If you made it through my last post, I can just imagine you clucking your tongue and shaking your head in mildly-smug contentment over the fact that you are far smarter than I will ever be. Which, boy-howdy, is the truth. Let me just tell it like it is. I am a simpleton. And I learn all of life's lessons the hard way. Not that it should be a deciding factor of intelligence, but just to paint you a word picture here: when I have to fill out a form that asks for my highest level of education, there is no option for "practically illiterate; wallowing in filth", so I just check "some college" instead. Which, as an epic aside, shocks the pants/man-skirts off of people here when they ask me what kind of degree I have and what my job is. No, for real, question-asker, I didn't finish any post-secondary education and these littl'uns you're looking at right here are my full-time job with reality tv being a close second. I think they're wondering how I managed to land such a prize possession of a man with so little to offer. Well, it was false promises, of course!
Now let me tell you a little ditty about Raja's cousin's marriage. Marriage is arranged here. It involves two sets of parents from the same caste, a young man, a young woman, sometimes there's a matchmaker, and almost always there is a big fat dowry going from the bride's family to the groom's. *gags* My disapproval for caste and dowries is blatant and unrelenting and I'm sure most Westerners feel the same.
Well, about 20 years ago, a young man, let's call him Satyam, because that's his name, was looking through photos of his younger brother's classmates when a certain young lady in one of them caught his eye.
"This will be my wife!" he declared. His brother told him of her fine nature and he set out to find a way to meet her. His father was a wealthy English professor of their school so when he saw the lady, Rani, walking by his house with a friend, he called them in- saying his father wanted to see them- gave them terrible (I'm told) coffee and had a bit of a chat. He pulled the same stunt once more when she was alone and told her he wanted to marry her. She said it was fine with her if he could get her parents on board. He went back and forth between the parents, very boldly as this man had his mind made up. The problem was, Rani's family was not well-off and the $40,000 dowry his parents were demanding was absolutely out of the question.
"Balls to dowry!" Satyam decided to himself.
Rani's family was worried their reputation would be ruined if Satyam's parents refused after all of this. Then her chance of another offer from a potential groom would be nil.
But he was still going into her house to sit and chat with her when there was no official engagement yet, which is positively unheard of in these parts. This all caused her family a lot of concern.
When his parents told him definitively that they would not consent to him marrying Rani, Satyam went on a hunger strike. For a whole week he stayed in bed without eating a bite. In desperation and fear for her son's life, his mother wept and finally agreed to his wishes. He hopped on out of bed, went for a bath, a shave, a smoke (tsk, tsk - I've told him) and then to marry his beautiful bride. Rani's parents sold their house in order to pay for the wedding expenses and it was a done deal. All these years later, with two soon-to-be-grown daughters of his own, he says he wants the grooms to pay dowries to him!
Don't you just love a not-quite-love-at-first story? *sigh*
No comments:
Post a Comment