My marriage - A love story

Reena and I got married almost 23 years back. It was a classic arranged marriage and a non-classic love story. I call it a nonclassic love story because there was no love at first sight, there was no dating, we did not go to the same school or college, we did not even live in the same state of India. Our marriage was fixed before we even knew each other as a person. The story began when a marriage proposal was brought by an acquaintance, when my parents found that the proposal made sense to them, the information was shared with me, and when I approved, things were finalized. There was just one deviation from the standard protocol of arranged marriage, I put one condition that I wanted to meet the girl before we finalized the date. I wanted to make sure that she was OK with all this as I knew that if she was not then she wouldn't say so under the pressure of hurting her parents, whereas I had the male privilege to say no and I was willing to use that privilege if there was anything which she didn't like in this proposed relationship, and meeting her was the only way to find this. I also wanted to give her an idea about what is she signing up for. I was not a typical groom which she would have expected with a stable job and set career path. I was still doing my Ph.D. and there was no way to predict which way my career might go, I wanted her to know all these things. Our meeting went very well, mostly I talked, but I was convinced that there was no pressure on her to marry me. It might be shocking to some readers to know that in India people divide marriage between love and arranged marriage, this means that they really believe that there can be a marriage without any love between the two individuals who are getting married. Love is not a precondition for an arranged marriage in India, it's hard to believe, but that's how it is.

We got married after almost a year since we first met. During that year, we did talk with each other on the phone (those were days of long-distance STD calls from a phone booth) and exchanged a few or maybe just one letter. This didn't help much to move our relationship further in any meaningful way. There was no face-to-face interaction with each other until we saw each other on the day of our marriage. Our marriage was held in Varanasi, it was a routine affair, like any other arranged marriage with all the rituals and extravaganza. A couple of days after our marriage, Reena moved with me to Pune, my birthplace in the state of Maharashtra in India. When I met with Reena and during our phone conversations I realized that we were different from each other, we did not even speak the same language. I spoke Marathi at home and English/Marathi at my lab. I knew Hindi because of Bollywood and the basics of Bhojpuri which I picked up so that I can communicate with my grandmothers, and other relatives whenever I visited my ancestral village in Uttar Pradesh. Reena and I began our conversations in Hindi. When we started living with each other we really realized how different we were from each other. We almost had nothing in common, two lost individuals brought together by the randomness of life. 

Our journey together began in a joint family where we lived with my parents and two brothers. Reena needed to adjust to a much smaller house, a much-crowded place, and with a husband who was mostly away from home working in a lab for his Ph.D. It was not easy for both of us. For her to move hundreds of miles away from her hometown and live in a completely new place with strangers with a different culture and language. For me to deal with the pressures of Ph.D. work and the ups and downs of a graduate student's life along with dealing with this new person in my life. In the beginning, we both were confused, and not sure how this thing would work. Maybe living in a joint family helped a little bit. Slowly we started understanding each other, we recognized our differences, they were huge, but we found a way to deal with them. We decided that we were not going to try to change each other against the other's will, this helped a lot. Our differences, no matter how big, never came in between us and I think that's the biggest reason why our marriage worked. We never forced each other to follow each other's beliefs and convictions. When I moved away from religion Reena didn't make a big deal about it, she continued on with her journey following her religion and beliefs without me being an active participant with her. Her patience and determination to deal with some unpleasant situations, especially, to manage confrontations within my own family due to my confrontational behavior is very impressive. Most importantly, we both became the biggest cheerleaders for each other. It's not that we succeeded in whatever we tried, but we did not discourage each other from taking risks or following an unchartered path. The arrival of our kids added another dimension to our relationship. Reena and the kids joined me in the USA when my daughter, Sara was 4, and my son, Yash was 1. Parenting our kids in a new country and embarking on an unknown journey brought us closer than ever before. Our appreciation for each other's role, and ability to offer emotional and moral support, increased day by day since then. In the US I saw a completely new personality of Reena, more independent, more forthcoming, and much more vocal. In Pune her identity was Vinay's wife or so and so's daughter-in-law, however, in the US in most social circles I am known as Reena's husband and I am extremely proud of this identity. We genuinely have mutual admiration for each other's abilities and qualities. Also, we do not hesitate to point out where each of us needs to improve. The frankness of our relationship allows us to be open and comfortable while praising or criticizing each other. It's not that we didn't have any arguments or ups and downs in our journey, we had and still have our own share of challenges. However, none of it made us drift apart from each other, rather, every such occasion helped both of us to understand each other better and brought us closer.

Our love story is not a conventional love story where a boy meets a girl and they fall in love. We randomly met with each other via this crazy system of arranged marriage and gradually realized that even though we have very little in common we complement each other very well and love blossomed. Our ability to give each other space, our ability to understand the fact that we do not have to agree on each and every issue, and do not have to share the same political and religious beliefs to love each other has been a major reason why our love and relationship survived each and every challenge that we faced. We do make our own mistakes and learn from them, some mistakes we realized on our own, and some our kids made us realize, no matter when and how we realize our mistakes we always try to learn and correct our course. There is no blame game, we both get the credit as well as the blame. Our ability to adapt to new information and accommodate it in our lives helped us a lot. Whenever we learn something new we tell each other and talk about it. We discuss with each other a lot, sometimes we talk for hours on some subject, this helps us to understand what both of us are thinking. 

Our journey has been amazing so far, every day is exciting, our discussions are animated and rewarding, and we spend so much time together and still don't get bored of each other. We cherish each other's company and at the same time realize we need to give space to each other. Fortunately, we do not feel the need to hide anything from each other, we are not scared of each other. Neither do I have to make an excuse to go out and spend time with my friends, nor does she have to justify why she is going out alone, what else one can ask for in a marriage. My marriage is a love story that I love to tell. I hope this journey continues like this with the same excitement and foolishness.

Thanks for reading and please share your opinion about this topic.  

The journey of Reena - from a shy village girl to an independent woman

Reena and I got married 18 years back and ours was an arranged marriage, full of all the uncertainties and concerns that any arranged marriage brings along with it. The journey was not an easy ride, we had our ups and downs and went through our own struggles to understand each other and adjust to each other. I learned a lot from her and I am sure she feels the same. I lived most of my life in a patriarchal society in India, where the status of women was not equal to men. I must also mention that in the USA situation is much better, but still, a lot of work is needed even in the USA so one can imagine the situation in India. I was raised in an environment of male superiority, but fortunately, it had the opposite effect on me. Patriarchy and rampant misogyny around me made me a feminist. I realized the importance of making a woman an equal partner in any relationship. I realized that in the modern world women are an equal stakeholder and they need to to treated like that.

Reena lived in a small village in Uttar Pradesh until her sixth grade and then she moved to Varanasi. Varanasi is one of the biggest cities of UP, but the situation of women is not that different compared to other parts of UP. Definitely, it is better than many villages, but the difference is not that much. So, when we got married, my first task was to make my wife independent of me. She came from a culture where the husband had the status of a demigod - the provider for her needs, the protector of her honor and dignity, and the controller of her life and destiny. I needed to break all these myths. This was not an easy task for me as well as for her. It was confusing for her and very complicated for me. There was no easy way for both of us to maneuver through the maze of cultural mess that arranged marriage and patriarchal culture brought into our lives. When I told her that she is an equal partner in our relationship, which means she has equal rights and has to share an equal responsibility. The second part was more confusing and complicated for her (about the responsibilities). I stressed both, rights and responsibilities because rights without responsibility is a useless endeavor. But I must say that she responded with a lot of courage and perseverance. She took on this challenge head-on after initial hesitation. Initially, she thought her responsibilities were limited to traditional household work which women were expected to perform, this was the way she was raised. But when she realized that her scope of duty involved many tasks that she never thought were women's jobs, she was a little hesitant. There was a struggle, and I witnessed that struggle. I refused to help on many occasions, but that was necessary for her to realize her own potential. She overcame many obstacles on her own, with no or very little help from anyone around her. I was just her companion, once she decided to take on this challenge, she did things on her own, and she deserves the credit for all her successes.

When we moved to the USA, it opened many more new doors for her. She was free from all the social and familial constraints that were present in India. This made her embark on an exciting and rewarding journey. Today, I live with a totally transformed person, she is a much more confident and independent person. We both support each other, and our relationship is more balanced now compared to what it was at the time of our marriage. She is a very confident person and an independent woman who doesn't need her husband's support for her survival, and I am glad to see that she can manage her life on her own. She is a pillar of strength and support for me along with the rest of my family and friends. We both complement each other as husband and wife rather than having a typical husband-dominated marital relationship. It is not easy to write about your partner or parents or for that matter any person in just one blog post, but I want my readers to get the idea that it doesn't matter who we are or from where we come, if we decide and get enough support we all can achieve many things which may look impossible.

Reena's journey so far is not only a success story in its own way but also a source of inspiration for me. She still has many more challenges and many more obstacles to cross, but now she can do these things on her own. There are many successful people around us, but we fail to notice them. Normally we only recognize success or failure based on media reports and very often ignore many inspiring stories of people around us. Many times, no one bothers to tell stories of common people like us. Many times, we fail to notice some inspirational struggle or success story happening right in front of our eyes. We ignore that just because these people don't become celebrities or they don't end up making millions of dollars. I am fortunate to notice and appreciate many such success stories around me. My family members, friends, and colleagues faced many challenges and fought hard to overcome them. For me, all these struggles and triumphs are very inspiring. All these stories along with many others provide me the required self-confidence and optimistic outlook towards life. Reena's journey is one such story. We all have someone around us who is making progress day by day and if we learn to recognize that struggle and draw inspiration from their struggle, life will be beautiful. My life is more beautiful because of Reena and I hope she feels the same.

Thanks for reading.

[Copyright: Vinay Thakur. Please contact the author for re-posting or publishing]