think Interpreter is good, but owes some of its success to excellent marketing, and the fact that the book’s target audience is much more India-friendly than ten years ago when Arranged Marriage was published.
Both writers rehash a lot of diaspora stereotypes, and I think it’s boring and tired.
Maybe Lahiri should surprise us by putting some magic spices in her next novel.
Anyway, hema, I trhink the titles of the collections say everything. Divakaruni’s was called ARRANGED MARRIAGE so that everyone would know what it’s about, you know, everyone, especially non browns, it’s like a dunce’s title, and the writing matches.
Lahiri’s collection was The Interpreter of Maladies, which just sounds more sophisticated, but being serious too, it also intimates the subtle complexity of the stories and characters and situations. Which are elevated from stereotype by original insight, writing and artistry.
Lahiri’s collection was The Interpreter of Maladies, which just sounds more sophisticated,
…thereby further proving my point about good marketing. Thanks for that.
Which are elevated from stereotype by original insight, writing and artistry.
Sorry, but I thought the characters and the situations were pretty run of the mill stereotypes. The writing is very good, but there are a lot of good writers out there without Pulitzer Prizes too.
No, nothing to do with marketing —- proving that there was originality and a sophistication of thought and art and intellect in the construction and complexity of Jhumpa Lahiri and her writing reflected in the name of the story and collection — as opposed to ARRANGED MARRIAGE —- which is a true condensation and simplification that the marketing people must have loved.
The best thing about Interpreter of Maladies is how even the characters and situations that could be claimed as stereotypes are elevated above that by the subtlety of Lahiris writing. Although I would contest the ‘stereotype’ thing as well.
Anyway, Divakaruni has magic spices and stuff.
Isn’t a lot of fiction in the desh guilty of the same problems? House of Blue Mangoes, Death of Vishnu, Beach Boy, etc…? Just goes back to the same basic point…. sometimes fiction is like “comfort food,” same as movies, television, etc. Just one more medium that is prone to “mediocrity” if you want to pessimistically look at it like that. But there’s still quite a fine line between well-prepared comfort food and crappy fast food, even when all you’re looking to do is fill your belly.
Well, I don’t think we should spend a lot of time comparing Lahiri to Divakaruni. There are plenty of other authors out there. And I really don’t want a desi Doestoyevsky, though I understand what you’re saying: it’s high time for a desi master storyteller, like Rushdie but less arrogant, maybe. Like
Bharati Mukherjee definitely definitely is not writing “masalafied” fiction these days. Hell, most of her stories barely feature desis in them at all anymore, and if they do, their desi-ness is largely incidental. She’s definitely playing around more with her style and themes, and seems to wander a bit into experimental fiction from time-to-time.
Anyone got any recommendations for authors we maybe haven’t heard of? Here’s my offering, which I practically guarantee none of you have heard of, because the book was very limited-run.
It almost grieves me to give this shout-out for personal reasons, but the book is good: “Life’s Only Promise,” by Sid(darth) Kara.
Hell, let’s just call him Darth.
The book is about a black prisoner in Parchman Prison (near my home town of Batesville, MS…yeah, pretty much its only claim to fame, besides the casket company), and the horrible life that this guy endures.
It has nothing at all to do with desis. It is lovingly researched and exceedingly well-crafted. It is as far from the beaten path as you will ever find a brownly-authored book of fiction to be. I give him kudos for not cashing in on the idiotic commercial bounty of Manu’s Magic Masala-Dosas and Mango Marriage, with the henna-ed hands on the cover.