25 years of togetherness

Today is the 25th anniversary of our marriage. Reena and I got married on 31st May 1998. These 25 years of togetherness have been full of love, excitement, and many other things. I could not have asked for a better companion than Reena for this journey. This journey took us to places that none of us imagined we will go and threw a myriad of challenges that we faced together. She has not only been a committed wife, but also a friend, a critic, and a cheerleader for me. I don't know if we are made for each other, but definitely, we made each other.  

Just to be clear, it was not a fairy tale like they show in movies or we read in books. Ours was not love at first sight or any other love story where we have to struggle and fight with the system or with our families to get married. Ours was an arranged marriage. Even though it could be categorized as an arranged marriage, it was missing some essential ingredients of a typical arranged marriage. Reena's parents and my parents belonged to the same state, Uttar Pradesh (UP), hence my parents wanted to find a bride from UP even after knowing that none of their kids belonged to UP and share any social and cultural aspects of that state. So, I and Reena did not speak the same language, did not grow up in the same cultural and social settings, and did not share the same values. Normally, in a typical arranged marriage bride and groom share these common socio-cultural aspects, but we didn't. As expected, our start was not as smooth as anyone could have expected due to all these differences. Ours was not love at first sight, but it was love after many sights. But once the love entered it never left or got less, rather, it grew year by year and we are now in our 25th year of togetherness.

We tested and challenged each other on many fronts, before realizing that we really complement each other and then the ride together has been a journey full of excitement and joy. Of course, there were challenges and there will be more to come, but we know for sure that we have each other to face them. The key to our togetherness was transparency and trust. We are so different than each other that we cannot live together without this trust and transparency. We are very different, even after 25 years, each one of us has parts of our lives where the other is not required, and we respect that. We know our differences and don't try to change each other. Husband and wife are not a single entity, they are two different individuals who agree and decide to live together, there is no need for one to dissolve in another to make this relationship a success. This is a simple philosophy that we follow and it has been working great so far. I hope people who want to be in a relationship realize the importance of protecting each other's individuality and personal space. If you don't respect these things about your partner, you don't respect that person, and without respect, there is no love. Marriages can survive without love, marriage is just a legal contract nothing more without love and respect. But if you want marriage to be something more than a legal contract, something more than a way to have a display for society, there needs to be mutual respect, trust, and transparency, I am glad that we managed to achieve that. Most marriages come with patriarchal conditioning where the husband has an upper hand and ours was no different. It took a lot of work from both of us to negate this burden and create our own dynamics that had no precedence in our family or culture, but I am glad that we did that and never followed the status quo. I thank Reena for accepting this challenge and making this work, I know it was not easy for her, but she not only accepted the challenge but added new dimensions to it. The journey continues and I am looking forward to our next phase with equal excitement and awe.   

Happy anniversary Reena, and thank you for allowing me to be me.

Thank you for reading and please share your story of togetherness with others, it may inspire more such stories. 

©Vinay Thakur,  Vinay can be reached at thevinay2022@gmail.com

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.  

Marriage can be a liberating experience

This month I and Reena will be celebrating our 21st marriage anniversary. So far, it has been an amazing journey for both of us, full of excitement and challenges. I couldn't have asked for a more supportive and understanding partner who not only supported me in all my endeavors but also took up each and every challenge which I threw at her with a lot of good spirit and courage and I hope Reena also feels the same way.

Ours was a classic arranged marriage. We did not know each other personally before a marriage proposal came to my parents from a common acquaintance who knew members of both families. This was a traditional way arranged marriages used to work before the emergence of matchmaking agencies and online matrimonials. I met her only once before we got married and that too only when I insisted on that meeting. I really had to take a stand that I was not getting married to anyone without having at least a one-to-one meeting with that person. This was a shocker to all the elders in my family as something like this never happened before and everyone was wondering what I may achieve by talking with a girl in person? Isn't the photo enough to see how she looks? Isn't what her family tells about her enough to judge that she is going to be an obedient wife and daughter-in-law? What am I going to talk to her? Does it really matter? Yes, it did matter to me. I wanted to tell the person who was going to marry me what type of person I was and what was she getting into. I knew from the beginning that my marriage was not going to be like all other marriages around me. This was all that I told Reena when I met her at her home in Varanasi during the only meeting we had before our marriage. I explained to her my views, and I told her about my family, my Ph.D. work schedule, and my other future plans. I also conveyed to her my expectations about my partner and asked about her expectations. Not to my surprise she had minimum expectations like her husband should not be alcoholic or abusive. The bar was that low for boys to qualify as a suitable groom. I did not know back then how she felt about my insistence on meeting her, later she told me that it was a bit surprising for her that I talked about all these other things rather than where to go for honeymoon and other typical stuff that people ask their prospective brides.

Anyway, we got married in 1998, and since then Reena has been my partner. I see many people complaining amount of restrictions their marriage puts on their lifestyle, there are many jokes about marriage being the end of freedom for a man/woman, but nothing like that happened with us. Our marriage has proven to be a liberating experience for both of us. I never felt restricted from anything, rather I have more freedom as I have someone to share responsibilities and support me apart from my parents and brothers. I have more support after marriage than before marriage. As far as our personal relationship is concerned, we both give each other enough space. We recognize and acknowledge that we both have our own circles from before our marriage, and we need to maintain those relationships without diluting our relationship with each other. This is not an easy balance to strike, but also not difficult if both partners try honestly. A lot of understanding, transparency, and discussion are needed to achieve this and we both never hesitated to initiate complicated or difficult conversations no matter how complicated or sensitive the issue is. We are poles apart on certain issues, but that never affected our personal relationship. Imposing our own views on each other was never our intention, we believe in agreeing to disagree and moving on. We value and encourage independence, but this was not easy in the beginning as it was a shocker for Reena when I told her to decide about her personal issues, like when to visit her family. I know that many people will think that's such a trivial matter, but even this much freedom is not offered to women in many societies. They need permission from their husband or in-laws even to visit their family. I must say that Reena took this challenge very graciously and worked really hard towards it. It was not easy for both of us as it created family conflicts and other challenges, but we did it. This is what I mean by marriage can be a liberating experience, we both are free and independent, not independent of each other, but independent within a relationship that binds us together. We value and respect each other's space, even in disagreement we support each other's right to have different beliefs. We recognize each other's complexities and do not try to make it more complex, but try to support and understand. We discuss and debate a lot, but not always to convince each other, but many times to understand each other. We do need to strike a balance but it is from both sides. I do not get the upper hand for just being a husband and she does not have to compromise just because she is a wife. We try to fight many patriarchial notions together. We not only believe in gender equality but we also practice it. There are many small and big things which contributed to making our relationship really special. Marriage was never a burden or a cage for both of us, and I hope other married couples feel the same way. It all depends on both partners, if they want, marriage can be a liberating experience.

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

My Marriage - an amazing journey

This year (2014) there was the 16th anniversary of my marriage. I can't believe that sixteen years have passed since I and Reena got married. When I look back I can't stop wondering how quickly time passes, it has been a beautiful and rewarding journey so far for me. I hope the same is true for Reena. Like many couples in India, ours was also an arranged marriage. This system is still very popular in India and even today most people get married via this method. The system of arranged marriage has its own pros and cons, one can have lengthy debates on this but this post is not about that, it is about my amazing journey with my wife who now is also my very good friend. We first began our journey as husband and wife and now we are like best friends, I believe that friendship is an integral part of any marital relationship.

Our journey together started when I was still doing my Ph.D. Anyone familiar with the life of a Ph.D. student would know how tough is that life. I was embroiled in long work days in the lab, a very tiring work schedule, and a life full of frustrations and uncertainties of research. It was not easy for Reena to adjust to this new life after marriage. I must say that she adjusted really well with all this and managed very well on her own. There was a learning curve for both of us. We both took some time to adjust to this new reality of life, it also took some time to understand each other. As it is for every marriage there were ups and downs in our married life also and we learned something from each of these phases. I am sure initially Reena must have felt a little unusual to find a person like me as her husband. A person who doesn't believe in going on honeymoon or on exotic holidays, who was so introverted that he would prefer to read a book rather than have a chat, a person so busy with his research work who worked even on weekends, who doesn't like to go out for dinner or watching movies. These are some of the traits that I used to have back then and my stressful research life added additional demands and complexities. I also offered very little help to her in fighting her battle to establish herself in a new city and new family. She did manage well without my help and I am really proud to say that she never even asked for my help after I made her clear that she should not expect any special treatment just because she is a woman and should fight her own battles. I am sure initially it was a big struggle for her as she was in a city where she didn't understand the local language. She learned Marathi quickly and learned so well that within a few months, she could communicate with my neighbors in Marathi. She also learned to do all official work related to banks and other things without my help. Some people might think that what a big deal if some woman can manage these things on her own. They are right, women should be doing this on their own but in my family they were not even allowed to go out of home alone, so, this was a great achievement. In India, ours is a joint family, I am sure it was not easy for her to adjust to this environment but she never complained, or expressed her displeasure towards anything and I really thank her for that.

When we moved to the US almost a decade back, it was the beginning of another new chapter in life for us. It was not only a new city but a new country, and a new culture and we did not know anyone there. Fortunately, we met very kind and helpful people here with whom we now have relationships like family and I must say that Reena was instrumental in nurturing all these relationships. Actually, I have no hesitation in saying that she is the person who makes me socially relevant, she is the main reason all guests feel welcome in our home. I am not that social person from the beginning. But Reena tries to remember what are likes and dislikes of my friends and then cooks that particular dish whenever they visit, she even remembers most people's birthdays and other important days (like marriage anniversaries) and reminds me to wish them. This quality of hers has played a very pivotal role in our survival in this new country which we now can call our second home. We successfully completed almost a decade here and I credit her a lot for this. Apart from her, there are other women like my mom, and my grandmas who played a very crucial role in my life. It is said that behind every successful man, there is a woman but I disagree with the phrasing of this statement. Why behind? They are always with them, these women are not behind me but they are with me, right beside me. We should say "With every successful man there is a woman." These women didn't play any secondary role in my life but their role was and still is a very primary role. So, Reena's contributions are as crucial as my own contributions, she shares my success equally and is as much responsible for it as I am.

Actually, one blog post is not enough to write about this amazing journey. I just want to express my thanks and gratitude towards her for being such an amazing partner. A very supportive and understanding partner is needed for a successful marriage. This is especially true when we have so many uncommon things between us. For example, we both belong to different states in India (each state has a different language and culture), and we both have very different views about religion and God (Reena considers herself religious and believes in Hinduism and I don't subscribe to any such values), our mother tongue's are also different, despite all these differences where some of them can destroy relationships our family is a bunch of happy people. I consider this as a big success. We don't try to force our views on each other and on our kids but try to encourage them to explore on their own and choose what they feel is good for them. Because of our unique backgrounds and exposure to different cultures, our kids have a variety of things which they can choose from. These all responsibilities and challenges in life make it very interesting. We both are trying to figure out our way through all this while enjoying our journey together. I don't think there is any single formula for successful marriage or successful parenting, for every couple or family different things might work, one needs to find what works for them and I guess we have figured out what works for us. So far this journey has been amazing and I am sure it will continue like this. Thank you, Reena, and thanks for all the wonderful memories.

Thanks for reading.

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

Arranged marriage: can it be called a legalized rape?

One of my friends called arranged marriage a "legalized rape." His statement didn't surprise me as I heard this previously also. I did not agree with this statement completely because I know many successful and happy arranged marriages (including my own). The system of arranged marriage is not perfect, it has many serious drawbacks, but even considering all drawbacks, it is an exaggerated statement to call all arranged marriages as legalized rape. However, this statement is not entirely wrong, the statement is not 100% right, but it's not also 100% wrong. It can make sense to a person only if he/she tries to understand the logic behind this argument. Some people might find this topic disgusting or offensive or against their tradition or culture, so for them, my advice is the intention is not to offend anyone but if they at all feel offended by this subject then please don't proceed and go and read some other post there are many other posts on this blog, hopefully, some of them won't offend you.

Arranged marriage is a system designed to find a partner for marriage. The system was designed during times when any unsupervised interaction between males and females was not allowed. In many societies, arranged marriage was the only way to get married. The system was controlled by parents and other elders as they used to decide everything, starting from selecting the bride or groom to the date and time of marriage. The bride and groom were just instruments to run this show. All decision and execution power used to rest in the hands of elders and slowly they extended this system to child marriage. After all, the consent or desire of the bride and groom didn't matter, so why have any age restriction, right? There can be many reasons why the consent of the boy and girl was not taken, the young age and immaturity might be the two biggest reasons. After the marriage next step is the consummation of marriage. According to Wikipedia, consummation or consummation of a marriage, in many traditions and statutes of civil or religious law, is the first (or first officially credited) act of sexual intercourse between two people, either following their marriage to each other or after a prolonged sexual attraction. In any sexual act if there is no consent involved or if force is used against the will of any individual involved in it, it can be considered a rape or sexual assault. There are high chance of this happening during the consummation of many arranged marriages. I think this is what my learned friend meant when he made this comment.

People often cite high divorce rates in developed societies to prove the uselessness of love marriages. No matrimonial system is perfect, there are some pros and cons associated with every system, but only a fool will advocate any system where two people are allowed to get married without knowing each other. Allowing two people who want to get marry interact with each other to make their own informed decisions is the best way whether it happens through a love marriage or an arranged marriage doesn't matter. No doubt that good traditions and rituals should be preserved and continued but not all traditions are worth preserving, some need major reforms and as a society, we should be willing to change. Obtaining informed consent of the two people getting married is not wrong, rather it's beneficial for everyone interested in that union and can avoid many problems after marriage. Why not follow such a simple common sensible thing during the arranged marriage. Parents can definitely help whenever needed, and offer suggestions whenever asked but they should leave it to the two individuals to make decisions about their own lives, after all, they are the ones who are getting married. In any relationship, it is essential to learn to respect your partner's choices and their right to say no, and arranged marriages must ensure this to avoid it being labeled as a legalized rape.

Thanks for reading and please share your views on this topic.

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

Seeing the Girl - a classic example of gender-bias

"Seeing the Girl" is one of the very important processes in the case of arranged marriage. This process may sound outrageous or very backward to many who don't know about the process of arranged marriage, but it is still a very important part of arranged marriage and it's still practiced widely.  Also, this is not just limited to villages or rural areas, but educated people, living in big cities or abroad also practice this ritual. I always felt that this process was a very humiliating process for prospective brides. I felt bad for them that they had to go through this and always admired their courage and the efforts they took to go through this process without complaining.

The process itself is not very standard and can differ widely from region to region or family to family. In many places, they just want to make sure that it's the same girl (whose photo they saw), and that she doesn't have some obvious issues that were not disclosed to them (like some disability, etc.). Some families want girls to display their talents like singing, dancing, cooking, etc. Some people take proper interview of that girl by asking a variety of questions starting from her hobbies to her career goals to her opinion about living in a joint family, etc. So, the process can vary from place to place and family to family. I think this process was necessary for an era of child marriages, especially when women (of any age) were not allowed to go out of home and men-women interaction was minimal outside of the family. During that time it might have been necessary to go and interview potential brides. "Swayamvara" was one unique tradition in ancient India where a girl used to choose her future husband from a list of suitable candidates, this ritual gave all the right to girl to choose whoever they liked as their future life partner, but this was in ancient India, today one can only see very distorted version of this on some reality shows.

I am not against arranged marriage or social traditions where people can meet and try to know each other before deciding to get married. But having a social gathering to know each other is one thing and when a group of people analyzes physically and interviews only girls as if she is some article they want to purchase is a totally different thing. In most cases, people who should be actually involved (bride and groom) never even get a chance to interact with each other, which is a major flaw of this process (especially in very conservative families). When I expressed my desire to have a face-to-face meeting with my wife before our marriage everyone in our family was shocked and they were wondering what purpose this meeting will serve? They never heard of any boy meeting the girl before marriage in their community, so it was confusing and shocking to them.

I feel this process of seeing the girl should be abandoned for good or at least made gender-neutral. A bride has an equal right to get to know her future groom, so the process should be balanced for both. It should be entirely left to the prospective couple to decide whether they want to go through this process or not and the decision of marriage also should be theirs. I am sure that today's generation is mature enough to take decisions about such an important step in their lives. Let's give them a chance I am sure they won't disappoint their elders. After all, it's their life and they are more concerned about it than anyone else, so just believe in them and give them a chance.

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

(Copyright: Vinay Thakur. Please contact the author for re-posting or publishing)