A column (thanks, Fuerza Dulce) from the women’s magazine Marie-Claire on Anjali Mansukhani’s enthusiasm for arranged marriages (including her own), didn’t really start in what seemed like the best possible way:
By age 26, after attending more than 150 weddings, I was fast approaching my “expiration date.” (link)
“Expiration date” at age 26? That’s pretty young; personally, I think women get “expired” these days at around 27 or 28…
But it gets so much better. Anjali, a Bombayite, meets a guy who seems like Mr. Right — a New York based banker — and moves to his 40th story Manhattan apartment after three dates (and a marriage). Life there is blissfully happy:
While I craved privacy in India, the lack of neighbors and family dropping in left a shocking void every day as I ate breakfast and lunch alone. My husband worked late most evenings, and I sat in front of the TV, unable to call home because it would be 2 a.m. there.
After a few weeks, I learned that I’d married a “jetrosexual.” He had an exhausting travel schedule (four cities in four days). I joined the ranks of corporate wives who saw every show, opera, and ballet in town, just to fill the hours.
To make friends, I joined a gym, went to the library, and took Italian classes. I discovered that having an arranged marriage was a great icebreaker, and my social circle mushroomed each time I retold my story.
Marriage, I soon learned, wasn’t easy — especially to a modern man. My husband had acquired a mistress, and her name was BlackBerry. She had the power to stop discussions midsentence, her red signal lighting up his face in the way I only dreamed of doing. (link)
Such happiness. It really brightens your day.
Off to a great start, no doubt. But Anjali’s new life really takes off when she learns to name-drop consumer goods and lifestyle choices like a professional New Yorker:
As peers in India opted for motherhood and worked on post-baby waistlines, I took Spinning and pole dancing at the gym to work off exotic dinners of sweetbreads, foie gras, chocolate mousse. After reading about America’s obsession with Venti decaf skim mochas, I went to try one — but came back instead with a spiced chai latte. Amazingly, Starbucks was providing my childhood drink on every corner.
I found a job as a financial consultant. The New York Times in one hand, coffee in the other, I realized that my saris of bright pink, violet, and salmon were not exactly subway wear. Quickly, I succumbed to Levi’s and Ralph Lauren.
I started to realize that I just might have the best of both worlds. I marinated my Indian marriage in the flavors of Manhattan. I kept the sari and bought the Jimmy Choos. I made fabulous curries, seasoned with spices from Dean & Deluca. And after months of enjoying decidedly non-Indian experiences of seders, Saks, and sake, I felt confident enough to direct Indian guests to a hotel, occasionally throwing in a MetroCard.
I’m not hating, really I’m not. In fact, I’m thrilled she’s so happy — with those Jimmy Choos that she got from Bloomie’s, drinking Chai Tea Latte at Starbucks (which is just like the Chai in India, isn’t it?), before her pole-dancing class, where she’ll burn off the foie gras from the night before. Arranged marriage can be great that way.
All I could think of, after reading the article, was how pathetically narrow-minded mass media still is. This is another one of those “look-at-me, how i’ve managed to keep the best of both worlds and succeeded in the land of opportunity, if i can have an arranged marriage and live this live, it is probably not that bad” article that my mom used to drag out to convince me to marry some schmuck who wanted his lovely wife to get home from her 15 hour day on Wall Street and make his lunch for him for the next day. Argh! i see desi women all the time who want me to introduce them to my desi guy friends in the hedge fund world, just BEGGING to have this life mentioned in the article. when i tell them that the best way to nab an ibanker is to be one yourself, they stare blankly and zone out. lovely. AND WTF with these stupid Jimmy Choos and Chanel/Hermes bags they keep yammering about? Show me one guy (desi or non) who cares about those things, and i’ll show you a man who is gay and out!!!
And for those of you that think she’s shallow for desiring a handsome, career-oriented, financially well-off man (though she does say their NY apartment was smaller than her bedroom back home), may I ask what noble traits your mothers looked for in their (arranged for) grooms? Did they demand the aunties to find them Peace Corps volunteers? Starving artists who refused to sell out to the system in order to stay “true to their art”? Political revolutionaries? Men who vowed to only marry widows in order to alleviate their stigma and change the standing social order of the day???
There seems to be alot of criticism of a woman who represents, well, a not un-common outlook found in many women and men, some of whom may exist right under our own roofs!
She talks openly and freely, unabashed and unashamed of her reality.
Perhaps what irks us most about this article is that we see the same attitudes within our families and indeed, perhaps within our very own selves!
Hey, Puli, how’ve you been? Sorry this wingman left you in the lurch, work has been consuming me.
How can I parody a piece as pitch-perfect as this one? But I see Pardesi Gori‘s been keeping y’all entertained.
“Argh! i see desi women all the time who want me to introduce them to my desi guy friends in the hedge fund world, just BEGGING to have this life mentioned in the article. when i tell them that the best way to nab an ibanker is to be one yourself, they stare blankly and zone out. lovely.”
I give similar answer except hedge fund world and Ibanker is replaced with medicine and doctor. oh! yes I always add this- After you finish medical school, you will never ever want to nab a doctor.
may I ask what noble traits your mothers looked for in their (arranged for) grooms?
That’s the whole point. The BS is cyclical. She too will impart on her female children to dig the gold.
5 – payal said:
“speaking of arranged marriages, did anyone see that show “the big bang theory” on cbs tonight? the show was all about the indian character on the show hooking up with someone arranged by his parents.”
I did catch it.. and not by choice. Rather, I happened upon my mom and dad watching it.. I’ve never seen them laugh so hard. I’m not sure why they were laughing, though, because it was pretty unfunny (sigh..who else longs for a well-written sitcom?) …the premise of the show was a nerdy India-born student living in the States with his equally dorky friends. The Indian guy’s parents set him up on a date with a rather attractive and independent Indian-born (judging from the accent) woman who agrees to go out with him just to get her parents off her back. The problem is that he is painfully shy and can’t talk to women – any women – unless he’s drunk. He ends up drunkenly offending the woman who then leaves the restaurant with someone else.
The combination of the guy’s heavy accent, exaggerated dork-ness (why does intelligence equate social ineptitude?), and overbearing parents (who delivered their lectures via webcam) left a sour taste… is this the best we can do as far as Indian people making it on to television? That said, the show’s portrayal of traditional Indian parents foisting prospective mates on their unwilling children was sort of accurate, if unfunnily scripted. Like Mansukhani’s article, or a Starbucks chai latte, it was a bland, diluted, Americanized slice of Indian culture.
it would be very odd to have some cousins describe the dong and the doodles in the middle of the quasi-religious ceremonies – not that I know anything about it. On a related note, I have these bonding sessions with long lost relatives now and then. There is the initial hesitation and then they start opening their heart. One recurring theme for women who’ve not gone the cohabitation route is the sudden change of environment after marriage. One day you’re in the hometown and the next you’re sleeping with a complete stranger in a new place and dont have anything to remind you of home. Down to the toothbrush, toothpaste, soap, brand of tea – things you’ve grown up with and got to like – have been supplanted with an alien household. The house smells different. Yet they hang tough and make the new house their home and give it their personality. So Anjali’s story resonated. I can not help but be in awe of a society where there is such faith of one person into the other and into society. To trust someone and the environment unquestioningly is a position of strength and a success of the society she grew up in.
Pravin, in cultures where alot of mixing between genders is normal, multiple partners easily had (relatively), and break-ups can shortly be followed by hooking up with some else, well, of course one would feel tied down and bored with one partner early in life. However, in cultures where hooking up is not anywhere close to that easy, well, you feel lucky and honored just to get one. It all depends on how the wider culture is conditioning you.
Puliogre in da USA: ditto on the music part!
Damn uae intern!! You sound like you are in heat for some Donald Trump type lovin.
You are living in some sort of nightmare, if you think every person on earth, who ever got married did so for the dream of being able to go to the opera on a tuesday night.
And you can learn and know alot about sex without having it, the author of Kama Sutra was supposedly a brahmachari.
You cant learn how to ride a bike by observing bikers.
Ditto.
If anything, anyone from the subcontinent knows Starbucks Chai Tea does not have the same ‘authentic’ flavor. It’s tea, but it ain’t the same stuff for sure.
The writer took a heavy dosage of BS in the ‘story’. Women in India do wear business casual and western attire – it’s not like everyone wears a Sari to work and they don’t know any better (especially someone from Bombay).
The point is not only sex, ShallowThinker, it’s being grateful for having a loving partner in your life. Pravin makes marriage and monogamy sound like a burden. It does not have to be. It can be even more exciting and fun than serial dating and multiple sex partners is made out to be in today’s modern media world. It depends on one’s perspective and probably to a large extent, their culture.
If I’m conditioned to think that marriage is a chain binding me to a life of drudgery after having had multiple partners, that is one thing. But there are some people who, having not gone through a series of partners, are conditioned to think that their one life partner will be a great source of love, happiness, joy and excitement for them. If you get two people conditioned like this, marry them off, and they do happen to click and fall in love with each other, well, what is that if not a blessing?
152 · uae said:
My mom married whom she was told to marry. In the long run, I think it helped that both my parents have a coincidental interest in social justice and thinking beyond their own material comfort. Their commitment to social justice is one of the few things they have in common!
No, she talks about part of her reality. She has replaced her bindi with blinders. She doesn’t talk about the consequences of her lifestyle, the ramifications on those less “fortunate” than her. That’s reality, too.
157 · khoofia said:
I find it fascinating that you choose commercial products–“toothbrush, toothpaste, soap, brand of tea”–as signifiers of homesickness. I’m not judging, but what are the implications? Fascinating.
Does this post have a place in sepia?..silly people write silly things all the time, not all of them make it here….why this?
I deliberated over this a fair bit to draw contrasting pieces from a newlywed’s new life. I feel you are misrepresenting me but I hope it is not deliberate. My complete passage was “One day you’re in the hometown and the next you’re sleeping with a complete stranger in a new place and dont have anything to remind you of home. Down to the toothbrush, toothpaste, soap, brand of tea – things you’ve grown up with and got to like – have been supplanted with an alien household.”
I did not say it was a burden for all. But I got the impression from a couple of comments that early marriage was obviously preferable to premarital sex. Why? To each his own, i say. If you find somoene you can be comfortable with the rest of your life, more power to you. But I do not see the superiority of such a concept. Not everyone is cut out for early marriage. It’s not a sexual freedom thing for me. I would say this for even people who do “chaste dating”. I personally find it limiting as far as my own development. I personally find it exciting to meet different kinds of people, and not just on a sexual basis.
depends if you’re looking to drive or be a rear-end passenger
teacup, yeah totally agree with you on the show and the article. aside from the absurd plot line and bad accents, what was up with the portrayal of the guy’s parents–the mom seemed like she was 30 while the dad was like 60 and their whole “lecture” was just stupid. but i guess i didn’t really have any high expectations coming from this show(it was the 1st time i saw it).
anyway…as mentioned by many previously, the article also left a bad taste in my mouth. Other quotes from her article that annoyed me: “My husband’s American friends called, asking about the wedding and curious to see if I had a nose ring. I was just as eager to meet them.” WTF??
“India may have found me a husband, but America showed me how much fun it is to be his wife.” Wow, I’m so glad America and all of our brand names have contributed to the success of her arranged marriage.
I love how this gets mentioned on threads which are in triple-digits. When there’s demand…I’m just saying!
166 · khoofia said:
I’m don’t mean to comment on you, specifically, I’m commenting on the culture we live in. That said, I don’t see how I can misrepresent you when I am presenting a direct quote from you. There are any number of objects you could have chosen to list there–religious objects, objects with some sentimental value related to family or friends, whatever. They didn’t even have to be objects, they could be the neem trees or waking up to the loudspeaker from the mandir next door back home, pets, etc. But you didn’t, you listed “toothbrush, toothpaste, soap, brand of tea.”
Objects have no intrinsic value beyond the utilitarian. They have whatever value we assign them. You’ve assigned some sort of value to these things, that’s all I’m saying. If it makes you feel any better, I’ll admit that when I’m in India, I really miss eating “real” cheese, and when I was five, I didn’t want to go on the family road trip to visit relatives because I was going to miss Speed Racer.
Really, I’m not judging you, I’m just making an observation. I think it’s noteworthy and tells us something about ourselves.
Payal, this is a fantastic segue into what I’ve been meaning to say. The whole article is less an autobiographical account than a marketing storyline. It is even possible that a real person’s real name and real life story were taken by
professional copywritershacks and turned into this fluff piece which doubles as the base for product mentions and verbal, if not also visual, placements for so many brand names.I really want to hear though, why Anna subscribes to MC, and what Floridian, the marketer par excellence, has to say. 🙂
sorry harbeer. Actually I’ll amplify my earlier comment. I heard this more than once that everything changes down to the most banal household items. Hence the examples. I didnt give any further thought to it except “that’s pretty crazy man”. Then this one person told me she even got clogged up and couldnt use the toilet for a while. it was just the unfamiliarity of the whole environment. But you raise an interesting point. Ill think about it in context of my conversations.
Some girls get all the luck! 😉
its amazing how commenters on this site love to run down johnny-come-lately Indians who lay claim to the American experience. Its always like we’re whiter than you are. All this brand bashing here – hey, thats the simplest way I would describe my American experience and one that translates very easily in terms of image. I guess what’s provoking people is its not the ‘right’ image. Its not literature, but then neither is any of the other stuff up on Sepia Mutiny, so why so much finger pointing?
Geography 101. Summer is in December in this part of the world.
deb, don’t know if you were responding to my comment specifically – but this is a good point in general. Yes, it happens, but that doesn’t mean we can’t call something a product placement if that is what it in fact is. That’s why I wanted Floridian and Anna both to add to this angle or subtract from it.
deb – it’s not so much finger poking as pointing out contradictions. For example, I have a very hard time believing that someone who came from such a modest, conservative background, so much so that her cousins had to explain the ‘birds and the bees’ just before her wedding, would move to New York and have no qualms about enrolling in a pole dancing class. It just seems highly unlikely. Similarly, no one who as ever tasted chai in India would even dare to compare it to a Starbucks chai latte. The article just seems a bit delusional.
The piece was Kaavya-esque, what with the reckless product plugs (could those exquisitely delicate Laliques withstand all this name dropping?), and the meticulous recycling of stereotypes. Maybe we need the perspective of the not-so-iyengar banker – “How Gopal Mehta got rich, got arranged, and got a wife”.
Jasmine #120:
Your post rocks!
M. Nam
Wow – I never thought of it that way, but it is so true.
I remember watching my cousin’s wedding video and watching her cry like crazy when it was time for her to leave. And I started crying too as I was watching it because I could just imagine what was going through her mind. She was going to have sex for the first time with a man that she barely knew that night, the next day she was going to move to America, away from her family and the only home she has ever known. Upon arrival in the US, she wasn’t going to have any family or friends or mode of transportation or job or anything, she was going to be alone in that house all day while her husband was at work.
Regardless of your thoughts on arranged marriage, it really is a jarring change for women, esepcially for women who move from their hometown, and women are just expected to accept the change and the new life with no problems.
yeah, but i think we would all feel a bit better if she ‘fessed up. At least that way other commentators can do the necessary research and avoid the incredibly unproductive back-and-forths. After all PG was the ultimate authority on anything Indian and it’s disappointing that she can’t stop pulling the fingers-in-the-ear, nyah-nyah-I-cant-hear-you act.
alack-a-day.
118 · Harbeer on November 13, 2007 02:40 PM · Direct link Sorry, no hate on individual bankers, it’s the system I have a problem with. And I would have much less of a problem with the system if it didn’t front all egalitarian-like.
However, the hate that I have reserved towards the investment banking sector are the following: 1. Not egalitarian in the least bit. You won’t see too many men of colors in the top echelons of I-banking. Just WASPs and Jews. I worked at Smith-Barney as a financial advisor (not the same as I-banking) and the whole corporate culture was purely racist. No prospects would want to do business with a man-of-color. They would have rather have done business with those sleazy white guys (with gel in their hair and good looks). I’m sorry, but that’s the way it was. Also, I’m convinced that Indians are more ethical, hard-working, and better in math than the Michael Milliken, Ivan Boesky types. 2. During the corporate scandals, it was the I-bankers who were doing the most sleazy type things (i.e. telling investors to buy, while the I-bankers sold). They faciliated insider trading also. 3. Their outrageous pay package is not so ethical, simply because this opportunity isn’t available for you and me, no matter how smart/driven we are.
Maybe one day, when there is an Investment Bank/Banking Institution called “Indus Banking, Finance, and Underwriters”, the hate that I-bankers get would be reduced.
Teacup – Its exaggerated, stereotypical and simplified as all magazine writing of that order gets to be. So Starbucks chai latte is the closest I can get to home chai or that sextalk before her wedding is actually what educated her. But its sincere and makes a contradictory point that not many people are willing to uphold. And thats worth something.
There is also a male ‘hormone’ which, after a period of time spent drying, can prove to be a powerful adhesive.
Women, do have some choice, especially the educated ones, they can stand up for themselves say no to the arranged marriage, make their own life decisions and accept the responsibility for those decisions, not easy in a traditional society like India but not impossible either.
175 · deb said:
For the record, I would critique anybody laying claim to this particular lifestyle, and I wouldn’t call it “the American experience.” I don’t know anybody who buys their haldi at Dean & Deluca. Being white has nothing to do with it. She is defining herself with “maya,” to borrow a term from her own heritage.
And if brand names are how you describe your American experience, what are the implications of that? Finally, you say you’re willing to discuss image–why not substance?
welcome to the new world order, boston m
I think we would’ve been even harsher to a 2nd gen, actually. Interesting definition of “the American experience”, btw. Apparently this involves losing one’s tastebuds, or maybe mine are just fucked up, since I can’t taste cardamom at Starsucks. Maybe it’s in their green tea contraptions?
Who is?
I appreciate simple and easy, two words which have been applied to various parts of me far too many times, but seriously, you would describe your experience like she did? I don’t know about brand-bashing– it’s the bizarre “story”, if we can call it that. As Chachaji perceptively points out, it reads like one of those quasi-covert ads which masquerade as magazine features…until you realize, “Wait…this seems a bit off…” and then you look up at the top corner and lo, you see “Advertisement”.
What’s there that’s “wrong”? She has it all. I-banker, 40th floor, Jimmy Choos, stripper pole…I know people with just that life, which is very right for the enchanted isle of Manhattan…it’s just that they would NEVER talk about it, like this (and I mean that in several ways).
Come on baby, make it hurt so good. What an inexpensive shot!
::
Chachaji,
Why MC? Because it’s one of the few mags which doesn’t suck like a Dyson. 🙁 It sucks more like…a low-end Dirt Devil.
I’m part of the “Sassy” generation and while I do love my Bust and we all know I’m a total Bitch, sometimes a girl just wants to get, well, girly…and you’ll never see me pick up a Cosmopolitan, so I mutter and complain through this motley crue of glossies.
MC is one of the few magazines which left an imprint on me; a few years ago, they did (and this is the sort of thing I think they excel at) an article about marrying the taboo (interracial, older woman, way taller woman etc). I still remember it. I can’t say that for most Women’s magazines. It was sensitive and thought-provoking…unlike this.
Sex is not neccessarily always had on the first night with the arranged partner. Some wait to get to know each other better.
Going from not knowing anything about sex in India to pole dancing in USA probably didn’t happen but maybe something similar enough was her experience so she made something up that would illustrate to her readers the contrast between her previous lifestyle and new one. Literary device.
welcome back, rahul.
if you’ve given up your russian habit, maybe we could talk. like benazir, i put the sin in sindhi. lower scythia is where it’s at. the question is, can you give me mansukhani? apparently, that’s what the sindhi kids are calling it these days. more serious commenting, when i get off work.
Oh, I completely forgot THAT gem. I don’t know anyone unbrown who buys their effing haldi at D+D. Anyone I know who is trying to make or experiment with desi food finds a brown store, goes online to purchase spices or smiles sweetly at my Mother, who then sighs and starts advising while doling out appropriate amounts of “real” chili powder.
There may be grains of a true story in there, but there’s so much brand-name dropping going on that it’s hard to know what to believe.
I do know a few women who moved to the US when they got married to Indian-born men working here. I went to middle/high school with most of these women and have kept in touch with them over the years. I feel that most of them had a difficult time the first two years of their stay here. They missed their families very much. After a year or two, most of them went to graduate school or found work depending on their visa status. Some of these women have completed ten years in this country, and I really think of them as people who have found a way to make their marriages and lives work here. I can’t connect their experiences to the things that Anjali talks about in this article. The article was a revelation in some ways; I didn’t know that you could even take pole-dancing classes.
I, in the oh-so-fashionable western way, much prefer the tansukhani route.
Her gym is all the way in Brooklyn?
Anna in #189
You don’t need to respond to that crap. There are plenty of 1st gens here who don’t relate to his/her ‘whiter than thou’ BS against the 2nd gens and this dude/dudette is just flaming.
Her gym is all the way in Brooklyn?
Youtube back up in this piece.
BadIndianGirl, I was very moved by your comment (#181). I dated my husband for 3 years before we decided to get married, and we left India together, so it was not like I had to fly off to another country to start a life with someone I did not know well. But the first year was still pretty tough for me, because I missed my hometown and my family/friends in India so much. I had a medical condition which required me to follow a severely restricted diet for a couple of months. I remember feeling so weak and exhausted and lonely some days, and all I wanted to do was take the first flight back to my mum! Your post kind of brought it all back.
Yo people! Whatever you may feel about arranged marriage, you don’t have it as bad as this guy, who was made to marry a complete bitch. The bitch’s thoughts were not recorded.
Ping Pong, I don’t buy that story for a second. 😉
What?! Casting aspersions on Ananova? The finest source of
newsquirkies?Well, at least they got the names to be somewhat poetic – Selva Kumar marries Selvi, who was in a pink saree and bit the groom’s buns after the reception.