Crossing Cultures

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e hadn’t even made it down the aisle before the marital drama began. “This is the worst place I have ever stayed,” sobbed my mother-in-law as she checked into the hotel I had chosen for her—and for our other 90 wedding guests. Considering that she had grown up in the slums of Mumbai, this was a pretty harsh statement. On top of the hotel fiasco, the plane ride had been stressful, the morning coffee served cold, the drive to the wedding location too long... and clearly I was to blame. She brought me, the mild, no-drama bride, to tears. I was completely freaked out, wondering what kind of family I was marrying into. Did they expect a subservient daughter-in-law who would bend to their every whim? Was this going to be the reality of my cross-cultural marriage? This was not how I had imagined it.

When I first met Vijay, I was drawn to his tousled black hair, tawny skin and gorgeous, deep brown eyes, but I quickly noticed a thin gold band on his right ring finger. Upon further investigation, I discovered that this charming, seemingly modern man was in an arranged dating relationship, entered with the understanding that it would lead to marriage. His life path, up to this point, had included a seven-year stint of monastic celibacy while living in the remote Indian state of Assam—not exactly conducive to dating. Nearing his mid-thirties, with the threat of bachelorhood looming before him, Vijay had asked his father to sound the alarm. In the Indian community, this means informing friends and family members that you have an eligible son on your hands. Shortly after the word went out, they received a response. But sparks and butterflies and all other signs of love cannot always be arranged and in Vijay’s case, there wasn’t so much as a single stomach flip when he met his arranged match. He persevered, imagining that perhaps love can grow and thinking that a man of his age shouldn’t be picky. And the sparks did eventually show up, just not as his parents had planned.