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| Till
Marriage Do Them Part |
By
Priyanka Joshi |
| Intercultural unions
frequently spark family divisions. |
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Rahul Kohli* and Sultana Iqbal* still
remember the day they bought their new
house in Houston, Texas. It was a day
of rejoicing, but what they battled instead
was a tense graih-pravesh ceremony, the
traditional Indian housewarming. Even
though the new house was only a block
from his parents’ house, Sultana
was accused of trying to “steal”
Rahul from his family.
The root of the problem? Rahul married
his college sweetheart, who happened to
be Muslim. “Marrying Sultana was
the biggest battle of my life,”
Rahul says, adding that his parents felt
completely let down by his choice. Until
the day of the move, he was receiving
hysterical phone calls from relatives
back in India, imploring him not to leave
his parents!
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Sultana says the constant
judging she had to put up with in her
in-laws’ house got too much for
her independent, secular self. “Consider
a puja or a party my mother-in-law threw.
People would point in my direction, ask
which dish I cooked and not eat that,
or just be a little vary when I was around.”
The elder Kohlis say they resisted Sultana
because Hinduism and Islam are too different
to co-exist harmoniously.
Hindus may worship a pantheon of Gods
and welcome new traditions, but Sesh Velamoor,
of the Seattle-based Foundation for the
Future, says that people have long taken
advantage of the tolerant nature of Hinduism.
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| David and Mona
Rashid with members of David’s
family at their wedding in Seattle,
Wash. Rashid says women are made to
feel guilty for desiring independence. |
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Speaking about Muslims in particular,
he says according to them, anyone who
doesn’t worship Allah is a “Kafir.”
Hence, will they ever see a Kafir daughter-in-law
as an equal in their household? And, he
demands, if they are allowed to have up
to four wives, is that fair for a Hindu
girl?
Mona Rashid, a Pakistani American in
the anthropology department of the University
of Washington in Seattle, begs to differ.
Islam has been a victim of misinterpretation,
she says, adding that there is no caste
system in Islam. All people are equal
in Islam, unlike Hinduism, which is still
struggling with caste and dowry problems.
Also, she says, that religion often becomes
a tool of power.
When people move to a new country, they
are often victims of the “icebox
effect,” i.e. “freezing their
perceptions of their home country at the
time they last saw it.” Combined
with the challenges of their new life,
people frantically try to find a middle
ground.
But if they experience a decline in their
lifestyle, financially or socially, they
feel they can always fall back on religion,
falling prey to fanatical religious zealots.
Rashid says growing up poor in Berkeley,
she saw the hold of maulvis on the blue
collar society where a woman’s worth
is still measured by how many sons you
have birthed.
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| Rashid rebelled, went to
school, married a Caucasian man and says
she has since been disowned by her family
for shaming the family name. Rashid says
women like her are always made to feel guilty
for wanting to go to school and desiring
financial independence. They are torn between
the parallel universes of contemporary America
and the traditional society they come home
to at the end of the day.
She questions the wisdom of living with
abusive husbands, alcoholics, violent men,
womanizers and drug abusers just because
they are from the same community over living
with a caring, responsible partner who happens
to be from another race.
Rashid says children who are made to feel
like unwelcome burden by the mainstream
society, like the kids at Columbine who
murdered their school mates, remain misfits
in spite of growing up in America. They,
especially the men, experiment with such
taboos as drugs, alcohol and sex, but want
to marry some “bholi-bhali”
girl from the backwaters.
Mary Lynn Nair of Bellingham, Wash, says
four children and a decade since her marriage
to her Fiji Indian husband Mahendran Nair,
she still encounters the occasional relative
who seeks to persuade her to follow their
family guru. |
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| Mary Lynn and
Mahendra Nair with their family. Four
children and a decade since her marriage
to her Fiji Indian husband, she still
encounters the occasional relative who
seeks to persuade her to follow their
family guru. |
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Mary Lynn says that when Mehandran told
his family he wanted to marry a Caucasian
girl with an evangelical background, the
world came crashing down on him.
His family held a conference where it was
made clear that he was simply not supposed
to marry a non-Indian. His mother also told
him that he would be disowned if he didn’t
follow the family. When Mehandran stood
his ground and the parents saw he was adamant,
they agreed to try to develop a working
relationship with the couple. Mary Lynn
says it’s been hard fitting in because
you don’t know which faux pas might
upset some older, traditional in-law. Nevertheless,
she commends the Nair family for making
a genuine effort of making their relationship
work.
The elder Kohlis (Houston-based) too, in
their defense, say they had to sever relations
with many long standing friends, because
they would simply not accept a Muslim influence
in their social circle. “In the end,
we wanted Rahul to be happy and we agreed
to the match, but I would want my grandchildren
to be Hindu for sure,” says Mrs Kohli.
Hence, Sultana and Rahul hunt for names
that do not sound too religious and celebrate
Diwali and Eid equally. The Nairs have selected
names from Hindu mythology for their four
children, which is acceptable to Mary Lynn
as she follows Sahaja Yoga, which she says,
is a method of meditation where all the
religious deities and incarnations till
date, from Christ to Ganesha, Socrates,
Buddha and Mahavira are given equal importance.
Nair says religion should not be a question
of following a theory according to what
family you were born into, but living it.
Nipa Shah of Chicago, Ill., married her
Jewish boyfriend to the chagrin of her Gujarati
family. She says she was so tired of being
trapped in her Indian American identity
that her escape was Spanish culture.
She says parents tend to have an exaggerated
sense of importance in their children’s
lives and are unnecessarily meddlesome,
like Raymond’s mom in the sitcom “Everybody
loves Raymond.”
Nevertheless, inter cultural alliances
have their share of faux pas. For example,
Shah had her wedding invitations printed
in India to save money. When the packet
arrived, out popped these traditional Bandhni
cards, liberally sprinkled with swastikas!
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The cards went to nearly
100 Jewish relatives and friends, who
as it turned out, were incredibly tactful
and gracious about it.
But, she says the stifling emphasis on
marriage in the South Asian communities
is alienating the younger generation,
forcing them to explore other avenues,
like live-in relationships.
Farah Nousheen of Seattle, says as the
eldest child, she was expected to go to
school, find a job and get married pretty
much before she turned 25. Instead, she’s
an opinionated filmmaker at age 25 and
in no rush to settle down yet.
She says when she finds a man she wants
to spend the rest of her life with, she’ll
not let marriage spoil it and claims her
mother is fine with that decision. |
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| The union of
Nagendra Bangalore and Devanshi Patel
brought the first outsider in this
South Indian Brahmin family in generations. |
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Nagendra Bangalore and Devanshi Patel
of Lynnwood, Wash., have been married
for two years now. He comes from a staunch
South Indian Brahmin family while she
is a Gujarati raised in Kuwait. Their
parents are still based in India and Kuwait.
Nagendra was the first ever in his family
to marry a non-Brahmin in generations.
He says learning about other cultures
made it an easy transition into married
life. Both say Indian society is much
more progressive now.
“People are more open to each other,
social and educational status are fast
replacing caste and religious differences,”
Nagendra says.
In fact his parents were taken aback
by Devanshi’s family’s boisterous
“Salaam Alekums” when they
first met, but bounced right back and
now swear by Devanshi’s idli-sambhar.
It’s amazing what the stomach can
do for the heart.
*The names of Rahul Kohli and Sultana
Iqbal have been altered upon request.
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..- End
Of Article..... |
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