Yes, It's Arranged. Deal with It.

As an American native son with connections in the local Indian expatriate community, my experiences with my NRI friends are frequently a source of interest to those American friends, acquaintances, and family of mine who do not have similar connections.

Having never visited a Hindu temple or a mosque, they like to hear about my visits to the local temple and mosque as a guest of my Indian and Pakistani friends. Having never participated in a Diwali party, they like to hear about Diwali parties.

Sometimes I think they should get out more.

But one question that comes up, and it comes up every time, without fail, and without exception, is this:

"Are the marriages really arranged?"

Man, they can't get enough of this question. It's a source of endless fascination to them.

And as regards my NRI friends, since I am of an age where my friends tend to be first generation NRIs and not ABCDs, the answer is invariably "yes."

So I say "yes."

They ponder this a bit. They struggle to wrap their brains around it.

It's a foreign idea to them. Love, by the Western way of thinking, should be a spontaneous thing that falls from the heavens, smiting the young lovebirds like a comical anvil in a Road Runner cartoon, thereby causing small red hearts to circle in orbit around said lovebirds as the violin music swells.

Arranging a marriage seems to them to be, well...so arranged.

They struggle with it some more. I try to help them.

"Look, it's not as unusual as it seems to you. People in lots of cultures have been doing it that way for centuries."

"Really?"

"Yes. And even in this country, although they weren't exactly 'arranged,' marriage was viewed more pragmatically. Parents had a lot of say in whether a marriage would go through or not."

I warm up to the topic.

"And anyway, there's something to be said for not leaving it all up to a dumb kid whose hormones are racing. Think of all the stupid decisions you made when you were that age."

That seems to make some sense to them. They made some pretty stupid decisions when they were that age.

"Well...does it work?" they ask.

"It seems to work okay. The people I know seem to have pretty good marriages. Obviously it doesn't work well in every case. But our own marriages don't seem to work out all that well either. About half of ours end in divorce."

This point seems to work especially well with my divorced friends.

I had one of these conversations with my father. Like everyone else, he pondered it a bit.

"Well," he said. "You could say that my mother's (meaning my grandmother's) marriage was sort of arranged."

This surprised me. My grandmother had an arranged marriage?

He continued. "She grew up in a small town in Texas. One day, her grandmother took her aside and said to her, 'I think (name of future husband) is a fine young man. It would make me very happy if you married him one day.'"

After that, apparently, the matter was sort of settled. Everyone just assumed that they would be getting married one day. And they did. It turned out to be a very happy marriage.

Now, I've also discovered that a few of these "arranged marriages" are not quite as "arranged" as they first appear to be.

I was at a friend's house watching his wedding video. It was interesting, as I have never attended a Hindu wedding. I understand that they are very long and that the bride and groom must sit on the floor with a priest for a very long time while all the distant relatives have a big party and eat a lot of food at the immediate family's expense. Weddings seem to be a real hassle in any culture, not just mine.

Another NRI friend was with us watching the video. He told us about his "arranged" marriage.

Now, this guy had a very independent streak. He could be stubborn when he wanted to. And his parents, of course, knew perfectly well how stubborn their son could be.

He grew up in a village in southern India. He had met someone he wanted to marry. She wanted to marry him, too.

So he decided to perform a little bit of trickery to get the marriage he wanted.

First, he softened the ground. He boldly announced to his parents, "I want to marry outside of my religion and outside of my caste! And I don't want a traditional wedding!"

This sent the parents reeling, of course. They'd been looking forward to his marriage for a very long time. But they knew their son, and he sounded serious.

They immediately fell to their back-up negotiating position. "Please!" they said. "Okay, okay...you can marry outside of your religion and caste. But please let us have a traditional wedding!"

(I am reminded of the mother in the American movie In & Out who says to her son, "I need this wedding. It's like heroin.")

But he stood firm, parental wedding addiction notwithstanding. Kept a perfect poker face the whole time.

Then one day, he went to a neighboring town with his mother to run some errands. As it turned out (perhaps by coincidence, perhaps not), his beloved was also running errands with a girlfriend of hers.

He pointed her out to his mother.

"Mother," he said. "What do you think of that girl over there?"

Mama peered across the street.

"The tall one or the short one?" she asked.

"The short one."

Mama raced across the street and closed the deal on the spot.

They had a traditional wedding. Inside the religion. Inside the caste. Everybody was happy.