Marriage on My Mind

Allow me to preface this with two disclaimers right from the start. 1) I stole this blog idea from my flatmate after having a discussion about this very topic. And 2) Don't worry, this blog isn't about MY personal life.

Well now that the air is cleared I can begin. It's wedding season in Hyderabad. Which means not a day goes by without lucky households being decorated in strings of lights, a well-dressed man riding down the street on a white horse (believe me, I've actually seen this), or one invitation to an obscure relative's wedding from a school teacher, school teacher's sister, or school teacher's neighbor's best friend's brother. And whether the wedding is Muslim, Hindu or Christian, there seems to be a certain level of prestige from having a foreigner you may not even personally know come to your wedding.

With this in mind, last Friday I attended my first wedding celebration, accompanying two of my flatmates. Yes the invitation was for the sister's wedding of my flatmate's teacher who I had never met. But no matter. As we'd say here in Hyderabadi English, "wedding invitation is there." So we saree'd up, quite literally, and hopped into an autorickshaw to a promising sounding function hall called "Officer's Mess." Hmmmm. Anyway, we arrived a full hour later than we were advised to, which is to say at 9PM because all weddings take place late in the evening here. And of course, in true Indian fashion, no one was there. Like the servers literally had to turn on the lights and fan for the three of us on the women's side. Whoops, that reminds me. Since it was a Muslim wedding, men and women sat on separate sides of the divider and didn't actually see each other. But that's kind of the point. Because it enables the women to take off their burqas and the fashion show really begins. You see,you'd be surprised by what women wear under their burqas, and how much detail goes into these outfits. For the wedding alone, the teacher from my friend's school dropped 18,000 rupees (roughly $360, or more than 9 times her monthly income give or take a few hundred rupees) and suffered under 30 pounds of embroidery and sequins for her outfit. And everyone was dressed in their best. I was starting to be very happy indeed I had finally gone out and purchased a saree except now I just want a nicer and more expensive one. Just because I'm foreign doesn't mean I don't care...

Eventually the bride showed up and we were ushered into the dining hall for women, where we were bombarded with pounds of food. And since it was a Muslim wedding, there was meat of all types! The prevalence of a Muslim population and their fondness for some good chicken is definitely one of the perks of living in Hyderabad. So we stuffed ourselves happily while chatting with the bride's family and friends, only to realize the bride herself wouldn't eat until around 3AM after all the other guests had eaten. Then we were pushed up on stage to sit with the bride and her family and take pictures. And of course to watch everyone else watching us. We spoke a bit with the bride, who was dressed in a beautiful emerald bride's skirt and top, henna decorating her hands, and jewelery that must have weighed more than she did. She said she was happy and excited but she looked a bit scared. Which brings me to my main point: the topic of arranged marriage.

When foreigners think of India, arranged marriages are usually one of the topics of discussion that spring to mind. How backward can a country be?, we often think. Or, how could any family force their daughters or sons into this? Well, here's the thing. I've always been one of those people who has been appalled by the idea as well. In fact, even now, the very idea of an arranged marriage for myself sends shivers down my spine. But, like most else about this country, you can't paint it with such a fine brush. Life is colored many more shades of gray here than most people realize. So here goes my attempt to explain some of the rationale behind arranged marriages here. Feel free to add in your own two cents worth.

As I've already written, one of my good friends here will most likely have an arranged marriage. But it's more like an arranged dating service, with parents picking out someone, the pair meeting up, then deciding if they want to keep seeing each other and going from there, or deciding to not proceed. Fair enough. Not much different than having your parents say "have you met so-and-so's son? He would be just your type..." However, this is from a rather progressive family. On the other hand, there are marriages where the partners don't really get a chance to meet each other beforehand. Or there are the ones where partners meet in supervised situations and both the potential bride and groom are asked their opinions before the marriage takes place. And there are arrangements of all types in between. Bear in mind too that even for the most westernized families here, the perfect age for marriage is in the early to mid-twenties.

In a culture where tradition has such deep roots, there are many men and women who do not have the opportunity to interact with one another quite so readily as we do. I'm not describing my Indian friends of course who mingle just like any of my American friends do. But I am describing the teachers at my school, the students, and the average person working and living throughout the city. If you're a good, traditional girl from a respectable Muslim or Hindu family, you don't really have many male friends and your dating pool remains small or nonexistent. An arranged marriage is really your only option and you've grown up trusting that your parents can make the right choice for you. Respecting your elders and your family is paramount to Indian society. And also in a country where men outnumber the women, arranged marriages are a means to perserve some order while people are competing for scarce resources. In fact, one businessman here once told us that the best way to frame Indian cultural behavior is by putting it in terms of the centuries of competition its members have faced: for food,land and water initially, and now, for women, train tickets, and autorickshaws.

I'm not anywhere near sold on the arranged marriage idea although I have met a fair share of people who claim true love and great marriages have come of it. However, these same people will cite low divorce rates in India to which I respond that divorce is much more of a taboo here and much more difficult although not unheard of (my schoolowner herself is divorced). And if you read the newspapers here you will see articles every day about a couple committing suicide because their parents won't agree on a marriage. While I couldn't help but feel a bit solemn at the wedding I went to, where the bride was my age and had probably never spent more than a night away from her family in her life, at least I could appreciate some of the sentiment behind it.

Moral of the story? Don't expect me to be looking for an arranged marriage any time soon, but don't expect me to condemn it in no uncertain terms. The most definitive opinion I can present? Ain't no party like an Indian wedding party....

Turkeying Around

This week I am going to at least attempt to avoid the cliché of blogging about all that I am thankful for. Because truth be told, I have already done that on Facebook. And while I have a lot to be thankful for, at the moment, I am also struggling with not being with my family and friends to celebrate Thanksgiving weekend. Suffice it to say I am certainly NOT thankful for the price of airline tickets or the low number of vacation days I receive here. Going home at all in November or December is unfortunately not an option.

Therefore, I am left to ponder the anomaly of Thanksgiving from an Indian perspective. Trying to explain the holiday to my schoolchildren or the school’s principal has made me realize how crazy of a holiday it is. I mean, for one, there is no religion involved at all, but it is quite different from other national holidays that correspond with an exact event. And the irony, oh the irony. While I was giving a brief background on the pilgrims and Native Americans feasting together, Madam Lohia asked why we celebrate if we just ended up killing all of the Native Americans after such a “peaceful feast.” Yeah. We try to ignore that bit. So then I went on to say how it is really about recognizing the good things you have in your life and exercising gratitude for them. Now this is something most Indians can relate to. I mean, being super family-oriented is a way of life here as is a culture of consumption eerily similar to ours. A person may not be that well-off but they’ll be damned if they don’t have the newest smart phone and take every opportunity to show it off. Of course, I explained that it’s mostly not about material things but non-material things. To which the response was “shouldn’t you be thankful for these every day? Why just one day?”

At this point, I was feeling a little less than enthused about one of my favorite days of the year. It felt kind of like someone pointing out all the grammar mistakes in your just completed thesis or outlining all the reasons why eating cookies can be hazardous for your health. And it was then that I realized, who cares? I mean, there are plenty of holidays and traditions around the world that don’t seem to make much sense at all, especially to the uninitiated. I mean I just saw thousands of elephant god statues submerged in water one month, and the next, families that happily buy their meat from the grocery store 364 days a year were slitting the throats of goats in their front yards. And I mean, think of the running of the bulls in Spain, or, my personal favorite, the Wife-Carrying Festival in Europe. While I am not exactly comparing Thanksgiving to an event where burly beer-bellied men sling their wives over their shoulders and race through mud, I am saying that I don’t get the nuances because I’m observing from the outside, yet that doesn’t make it any less special to the people participating. Besides, Thanksgiving really exists as an excuse to take a breather, be around the people who matter the most to you, and just enjoy the good things in life, for a day. I mean, yes, Christmas is great too, but there’s so much pressure around buying presents, so much commercialization, and maybe not so much gratitude involved.

However, don’t feel too sorry for me, stuck in some far-flung country where Thanksgiving is little more than two unrelated words strung together in most people’s 2nd or 3rd language. Through some connections and the relatively small Ex-pat community here, we will be celebrating Thanksgiving as best we can. This translates into cooking three turkeys (one of which we are attempting to fry – I guess a product of putting ten 20something males in charge of the turkey preparation) and we will have stuffing, pies (I’m praying for pumpkin), potatoes and other necessities. All of this will be cooked in the comfort of the home of one of the Foreign Service Officers we have met here. And football or holiday movies have been promised. I do have to say this is a step up from spending my Thanksgiving in Spain aimlessly wandering the streets for pumpkin pie, but then again, we did have delicious wine and tapas to eat instead. And while the IDEX family is definitely a step up from celebrating with no one, it’s most certainly not my family. Nor will it be my Mom’s stuffing recipe or gravy being used. But permit me the corniness of at least saying I am thankful to have IDEX here and for our large piecemeal celebration, in 85 degree sunshine, deep in the heart of India. Yes it would be 100 times better to be with my family but if being abroad has taught me anything, it’s that you make do with what you have and you create what you don’t. And that’s incredibly rewarding.

Revival

Hopefully, by now dear readers, you realize that there really is not a theme for this blog, other than to the extent that I write what is on my mind. So it comes as no surprise that this post is a bit of a jump from the last one. Living in India has brought to the forefront many things that are important to me but it has also pushed a few things to the wayside. And this week has presented several opportunities to remind me of these.

One of these was our tour of Hyderabad's CIIGBC building, the first LEED certified platinum green building outside of the United States. For the unintiated, LEED certification stands for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design and platinum is the highest rating a building can achieve. In fact, it was such a big deal that the building was inaugurated by the Indian President in 2003 and received a visit from President Bill Clinton. But I digress. We took a tour of this building, which has carbon sensored air conditioning units to track the number of people in the building and adjust the cooling unit accordingly. The roof of the building is also completely covered in grass and plants, and somehow, through a fancy feat of engineering I don't understand, it takes the hot water that drains from the roof and uses the extreme heat of the roof to make the water extremely cold and to help cool the building as well. Plus the carpet comes from recycled coke cans, the toilet is ammonia elimnating so the "water" can be reused, the chairs are made of wood waste, the windows are double-paned with an inert gas to facilitate temperature control and lots of other cool stuff.

The tour made me realize how much I had forgotten about environmental considerations here. I mean, people literally through their trash out the windows of their cars while driving, recycling bottles and other plastics is unheard of, and nighttime "clean up crews" are a joke. I used to care about doing my part but here I've been sucked into a culture of waste for the sake of convenience. I mean, it's way more convenient to just throw my Subway wrapper out the car window than to actually take it to a trash can, and it's allowed. But it's attitudes like this that also scare me a bit. For a country that will soon have the largest population in the world to take such a haphazard attitude towards the environment doesn't seem to bode well for the future. Of course, we Americans are horribly wasteful in our consumption but at least most of us have been trained well to turn off lights when we're not in a room or use the trash can and recycle bottles. So, here's my pledge to try to return to this. For now, India is my adoptive country and I can't help but feel a bit responsible for taking care of it any way I can. And my guilty conscience is starting to weigh on me.

The second thing that happened this week is that we were invited to a dinner at the US Consul General's house. As many of you know, I had foreign service aspirations, going so far as to take the FSOT before this IDEX opportunity presented itself. Being surrounded by Americans who were doing what I had considered my dream job was refreshing. While some were young and on their first post (apparently Hyderabad is considered a 20/30 on hardship postings; Lagos in Nigeria is 25. I wish I would get hardship pay here!), others, including the Consul General, had been all over the world. And all love their jobs. While you have to pay your dues at the beginning, working on visa applications, there is a huge opportunity for advancement and honestly, the perks aren't half bad. Of course, I did ask about the worst part of the job and the answers were inevitably similar to any other employees of the government, but these seemed small in comparison to the benefits.

I left the house determined to take the test again and try my hand at the State Department if possible. I mean, I passed it last time so how hard can a second time be? Let's hope I just didn't jinx myself. I also have realized that I feel a bit more positive towards the possible opportunity to stay and work in India next year as well. And at least now I am feeling much more in tune with myself again. It's been a hard four months and I've had to confront personal and professional challenges that I've never experienced before. But now it's time to take a breath and really start to do things for myself and my personal growth too and return to what is important to me. No more getting lost in my busy schedule or the job. And with that, time to go plan what side dishes to bring to our Thanksgiving feast for next week. Happy Turkey Day in advance!

Doubts

I have a doubt.

In India, people don’t have questions, they have doubts. For instance, in class, a student will say “Miss, I have a doubt about this problem.” And today, I find this phrase much more apropos than what we would say. Question just doesn’t cut it.
You see, I am enjoying the fellowship, I really am. But the other day it dawned on me that I am lacking a bit of the passion in what I do. It is hard to see the impact you are making and while personally I am learning a lot, I am not feeling much like a change agent. Instead, I feel like many people in development must—like a well-intentioned foreigner who really is only scratching the surface of the world’s poverty, economic inequality, and quality of life problems. So what to do?

And then of course there is the doubt about the future. The all-encompassing question of “what are you going to be when you grow up?” I thought I had this figured out. For all intents and purposes I was going to be the next Muhammad Yunus in microfinance or Jeffrey Sachs in academia, both working to bridge the poverty gap. But now I don’t know how to get to that path. And I question if that is even a path or just a combination of luck, happenstance and some foresight on their parts.

So yes, for the next several months I will be working to rediscover that passion. I know it’s there, I just feel like the noise and craziness of life here has coated it over with a bit of dust. So the real doubt becomes, what do I make of my life from here? It is not too early to be asking this question and as the days seem to slip by without me even realizing it, I am beginning to think now is the time to start deciding. I mean, do I stay in India next year and possible help to manage the IDEX program at a city here? Is this where I can see the true impact of what we’re doing and help to sustain and continue it? Or do I stay here and try to work for an NGO or social enterprise to be as hands on as possible, even if the income I make is less than ideal?

Yet staying in India doesn’t mean things will stay the same. The people that are the most important to me here are all leaving for various locations and life paths. And my friends and family back home will be beyond disappointed in not having me around for another year. Despite my homesickness, especially with the upcoming holidays, going home long term seems too soon. If I go home, I know I will not be able to find something that makes me feel like the change practitioner I want to be, assuming I find any job at all. Only so much can be done from sitting behind a cubicle, even if it is a cubicle at a hard-working organization. And I haven’t even breached on the subject of what to do about graduate school.

The thing about living and working here is it is hard. Harder than anything I will probably ever experience. In order to make it here, I get so caught up in the day to day that I forget to take a step back and look at the whole picture. I need to do this more. So now, it remains to be seen where this fellowship and the future will take me but I just hope I find my calling sooner rather than later. Thanks for lending me an ear and for putting up with an introspective blog that probably bores you. I’m open for suggestions/ life advice/ job offers if you feel so inclined. I promise next time there will be some more fun to be read about.