With the Fam

So, yesterday was interesting at the Sharma's. I came home from Prayas way early after I got bored surfing the internet. I figure I can be bored at home with the fam just as easily as I can be bored at the office, so I left.

At some point late in the afternoon I wandered outside where Dr. K.C. Sharma always seems to be sitting and enjoying the sun. He proceeded to ask me all sorts of questions.

One thing you should know: the two questions I am always asked by everyone when they first meet me, without fail, are how many brothers do I have and when my wedding is. Everyone in India has a brother. Most families have as many children and pregnancies as possible to ensure that, so they find it a real shame that I don't have one, only a little sister. The wedding question is always interesting too. I do my part to confuse by wearing a toe-ring on each foot (like a wedding band in America) in an effort to keep creepy Indian men away-it doesn't work very often. My age, 22, is also the age that is considered "prime" for marrying a girl off. So they are always curious, not because they want me to marry into their family, but because a woman's life at my age is all about an upcoming wedding.

So, Dr. Sharma and I were sitting, chatting. He was asking me all sorts of questions about my parents divorce, and the reason for it. It was very confusing to him that people would divorce just because they were unhappy and couldn't live together. There were other complications I didn't even go into with him, because I knew if he didn't understand THAT there is no way he would understand the other stuff. I think he is very concerned for me, because in an Indian context I would be a young girl in trouble if my dad had divorced my mom and remarried, leaving me to live with my mother and sister (and because I had no brother). Despite my best attempts, whenever anyone finds out my parents are divorced, they always assume that the public shames us, which is not true in America.

He is also always very curious about my wedding. Marriages here in India are arranged by parents who choose their children's spouses. He understands the idea that I choose my spouse, not my parents. But I don't think he understands the social process for that choice. Here, when a girl is ready to be married, its just sort of announced through family circles (and sometimes the newspapers in Matrimonial sections that are kinda like personal ads) that she seeking a spouse, and a groom's family just sort of "applies". I think he thinks the same process applies to me, that when I am ready I just sort of "announce" and men will "apply" (sometimes, I think the Indian process is soo much easier). No matter how hard I try, he doesn't seem to understand that I don't know who I will marry (at least, I think I don't know the person I will marry) and that I have to wait for him to come along and show up. And why should he understand this? In India, dating and boyfriends are something that only modern girls in the cities do, not something in rural Rajasthan.

The cost of the wedding was also a topic. In India, the girls family pays for the wedding and often gives dowry. Who pays for a wedding in the U.S.? I told him that in all likelihood I would pay for my wedding, since I am sure I won't be married until I am earning money on my own, and that me and my fiancee' would probably share the cost. This really confused him, that I would pay for my own wedding. After spending 15 minutes explaining this to him, I finally gave up and said that the two families share the cost. Its a much better explanation.

Then, he had alot of concerns about whether the man I pick to marry would be liked by my parents. What if they don't like him? I tried to explain how unlikely that situation would be to occur, because he would know my family far before the marriage question is approached, but he didn't seem to understand that either (the whole courtship/dating thing is so foreign to him, plus a language barrier-English is his second language). After awhile we just took the question as a "what if" and I honestly told him I didn't know what would happen if my parents didn't like the guy I did.

It all makes my head spin, and he probably laughs when he thinks of it. He will never fully understand, just like I can never fully understand India and every single intricacy of family life and marriage here. At this point in the conversation, Shubhi and Kavita came outside. Kavita and Piyush had been going over Shubhi's schoolwork, and when I walked past the living room, Shubhi was in hysterics crying and her parents were being very stern with her. When they came outside, Kavita told me that Shubhi hadn't done her homework for class that day, and the teacher struck her.

This was new for me. Corporal punishment in the U.S. has been outlawed for a very long time, and the idea that a teacher could strike a student with a stick in front of all the other students as many times as she wanted was horrifying, and I am sure that the look on my face gave me away. Then I told Kavita that that was illegal in the U.S. and she was as shocked as I had been about Shubhi's school. She just didn't understand how a teacher could be effective in classroom without being able to strike a child, and I didn't understand how that wasn't considered cruel.

Just another day at the Sharmas.