Deranged Marriage

by Sushi Das

  They were humble products, the results of his daily nurturing, and he was proud to show me his achievements. Indeed, his achievements were a gift for me. Journalism is a fierce business. Our lives, dominated by our careers, were a blur of deadlines, complexities, pressure, time poverty and brutal cynicism. In the midst of this madness, Tom brought me these simple unadulterated gifts of friendship.

  We got married one autumn day in 2004. This wedding day was different. Mum, Dad and Raja flew over from London. For my first wedding, my brother couldn’t make it; this time my sister couldn’t attend because she was heavily pregnant with her third baby. I’m not sure why we married; after all, as Robert Louis Stevenson said, marriage is just a sort of friendship recognised by the police, and we really had no reason to put ourselves on their radar.

  But this time around I was determined to acknowledge my roots and make a conciliatory gesture to my parents. So Tom and I arranged a wedding that could best be described as an amalgam of Eastern and Western ideas. It was a small event in a posh restaurant in Melbourne, with no cake and a solo harpist. I wore a red and gold sari that Mum helped me tie and Raja helped me with my Indian wedding make-up of red and white dots above my eyebrows. Tom wore a black jacket with a Nehru collar and a red silk cravat. Some days earlier Mum had said to him, ‘Tome, you like maybe I dye your white hair?’

  ‘Thank you for offering, but I think I’ll just leave it as it is,’ he’d politely replied.

  She thought him too old for me. But when I reminded her there was a seven-year difference between her and Dad, she simply said, ‘That’s different, he’s your father.’

  It wasn’t easy finding an established mehndi artist, but I found one miles away in one of Melbourne’s rundown outer suburbs. Her flat was neat but sparse and I could hear a couple of children in the back room. On a shelf a small statuette of Ganesh the elephant god sat surrounded by an open sewing box full of cotton reels, Bollywood DVDs and a pack of Huggies baby wipes. She didn’t talk much, so we sat largely in silence for two hours while she painted my hands and wrists in intricate patterns using a small icing bag of wet mehndi with a thin nozzle. At some point she looked up and, smiling, asked in a heavy Indian accent, ‘What is the name of your fiancé? I am writing in your hand. It will take him long time finding. I will write very small for you.’ And somewhere between the swirling lines and patterns at the base of my left thumb, in minuscule letters, she hid the letters T-O-M.

  On the wedding day, nobody wore funereal expressions. Mum dressed in a bright turquoise and hot pink sari and Dad wore a little red flower in his lapel. My parents were smiling and it made my heart bleed with joy. Perhaps they thought Tom’s seniority might bring wisdom that would put me on the straight and narrow. Perhaps they were charmed by him because, as Tom told me later, in my absence he had told them that I spoke highly of them.

  Against a backdrop of multicoloured flowers strung on long threads like a bead curtain, Tom and I exchanged the marriage vows that we had written ourselves. We didn’t exchange rings, we swapped garlands of fresh red and white carnations instead. The food and music were Western. And when it was all over, we went to India for our honeymoon, to see the world’s biggest monument to love: the Taj Mahal, of course. It was a different sort of wedding, because this was a different sort of time and my parents and I had become different sorts of people.

  I suppose I might have said goodbye to Australia and returned to London, the place I will always consider home, if I hadn’t met Tom. But I would never have opted for an arranged marriage the second time around. I’d like to think the paths I chose with both my marriages left the door ajar for my younger relatives. I hope I legitimised love marriage, so that other younger members of our extended family felt more comfortable opting for free choice, with all its attendant responsibilities, over bondage within an honour system that subjugates women.

  I am talking in absolute terms here. I’m not suggesting every woman who enters an arranged marriage is a slave. Most right-thinking people agree that forced marriages are absolutely unacceptable. Not everyone agrees that a law to make them a criminal act is the way forward, and that is a debate for another day. But arranged marriage is a feminist issue. If parents wish to help their children find marriage partners and their children want their parents’ help, then that is mere matchmaking. In an environment where finding the right life partner is not always easy, this might even make sense. Whether this matchmaking by mutual consent is done through matrimonial websites, word of mouth or ads in newspapers, it makes no difference. As long as the couple to be married has the freedom to reject or accept the match, then there’s nothing objectionable in that.

  There are no doubt bright, enlightened young women who are in favour of arranged marriages, or ‘semi-arranged’ marriages, and perhaps have entered into one themselves without feeling they were unduly pressured. One could argue Vin was one such woman – sort of. I just don’t know any others, which is not to say they don’t exist.

  But if a woman does not have the genuine freedom to reject a match without fearing the repercussions for herself or her family; if social coercion or emotional pressure is applied even in the subtlest form (and often it is subtle); if free choice cannot be exercised, even though a woman is outwardly told she is free to say yes or no – then there is surely a rot at the heart of arranged marriages.

  Knowing what we know about the honour system, countries to which Indians have migrated, such as Britain, America and Australia, cannot consider arranged marriage a foreign custom in which they have no right to intrude. This particularly applies to Australia, where Indian migration is rising fast and there is little or no awareness of Indian culture other than cricket and curry.

  Multiculturalism is all very well, but if feel-good policies that promote the so-called melting-pot theory of people living side by side, sharing each other’s cuisine, is all that it has to offer, then it’s not much.

  Change has swept through my family these days and made it a multicultural and multiracial joint venture. My cousin Twinkle eventually married a British-Vietnamese man, and she and her family went through everything my family and I went through. Raja, having split up with his English girlfriend, went on to marry a British-Chinese woman. He had a traditional Hindu wedding followed by a traditional Chinese tea ceremony. My parents accepted his wishes. I have two other cousins in Britain who also chose their own husbands. All we need now is for someone in my family to declare they are gay and we will have traversed all territory known to man, and woman.

  Mixed marriages, it seems, are on the rise everywhere. In Britain the rate of mixed marriages for second-generation Indians is about 14 per cent and the expectation is that this will rise in future generations as family pressures to marry someone approved by the family will almost certainly be weaker.

  In America, mixed marriages made up a little more than 8 per cent of all marriages in 2012 – an all-time high. And in Australia, less than 20 per cent of first-generation Indians (those born overseas) married out. These figures indicate a heartening breakdown in racial barriers and a pleasing celebration of love across the racial divide.

  Of course, mixed-race babies will be the result of these mishmash marriages. Ethnic ambiguity is the way of the future. Twinkle has two children and Raja has one. When I became pregnant at the age of forty, I welcomed the news with cautious delight. Learning that you are finally pregnant is like being told you have a winning lottery ticket. You’re delighted, but you’re not going to celebrate until you have that cash in your hands.

  I knew I was carrying a girl because I had an amniocentesis test, and I was thrilled because that’s what I had hoped for. Not only because I wanted the chance to raise a daughter, but because giving birth to a girl baby was the ultimate rebellion. Mum and Dad were beside themselves with excitement. They cared little that they had no say in the choice of my second husband, all that mattered now was that they would have another grandchild and the family would continue for another generation t
hrough all their children.

  In my family we have become accustomed to big news being announced over long-distance phone calls.

  ‘Hi Mum, it’s me.’

  ‘Hello, Sushila, how are you feeling?’

  ‘I’m fine, no morning sickness or anything.’

  ‘That is good. I am very very happy for you. I pray every day that god give you little baby and he listen my prayer.’

  ‘Thanks, Mum. By the way, I know the sex of the baby.’

  ‘What is it? Tell me, what is it?’ she said eagerly.

  ‘It’s a girl!’

  ‘Oh, never mind,’ she said, deflated.

  ‘Mum! It’s fantastic that it’s a girl. I’m happy that it’s a girl.’

  ‘Yes, yes, of course. I am happy too. Iss very good news. I get your father.’

  My mum’s immediate reaction was not a cruel response, it was merely instinctive. I wasn’t angry or shocked by her comment. I understood it. She grew up believing that the birth of a boy is better than the birth of a girl because that’s what her culture taught her. More often than not we don’t see our culture. It’s everywhere but it’s invisible. We just absorb it.

  And so, at the ripe old age of forty-one, I gave birth to a girl. She is part of a generation of mixed race children who, I hope, will grow up having a firmer sense of self than I did, instead of feeling she must slot herself into an identity imposed by others. But more importantly, my daughter, I hope, will grow up and fulfill her potential without having to waste half her life distracted by the struggle to be treated the same as men. Betty Friedan said it best in a letter to her daughter published in Cosmopolitan in 1978: ‘I hope there will come a day when you, daughter mine, or your daughter, can truly afford to say “I’m not a feminist. I’m a person” – and a day, not too far away, I hope, when I can stop fighting for women and get onto other matters that interest me now.’

  Around the time my daughter was about a year old, and I was just becoming accustomed to a child who could now walk and wreck the house simultaneously, I received a call from Vin. For years I had thrown around the idea of a big family reunion and we discussed it from time to time, but neither of us had managed to organise it. Now she had a plan.

  ‘This family reunion – let’s do it,’ she said. ‘Whenever we visit each other, we all do it in shifts. We never meet in the same spot at the same time.’

  ‘Great idea,’ I said. ‘But where exactly do you think this reunion is going to take place? And what are the chances of everyone being able to get annual leave at the same time? And even if we manage to sort that out, what are the chances of coinciding the dates with the American school holidays? Remember, we’re dealing with Indians here. It’ll be like herding cats.’

  ‘Yeah, I know it’ll be tricky. But think about it. It’s Dad’s seventieth birthday next December. If we could only just get everyone together in December, we could celebrate his birthday and have Christmas together too.’ I could hear her excitement down the phone line. ‘I’ve spoken to Raja and if we all pitch in we could get Dad a camera – you know, the latest whiz-bang thing.’

  ‘Yeah, okay. But we’re talking about Mum and Dad, Raja, his wife and child, you, Dinesh and your three kids and us three. So that’s thirteen people. Where are we all going to stay?’

  ‘Actually, it’s fourteen because my father-in-law is visiting us from India next year,’ she added.

  There was a silence as both of us contemplated the magnitude of the task. Then she shouted, ‘We could do it at my place! Yeah, everyone could come to New Jersey and we could all stay at my house.’

  Vin was sure she could pull it off. She was also happy for everyone to stay at her place because by now she and Dinesh had finished building a nice little house in New Jersey. Actually, it was more than a nice little house. It was an eight-bedroom mansion on an acre of land with plenty of bathrooms and a huge swimming pool. Maybe I should have married Dinesh after all.

  When our baby was small I would lift her out of her plastic bathing tub each evening and Tom would carry the tub carefully into the garden and throw the water at the feet of the old sycamore maple tree, in a pitiful attempt to keep it alive during the height of the drought in Melbourne.

  He was a tender, attentive older father, hanging tiny socks on the washing line, changing nappies and patiently prising his glasses out of her tight fist when she snatched them off his face. When I lacked confidence with the baby, he’d step in: ‘Hold her over your shoulder, like this – they prefer it like that sometimes.’ Or, ‘It’s okay, leave her be, she’ll fall asleep by herself.’

  One day, without prompting, he said, ‘My kids, they just grew up so fast. Lovely little things. I should have spent more time with them when they were small. I was always at work – I don’t know where my head was. It’s good to be given another go at it all. Mind you, it’s not like it was the first time round. Me and the little one were in a shop the other day and the lady behind the counter looked at her in the pusher and said, “Oh, how lovely to spend a day with granddad.” I didn’t think I looked that old.’

  Early one morning, because every morning is an early one during toddlerhood, the phone rang. I knew who it was – there was only one person who never seemed to get the time difference right.

  ‘Hello Neelum, Mummy here.’

  ‘Hi, Mum.’

  ‘Are you making the plans to go to America?’

  ‘Yes. I can’t believe we’re doing this! I think Tom and I will be the first there. We were lucky getting the flights – it’s not always easy around Christmas time.’

  ‘We will all enjoy! How is the little one?’

  ‘She’s fine. She can say some words now. But it’s hard, Mum. It’s really hard going to work and doing all the mother stuff at the same time. I don’t know how you did it with three.’

  ‘Aaah,’ she said slowly. ‘Now you are learning what is the motherhood meaning. It is making sacrifice for children. This is the meaning of the parent love.’

  Most unexpectedly, I had a picture of Dad as a young boy in my head, squatting in the chicken punishment position, holding his ear lobes.

  ‘Hey, Mum, do you remember when you told me that story about Dad and how his nickname at school was the Saint because he took the blame for something he didn’t do?’

  ‘No, I don’t remember that story.’

  ‘You said his nickname was the Saint, I remember. You told me the story ages ago, when I was little. Don’t you remember? He made a sacrifice to save all the kids in the class.’

  She paused. ‘No, I said his nickname is Saieen [pronounced sigh-een, with a nasal n],’ she said. ‘I don’t remember the story you talking about. Everybody remember differently the past.’

  ‘Saieen? Are you sure? What does it mean?’

  ‘It mean person is very quiet, very pure. His heart is clean. He is near the god.’

  ‘Huh? Is Dad there? Put him on.’

  So she handed the phone to him.

  ‘Dad, when you were young, Mum said they called you the Saint or Saieen or something, because you admitted doing something you didn’t do to save the class and so the teacher gave you the chicken punishment. Is that true?’

  ‘Yes, I had that nickname, Saieen, when I was a boy. That was a long time ago. It means someone who is very quiet and focused on god. Spiritual. But I don’t know which story she is talking about. Usually I don’t know what she is talking about these days. Perhaps she is thinking of the teacher who hit me.’

  ‘What happened?’ I asked, and he told me the story.

  ‘I was in sixth grade, so I was about nine or ten. I was in an English class and the teacher gave us a spelling test. I had a few buddies in that class and they got the spellings wrong. Then the teacher asked me and I got the answers right. He was angry with my buddies for their wrong answers so he asked me to slap them as punishment. I did not want to slap my friends. But he ordered me to do it. So I simply touched their faces lightly. After that, the teacher became angr
y with me for not slapping them hard. So he said to me, “I will show you how to slap.” Then he slapped me very hard with his large hand. I was a young boy and he had a very big hand. It was painful because he slapped across my ear. For some time after that my hearing was damaged. But it returned in later years. I still remember that teacher. His name was Mukund Lal.’

  It was as if I had opened a box looking for something, and found something else more intriguing instead. Dad had been in a bind. He knew what was expected of him but he had felt uncomfortable doing it. So he had done what he thought was right instead, only to find himself punished for his humanity.

  Had he not faced that same dilemma as an Indian father in Britain? People in his community had expected him to adhere to old traditions, but he had been left in an invidious bind when I demanded a love marriage. In the end he had done what he thought was the right thing for me and they had punished him for it. This is the meaning of the parent love.

  ‘That’s terrible, Dad.’

  ‘Yes, he was not the finest teacher. Now I will put you back to your mother – she’s right here.’

  After I’d hung up I stood thinking for a moment, till my thoughts were interrupted by shuffling and dragging sounds coming from the living room. I went to investigate and found my nearly-two-year-old daughter hauling behind her a little brown suitcase: the suitcase with the two silvery clasps that snapped shut with a satisfactory click – the one I had planned to run away with in the panic of my youth. It had been my dad’s, then mine. Now it was hers and she used it as a plaything, opening and closing it, stuffing it with soft toys and knick-knacks, and then taking them all back out again.

  One day when she grows up, she’ll probably ask me why it says SIOUX inside the lid.