After maybe ten days of staying in Trinidad, I came back to London where I stayed about two or three days. It had got really cold in London then and I was happy to be back on the flight into a warmer climate in India again. Winter in India is always nice. We have cold nights but beautiful sunny days. This is how the year 2002 ended for me in Vrindavan, enjoying the days at home and with my family.
In our family, plans for the future were being made. I am the oldest son of the family. As per Indian tradition, my grandfather wanted to arrange my marriage when I was 18 years old. It is just normal in India that parents and grandparents search for the right partner but I had no interest in marrying at all. I had made this very clear whenever the topic came up and my parents and grandfather accepted it.
Going with the normal custom, they then started to think of their second eldest son, Purnendu. There had been several marriage proposals of families who wanted to marry their daughters to my younger brother. This is what usually happens before a marriage is arranged. The boy’s family looks at several girls and has talks with their families and the girl’s family looks at different boys to see to whom their daughters could fit. It is even a kind of social responsibility and many people’s joy to find the right matches and bring them together.
In the beginning of 2003 our family received a marriage proposal through a third party. And this time we accepted it. Purnendu respected the wish of our parents and was happy at the thought of getting married. This girl came from a poor background and we, as a family, thought to support a young girl to have a better future.
We had always been of the opinion that it does not make sense to spend millions of rupees on a wedding. The family of the girl was not able to contribute, as it is usually the case, but we did not see that as a problem at all. We organized the wedding and everything that belonged to it. You may be surprised about the speed with which the wedding was arranged and organized but in India it is quite normal. In January 2003 we received the proposal and in February we already celebrated Purnendu’s wedding with much happiness.
We welcomed the new woman in our home but unfortunately their marriage did not even last two years.
Not knowing that it would be such a bitter experience for us however, we were happy in our celebrations. Among the guests was a couple from Copenhagen, Denmark, who lived in the neighbourhood and who had come to visit the Ashram a few times before, too. They joined the celebrations and invited me to come to Copenhagen when I would be in Europe the next time.
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It is always sad when a marriage doesn’t work out especially, as so often happens, when it causes so much bitterness and anger for both families. It’s hard enough to make a marriage work when you have known someone for a long time and fallen in love instinctively. I can only imagine how hard it must be to make it work when you don’t even know the person you are married to.
So, what is your attitude today to arranged marriage? Even though there is no proof that love marriage is happier or more successful than arranged marriage, the idea of an arrangement doesn’t honor the individuality of a person from the western point of view.
I completely agree with you and with the western point of view. Each individual should be respected. Arranging for two adult people to live together for the rest of their lives without even having spoken to each other once before is not how love works. They have their own ideas, dreams, lifestyles and more. This is why there are a lot of problems in many marriages in India. I don’t say it never works – there are examples of happy marriages, too, but there are all kinds of examples for failed love marriages as well 🙂 It depends on the wish and love of both people to be together, love each other and go the way of life together.