Almost a century ago, my great grandmother was married to a boy of her family’s choosing. This would be totally unremarkable (not to mention irrelevant to the post I’m commencing) except she was a seven-year old bride. When she was eighteen and suitably “womanly” (read: able to reproduce), she went to live with her husband of more than a decade; though he is now gone, she still loves him very much. I remember being very disturbed by this story the first few times I heard it. My mother would always soothe me and say that it all occurred during another time, that the practice of marrying off children wasnÂ’t a part of modern India*.

*When I was a bit older, she explained the asterisk which was visible only in the guarded look her face took on whenever she said the phrase, “Modern India”; that fleeting change in her eyes represented the inevitable and unfortunate truth that “bad things” might still occur, but “only in rural, backwards places” which were still living in the shade of ignorance.

I was reading yesterday’s WaPo when I thought of all of this. The article I knew I’d write up for SM was about Savita Chaudhry, a striking 22-year old who at age 3 was arranged to marry a five-year old. Her matchmaking grandfather sealed the deal with a coconut and perplexed toddler-Savita spent the night with her new in-laws, to “consummate” the marriage symbolically before returning home with her parents. Everyone expected that Savita would willingly stand by her man once she was an adult, like my great-grandmother did.

I wonder if there were signs, when she was a wee three, that two decades later she’d grow up to be someone fierce.

Last year, the willowy young woman with the flashing dark eyes refused the entreaties of her “husband” and his family to join them in their village, several hundred miles from this small city in western India where she runs the family grocery shop. She is paying a steep price.

Continue reading →

I would’ve swore at the ref, too. (Thanks, Mankanwal):

Parents and coaches of a Calgary junior soccer team are angry after a Sikh player was barred from a game for insisting on wearing his religious head scarf.

Northwest United was competing in a tournament in this Vancouver suburb when a referee told 17-year-old Gurindar Durah he could not wear his patka, which young, religiously observant Sikhs are required to wear.

Mr. Durah swore at the referee and was ejected from the game. Then his team decided to walk out in protest.

Mad props to his team for standing up and walking out for their boy. Durah’s Coach, Mario Moretti supported his players, calling the tournament “done” the moment the ref brought up Gurindar’s patka:

“This is a decision our players made, not me. I supported my players. They all supported Gurindar, which was a no-brainer for us.”

Of course the people behind the tournament, in a dazzling display of deluded, oblivious lameness stated that Durah was barred from the tournament for “swearing”. Way to address the issue, there.

I’m somewhat shocked that it all went down north of us; I always thought of Cah-naw-duh as being literally and figuratively more chill. Beyond that, the Sikh community there is so accomplished and visible when compared to Amreeka. I unlearn something new, every day. Continue reading →