Are you in an Aviyal Relationship?

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sindoor.jpg My baby cousin at UCLA still hasn’t forgiven me for joining Facebook. His objection is not that I’m too old for it or that I lessen its “cool factor” with my elderly presence—he just hates the program and apparently I was the last person he knew and cared about, who was not on it. That had more to do with pragmatic causes than most anything else; I was happy on Friendster and consummately preferred it to MyAss or the more “global”/Brazilian Orkut. I didn’t have time to maintain profiles on a plethora of time-sucks. And most relevant of all, I couldn’t be bothered to get an “alumni” email addy from either of the schools I managed to graduate from…and once upon a time, you needed such official stuff to participate in the Facebook-orgy.

Not anymore. And so a few of you began inviting me to join it and I pointedly ignored such requests…until one of you was Facebook-stalking a guy you thought was sooo cute.

“What’s his friendster link?”, I asked.

“He’s not ON friendster…he’s only on Facebook!”

“Well, then I can’t see him.”

“But you just HAVE to see this one picture…I have a feeling you know his friend.”

“You know how I’ve never been a bridesmaid?”

“Yeah what does that have to do with anything??”

“I’m signing up for this bullshit right now, so A) you best marry his ass and B) I best be in some sort of poufy outfit, twitching out of boredom on an altar in a year or three.”

“Omg, whatever you want, just SIGN UP”…and so I did. But I didn’t bother uploading a pic or filling out my profile, not for a while. Then, I was asked to write something about social networking and I needed more information about FB, specifically a sense of how intuitive it was to use. I noticed, upon logging in, that I had been “poked” approximately 40 times. I also noticed that several of my far-flung friends were considerably more active and in touch on FB than they were on Fster. This puzzled me until I realized that they were destroying all of their free time defenestrating each other via “SuperPoke”, proving their music IQ via some guessing game which was far superior to the one on my iPod and playing Scrabble online via the hyper-addictive “Scrabulous”.

Well, I saw her Facebook…and now I’m a believer. I will happily eat the words which initially expressed indifference towards this program. The recent app explosion transformed FB for me, from a site to ignore to one which I am now constantly logged in to…which brings me to this post.

Now that I am spending a ton of time on there, my inner, dilettante-sociologist is hyper-stimulated. There’s so much to discover, like…

  • How annoying today’s youths in high school are (incoherent and illiterate comments on group walls)
  • How thousands of others also speak shitty Malayalam (via the Ende Malayalam Sucks group)
  • How several of you first discovered SM! (via the SM Group, natch)
  • How people are utilizing Web 2.0 to create support groups for Inter-desi relationships (!!!)

Here, read all about it. I’ll post the group’s “description” for you:

Aviyal Couples Type: Common Interest – Dating & Relationships

Description: This group (also a support group) is for all the desi people that are in a relationship (dating, engaged or married) where your partner is Indian but is from a different state in India or is from a different religion or caste. This type of relationship can’t be called interracial, so it can be called an ‘Aviyal Relationship’

For example: An Indian from Mumbai is in a relationship with an Indian from Bihar or an Indian from Tamil Nadu is in a relationship with an Indian from Kerala e.t.c or an Indian who is Hindu is in a relationship with an Indian who is a Christian or an Indian who is a Jain is in a relationship with an Indian who is a Brahmin e.t.c
* Aviyal – a south indian vegetable curry that has a mix of different vegetables. [Facebook]

I didn’t even realize there was a term for this situation—one I have been in for almost half of my dating life. While I tried valiantly to date Malayalee boys, “just to make it easier” on all 349 people who were potentially involved with such an alliance, I went to a college that had no Malayalee male undergrads and didn’t attend our local (read: more than 100 miles away) Syriac Orthodox church. I was far more likely to encounter Punjabi Sikh guys at U.C. Davis/Fresno/Modesto/Yuba City and predictably, that is what I often dated.

I had been making Aviyal all the way through college and I had been oblivious to it!

Whether by circumstance, i.e. being one of a handful of South Indians at a school dominated by Northies or by choice, i.e. just plain falling for someone, this is a cocktail we will see more and more of, no matter what our respective parents think of such emotional collisions. One of you, who comments regularly, is a Tamil married to a Punjabi; sometimes, the comments which inform me of this detail also contain other bits of information, which illustrate how challenging such a union is. I’m assuming both parties involved are probably Hindu, which makes things nominally easier, but when you add interreligious components to the conflict…sometimes, that is exactly what you get: conflict.

When one of the only Malayalee girls I grew up with got married about a decade ago (she was a bit older than us…because I remember that even her younger brother was two years older than me), it caused quite a stir, since she, a Namboodiri, had fallen in love with a Mallu Christian she had met at school. This was the source of much discussion and concern, as our parents pondered whether this was a harbinger of their own future disappointment.

Years later, I felt compassion for her, once I realized what the “odds” were like…it’s difficult enough finding a match who is Malayalee, finding one who is Mallu and of the same faith narrows the pool considerably—especially when you take caste or in the case of Christianity, multiple denominations in to account. It may seem counterintuitive, since Kerala’s Christians comprise a disproportionate share of Malayalee Americans, but yes, it’s hard to find a suitable boy. My father never forgave the Catholic church for what they did in the 17th century, so the thought of me marrying one was inconceivable. MarThomites were out because they were anti-feminist-Mary-haters who shamelessly chose not to revere the dead. 😉

We were fiercely Orthodox and unlike many Malayalee couples, both of my parents were Orthodox; my mother didn’t “convert” to marry him. So for me, Orthodox it would have to be.

Do you have any idea how many single Orthodox Malayalee boys there are in America, who are over the age of 32?

Approximately two.

I have a Sikh friend who is a few years older than me, who is also single, because he’s rather Orthodox himself, and most Sikh girls he encounters want someone sans beard and turban. One of you posted a NYT Vows link recently, all because the groom was Muslim and the bride was Hindu and yes, I’ll admit my non-existent eyebrows rose heavenwards upon reading it, because that’s what I’m conditioned to do. We are marinating in aviyal, whether we know it or not (pass me the drumsticks, btw…and keep the arbi to your damned self).

I’ll probably end up in an “aviyal”-marriage of my own, so I confess that I’m partially motivated to explore this aspect of growing up in the diaspora, out of self-interest. But I also remember a certain thread where it was brought up quite a few times, so I know it’s on your mind, too, along with potheads on celluloid and Shah Rukh Khan-endorsed colorism. If you have your own thoughts to add about aviyal, sambar or rasam relationships, speak.

There are many mutinies within which we can participate; the struggles associated with dating “outside” of the precise group we were born in to, perhaps more than any other uprising, often involve the most upheaval and anguish, even if one’s intended is also a shade of Sepia.

723 thoughts on “Are you in an Aviyal Relationship?”

  1. i never got the importance of marrying withing community. i hear a lot from the auntie set that im supposed to marry an iyengar. when in reality, a lot of grls from india within the same case have nothing culturally in common with me. i have more in common with an american from a different community it think. would be more normal for me to marry someone that grew in a similar setting to me. would seem like less of a “mixed avial marriage” for me to marry an american from another heritage than it would for me to marry someone that grew up half a world away in a completely different kind of country with the right last name.

  2. Oh Anna, Its like you wrote this post specifically for ME ! …sniffle… Thanks!

    So nice to know there are “support groups” out there 🙂

    Jokes aside,most of my friends and cousins in the des were also in “Aviyal” relationships so it was like an informal support group.I have to agree with you that when you add inter -religion to inter -region the complications can definitely multiply.However, like everything else in a marriage, it totally depends on the maturity and ability to compromise( ina good way) of BOTH individuals.

    After dispensing that last bit of advice, I feel like the auntie I am compared to you young ‘uns…

  4. I’m confused. How far back does one go? My entire family has come from one city for generations, so I would say I am from that city. But, my mom’s family is of a different “type” (I don’t know the right words, ok?), meaning they speak a different language, eat different foods, etc. But both parents and all four grandparents grew up in one place. Was/is theirs an aviyal relationship? And more importantly, does that make me a half-breed? 😉

  5. Puli, do you not recognize the bride? 🙂

    ::

    This is the perfect time to thank mutineer Sameer Rathod, who made the effort to create and moderate an entire SM group on Facebook, after getting over his shock that there already wasn’t one (so sweeet!). I wasn’t as shocked at the lack of one (so cynical!). 😉

  6. Puli, do you not recognize the bride? 🙂

    duh. yeah, now i do. i took a quick glance, saw a h*t grl, didnt think twice. (a pretty grl can do that to me).

  7. I (gult) married a Sri Lankan. Given the proximity and similarity of culture, I guess that makes it “avial with sambol on the side”. My sibling is in an “Avial” too.

    Seriously, there is so much of this, there should be a term for being “in-community”…like “daal” or something more homogeneous.

  9. This is the perfect time to thank mutineer Sameer Rathod, who made the effort to create and moderate an entire SM group on Facebook, after getting over his shock that there already wasn’t one (so sweeet!). I wasn’t as shocked at the lack of one (so cynical!). 😉

    Link immediately followed – check. Group joined – check.

  11. Tamasha– Lordy, I thought my family was complicated. 😉

    Jeet– you can’t be guilty of being guilty when I facebook-stalked you right back…it cancels shit out…or something.

  12. I didn’t even realize there was a term for this situation

    What? How come? The term for this all my teenage years was “love marriage” as opposed to an “arr***** marriage” (censored for the stability of SM web server)

  13. I actually did not think much about this topic till a few years ago. Being a Punjabi Rajput, my family has (in addittion to the the usual “good family” requirement)the requirements of caste, religion and the region. So, having been born in India and attended school in US, therefore obviously corrupted by the Amreekan ways, my parents are alwasy on alert to make sure that my sister and I don’t end up in an “Aviyal” relationship.

    So when two of my cousins, both older than me, ended up in Aviyal marriages, tt was amusing to see the family’s reactions. One of them is married to a Punjabi Sikh girl, while the other one married a Hindu South Indian girl. There was the initial uproar, anger. In time everybody calmed down and everything is fine. Both couples are very happy and have amazing kids. To me those two are the pioneers of the family and their “Aviyal” relationships have paved the way for the rest of us.

  14. a related issue is the constant discussion (or fight?!) between you and your parents about having a relationship with any tint of sepia, here in your city versus getting married to the “right” shade by flying overseas.

  15. How come? The term for this all my teenage years was “love marriage” as opposed to an “arr***** marriage”

    But you can have a love marriage with someone who is the exact same caste/color/blah blah blah. So it’s still not as useful a term.

  16. tamasha – my family is like that, too. my parents aren’t from the same city – but same state and same sub-caste/community. still, my mother’s family’s ways are totally different than my dad’s. also, my mom ‘s side speaks bastardized telugu to the extent that my father refuses to speak in telugu with her. and i only speak to my dad’s side in tamil, while i only speak to my mother’s side in (terrible) telugu. though, i don’t know if this would be an aviyal relationship – my mother’s ways predominate so much in our household that maybe she’s more the thayir than anything else 🙂

    Link immediately followed – check. Group joined – check.

    contemplated – but a bit scared, now 🙁

  17. a related issue is the constant discussion (or fight?!) between you and your parents about having a relationship with any tint of sepia, here in your city versus getting married to the “right” shade by flying overseas.

    a lot of arguements i hear for this is that the grl will be of the same “culture”. but, it seems far more likely that someone has moreculturally in common with the person that grew up on the same block who has a different shade of brown than someone who grew up at the other end of the world in a village in india.

  18. contemplated – but a bit scared, now 🙁

    Clarification: I didn’t put that link or comment up to hype membership or covertly ask you to join– I’ve meant to somehow publically thank Sameer for his support and this was finally the apposite opportunity. 🙂

    No need to join anything. 😉

  19. It would be great if the SM Facebook group were a place for those of us who post under our real names to meet other Mutineers with real names, since Facebook is all about, well, faces and names.

  20. It would be great if the SM Facebook group were a place for those of us who post under our real names to meet other Mutineers with real names, since Facebook is all about, well, faces and names.

    im sure my mental image of most people is completely wrong. wrong gender. wrong size. wrong personality. wrong age. wrong occupation.

  21. i don’t usually like to label by these terms, especially apply these labels to myself …

    but dammit i love my mom’s aviyal but i don’t think my folks love my aviyal marriage as much though (Kerala/TN & Christian/Hindu) 🙁

  23. My beautiful Hindu-Punjabi mom and her family moved to Canada from Africa in her teens, where she met and married my Italian father. Her family didn’t disown her, but the conflict and tension that resulted has dogged our family throughout our lives. I honestly believe, having spent my life in the middle of a mixed marriage, that if it hadn’t been for BOTH families and their close-mindedness, our lives growing up would have been much, much happier. Now I’ve met my absolute soulmate. We’re technically the same shade of brown, except that he is what is conventionally referred to as ‘black’. My mom has all but disowned me. It absolutely breaks my heart every single day. Mostly because I see that the years of being shit on and abused by her family and my dad’s family for her marriage (in subtle and insidious ways) is what has led her to this. I can’t imagine any other reason for it. It absolutely breaks my heart that the close-mindedness that my mom tried to get away from is what she became. I do my best not to allow myself to think that my mom is ashamed of what she did, and the product of her actions – namely us. The thought is terrifying.
    The sad thing is that even when you try to rise above the ‘differences’ and have ‘human’ relationships rather than ones based on caste/religion etc., there are a million people trying to drag you back into the mess. And you have to be twice as strong and twice as sure to get past that if you’re in a mixed union of any kind. And even then – there are no guarantees.

  25. maybe staying in community is best, even if i have less in common with the grl, if thats how it turns out. sounds painful kiwi 🙁

  26. There is something to be said for passing down one’s traditions(as long as it doesn’t become integral part of your life). Marrying another Telugu origin girl would be preferable because even if she and I would not speak in Telugu, it makes the whole family gathering thing a lot easier. No need to act as interpreter or guide to the inlaws. (For the sake of simplicity, I am not going to bring up the complications in a meat eating non religious non-Brahmin marrying into a strict Brahmin family even if everything else they share is the same). Even though I do not speak Telugu well(I understand it well), I may end up getting any kids of mine ot learn a little bit just to pass it on just out of respect for my family origins.

    I say all this, but guess what. I have never dated a Telugu origin chick. For that matter, I never went out with an Indian woman. So while I have some preferences, it doesn’t really amount to anything as significant as a life changing decision.

    I do find it very puzzling when some DBDs who have settled here for decades still cling on to caste feelings when it comes to who their kids marry. These morons should be thrilled if their kids can even find a girl whose family speaks the same language. FWIW, I noticed the whites who marry my cousins seem to be more at ease in family gatherings than some of the relatively aloof Indian origin kids who marry my cousins at family gatherings.

  28. No need to join anything. 😉

    ANNA, i got that there’s no pressue from you – it was a response to the other SMers who promptly signed up. though, i did join facebook after reading the post on your blog 🙂

  29. puli, #17 totally agree! i think their argument has some merit in stuff like, well you will both speak same indian language, you will enjoy cooking/eating similar dishes…but unfortunately what they don’t get is the plain fact that, i hardly care for me and my significant other speaking same “indian” language, or eating same cuisine. they say i am not understanding how much those things would mean to me right now, but when i eventually figure it out it would be too late.ugh, talk about “deep” dialogues..scary

  30. My mom has all but disowned me

    Not cool at all. I know a distant relative who is supposedly disowned because he married an asian chick. I have not had the opportunity to hear his mom or dad ever mention this. But that is the explanation I get from others whenever I see them at weddings with their other married kids. Once, I would love to find an excuse to bring their son into the conversation and ask why he is not there. And then I will give it to them why they are so close minded. In fact, at the next TANA, I would love to suggest a seminar where ABDs and DBDs can talk sense to their parents about certain issues. If get that opportunity, that would be the first TANA I will attend.

  31. puli, #17 totally agree! i think their argument has some merit in stuff like, well you will both speak same indian language, you will enjoy cooking/eating similar dishes…but unfortunately what they don’t get is the plain fact that, i hardly care for me and my significant other speaking same “indian” language, or eating same cuisine. they say i am not understanding how much those things would mean to me right now, but when i eventually figure it out it would be too late.ugh, talk about “deep” dialogues..scary

    most of the time i speak english. and i eat a lot of italian food and japaneese food in addition to thai, north indian, south indian, mexican, chineese, etc, etc ….somehow though, the grl from india will be from the “same culture”.

  32. to top it all off, i have never heard an acceptible definition of culture.

  33. In fact, at the next TANA, I would love to suggest a seminar where ABDs and DBDs can talk sense to their parents about certain issues. If get that opportunity, that would be the first TANA I will attend

    Don’t know about TANA, but HoKANA has done “Youths” programs on interracial dating, etc. That’s just it– there’s so much attention paid to whether we end up with someone who isn’t desi…as if a North Indian, omnivorous Muslim who married a South Indian, herbivore Hindu WOULDN’T have similarly painstaking negotiations??

    ::

    ak- Duly noted and flattered that I inspired anyone to do anything. 😉 It’s addictive, right?

  34. interracial dating

    i think a south indian marrying a north indian is “interracial” to the community aunty set.

  35. i think a south indian marrying a north indian is “interracial” to the community aunty set.

    to some, yes. the other day an aunty was telling me how these ‘inter-racial’ marriages were good (re her tamil daughter marrying a gujarati boy) because you can mix cultures. when i asked whether that meant that she was now OK with her other kids marrying AAs, she said ‘you know that’s not what i mean, ak.’ ha!

  36. to some, yes. the other day an aunty was telling me how these ‘inter-racial’ marriages were good (re her tamil daughter marrying a gujarati boy) because you can mix cultures. when i asked whether that meant that she was now OK with her other kids marrying AAs, she said ‘you know that’s not what i mean, ak.’ ha!

    we like inter-racial. but not undermenschen.

  37. mixing culture is good. but, its not good when the filthy untermenschen doesnt have a culture. i think thats what the aunty is saying. (except they dont want to sound like they belong to the aryan nation)

  38. Vadagalai Iyengar – Palghat Iyer combo platter feels avial enough and we are shooting for a molagoottal neutrality. With all the saligramam-manasarovar lingam fighting for shelf space in a repurposed (pooja) glass showcase that was left behind by a previous thai tenant, and English-speaking hindu fundamentalist children that learn Bhagavad Gita chapter 18 with commentary, I’m sure some matronly jewish UES psychologist will have a constant revenue stream 15 years from now. Think, kids…think about the children in all such mash-ups.

  39. mixing culture is good.

    Hence pretty babies! My girlfriend is half black/half white. Cross breeding some be.e.eootiful babies we shall conceive..

  40. to top it all off, i have never heard an acceptible definition of culture

    Anyone who listens to White Stripes, Pixies, Peter Gabriel, Sinead, B52s, Gaye, Snoop, PE(I could go on forever listing bands, i guess) is “good people” to me. If you prefer Before Sunrise to Youve Got Mail as a date movie, good people. heh heh.

  41. Vadagalai Iyengar – Palghat Iyer combo platter feels avial enough and we are shooting for a molagoottal neutrality. With all the saligramam-manasarovar lingam fighting for shelf space in a repurposed (pooja) glass showcase that was left behind by a previous thai tenant, and English-speaking hindu fundamentalist children that learn Bhagavad Gita chapter 18 with commentary, I’m sure some matronly jewish UES psychologist will have a constant revenue stream 15 years from now. Think, kids…think about the children in all such mash-ups.

    must not do that. we must all marry our twin sisters and have pink flipper babies.

  43. I am bengali married to Mallu Christian, both dbds. It’s been going quite well since I think people of the both states like each other, and we both are not the temple/church going type. Also it helps that we were both pursuing phd and so parents were probably relieved to not look for a match who lives at the same place and whom I’ll like. Parents (who I think are liberals to allow us to so without any protest) are very polite with each other because language barrier makes everything very polite and interestingly they keep finding good things about each other’s state and emails it to us. My only worry is when I have a child (a-la arundhati) eventually. I do not want to impose any religion on any baby; they should have the goodness of both and can choose when they grow up. What I love about the aviyal marriage is that we make our own family traditions and family has not yet imposed anything (yet!) and there are many things that are common among the two states (including mindset).

    Pravin of #26: I would much rather be married to married to a person I love (but who speaks some other language than mine) and with whom I can communicate really well so that our day to day lives are fantastic, rather than settle for a person who speaks the same language (but communication sucks) just to have great family get-together once in a while.

  44. 19 – I agree with Preston — and to reference my previous comment on the nyc meetup wrapup thread – I think Facebook could be a great step to bring a vibrate online community closer together

  45. must not do that. we must all marry our twin sisters and have pink flipper babies.

    Not about to write a thesis on Identity and Varnas/Jaathis among contemporary Indians. Suffice it is to say that what we repudiate at the altar can come back to haunt us, especially in the form of children.

  46. to bring a vibrate online community closer together

    I would think the vibrating would be all you need for the closing, but hokay. 😉

  48. Kiwi, I wish you more strength. An aunt of mine was made an outcaste by her family because she fell for a Punjabi guy. They broke up and they still don’t talk to her. Really sad, stubborn pride! They lose a sister because of it. She is with a white christen now, and she is happy, and as my bapu said the other day, she is happy, what more can you ask for.

    Mixing languages is cool, my cousin married a Marathi girl, and during the wedding festivities we had a Mayfield night, songs sung in Hindi, Gujarati, Marathi, English, even some Punjabi thrown in there. Can’t go wrong with that.