Arranged Love: An Indian Boy's Search in Amrika To Find A Suitable Girl

249 Pages·2002·1.14 MB·English

by  Patel Ajay

Arranged Love

An Indian Boy’s Search in Amrika To
Find A Suitable Girl

A Story By Ajay Patel

Writers Club Press
San Jose New York Lincoln Shanghai
Arranged Love An Indian Boy’s Search in Amrika To Find A Suitable
Girl
All Rights Reserved © 2002 by Ajay Patel

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any
means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording,
taping, or by any information storage retrieval system, without the permission in
writing from the publisher.
Writers Club Press
an imprint of iUniverse, Inc.

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This is a work of fiction. All events, locations, institutions, themes, persons,
characters, and plot are completely fictional. Any resemblance to places or
persons, living or deceased, are of the invention of the author.

ISBN: 0-595-22742-2
ISBN: 978-1-4697-7621-7(eBook)

Printed in the United States of America
Contents
Preface
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
1
2
3
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
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10
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12
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Preface
I am not a writer by profession, which is why I feel that the following pages
are better described as a simple story instead of a book. In Mark Twain fashion I
would like to emphasize that while the characters may be one dimensional, the
stereotypes patently obvious, the conflicts Rated G Disney clean, and the plot as
predictable as a Hindi filum,itis important to me that an interesting story be told.
In fact, when I first started writing, I thought this story was largely my story
based on my experiences as I searched for an Indian wife in America. What
really surprised me, however, was that as much as it is my story, it is also the
story of many others like me. A story of my generation, growing up in America,
assimilating, yet still having enough of a cultural desire to find a soul mate of the
same ethnic and cultural background. Because it is more of an our story as
opposed to a my story, I felt even a stronger desire to write about it so that others
who will be taking part in our story can have an idea of what to expect.
Writing our story served another important purpose for me. It served as a
cathartic release for many of my emotions. This is because our story can be, at
times, emotionally exasperating. But through all of the pages, I hope one
message is made clear. Don’t give up hope. Our story can be a long and draining
one. It can be full of disappointment and painful experiences. Surviving through
these times is important because there is happiness to be found at the end of the
journey. We all can find that perfect person if we look hard enough. It’s neither
selfish nor idealistic. Don’t let anyone convince you otherwise.
To the many friends and acquaintances I met during our story, much of
what follows may sound familiar. I want to express my appreciation in your
willingness to hear and talk about it the first time, and sincerely hope you don’t
mind reading about it again.
PREARRANGED
1
The End of the Beginning
V
ijay dreaded visiting home tonight. His visits to Yorba Linda, a quiet
suburb fifty miles from his apartment in Los Angeles and known mostly for
being the birthplace of Richard Nixon, had consistently proven to be full of
tension recently. It troubled him that he felt this way.
His papa and mummi, known as Jayendrabhai and Shantiben Patel by their
friends, had lived in the same four bedroom, two and a half bath home for years
and had emigrated from India to Amrika, their embarrassing way of pronouncing
America, when he was only two months old. Despite the frequent differences
inevitable in a household where the parents had grown up under customs and a
culture different from those of their children, his memories of his childhood
were generally pleasant ones. It helped, despite the generational and cultural
differences, that Vijay’s parents were fairly tolerant and understanding—at least
relative to other Indian parents raising kids in America.
In fact, Jayendrabhai and Shantiben only had to be tolerant towards Vijay.
Vijay’s older brother, referred to often by them as the “why can’t you be like
Rohit, he is such a dayo chokro” son, had dutifully followed, without question,
all of the edicts set forth by his parents, including those involving dating,
schooling, and attending family and “auntie uncle” functions. Rohit, a shorter,
skinnier, and less assimilated version of Vijay had a Napoleonic air of
entitlement about him because he was the elder sibling, more than twelve years
older than Vijay, which alone would have been enough to explain the great
difference in personalities between them. But added to this age difference was
the fact that when the family had moved from India, Vijay was only an infant
while Rohit was practically a teenager. Because of this, Rohit’s personality was
rooted in Indian customs just as firmly as Vijay’s was rooted in American ones.
As an orthopedic surgeon, Rohit was the equivalent of an Indian god in the
eyes of their family and Indian society in general. This was not to say that Vijay
was merely a member of the congregation in comparison. Rohit, although
brilliant in the sciences, often had trouble communicating his thoughts either
verbally or on paper. This was largely because English was his fourth language
(Gujarati, the local language from the state of Gujarat in India, being his first,
Hindi, the national language of India, being his second, and science, as he had
explained to Vijay thousands of times, the universal language, being his third).
Vijay, on the other hand, spoke and communicated with eloquence. He enjoyed
debating, mostly in arguments over useless issues with his parents while growing
up. With this skill well honed by the time he had graduated college, he knew that
law school, not medical school, was the proper calling for him.
Vijay had been out of law school for over a year now, having graduated
with honors from Boalt Hall in Berkeley. He was recruited by and worked at a
prestigious law firm in downtown Los Angeles. Even though he had become
successful as an attorney, every now and then there were jokes made from his
relatives that he still was the black sheep in the family for having chosen the
“liberal arts” as opposed to the “sciences” path. This attitude was borne largely
from the reality that as much as lawyers were joked about and held in derision in
America, it was nothing compared to how lawyers were regarded in India. When
Shantiben had told relatives in India that Vijay had decided to become a lawyer,
the first thing that the relatives could say was “Oh, did he not do well in his
studies?” The stereotypes had been cast by his family and the community and
had been carried over to America, and overcoming them had proven exhausting
for Vijay. However, these stereotypes and comparisons were not the cause of
Vijay’s uneasiness as he stood at the front door of the house tonight. No, the
tension and uneasiness stemmed from the fact that he was there with Jennifer.
Jennifer had light brown hair bordering on blond accompanied with striking
blue eyes. Vijay could never tell whether his impression of her eyes being
striking was based on the fact that they really were striking or just because he
came from an Indian background where everyone had brown eyes unless they
wore colored contacts. With high heels on, she stood five feet ten inches tall, an
equal in height to Vijay although Amazonian relative to the height of most
Indian women. In fact, when they visited his family, she seemed to stoop and
slump ever so slightly, perhaps to try and bridge the gap in distance between her
and Vijay’s mother who barely cleared five feet in height.
Vijay and Jennifer had been together for over three years now. Having met
in law school, they spent a good deal of their first year studying together. The
study breaks that came every hour where they would, as a rule, talk about
anything but the law, made them realize that they had quite a bit in common,
including an attraction to each other. Their relationship slowly blossomed, and
before Vijay knew it, he had his first serious girlfriend after several brief and
less serious girlfriends in college.
While they were at Berkeley, the first years of their relationship were
effortless. Perhaps it was because they both were away from home and parents
with school being the only thing to distract them. Now, however, the relationship
required effort. They had both moved back to Los Angeles and feelings of
easiness and comfort were often interrupted by feelings of uneasiness and
tension. Thinking back on it, Vijay realized he first started having these negative
feelings the day he had introduced Jennifer to his parents.
Even though Jayendrabhai and Shantiben were more tolerant than most
Indian parents would have been about Vijay’s often-unconventional choices,
when Vijay told them last year about his relationship with Jennifer, it was not
welcome news. They had difficulty in accepting the fact that their son was dating
someone who was not Gujarati, let alone Indian. Vijay insisted and pleaded,
however, that as his parents and his family grew to know Jennifer, they would
see all the things that he saw in her and would realize how he had so fallen in
love. To their credit, after the initial shock and disappointment wore off, they
tried to make an effort, as did other family and friends. The results, however,
were not always as he would have liked them to be.
Vijay remembered the first of several disasters nine months ago at his
cousin Sejal’s wedding. It was Jennifer’s first Indian wedding and she was
excited. She surprised him at the front door of her apartment by wearing an
exquisite turquoise sari which had taken forty-five minutes for her and two of
Vijay’s female Indian friends to wrap around her properly. Vijay stood in his suit
and tie at the foot of the steps, amazed at how beautiful and exotic she looked.
However, when they arrived at the wedding, numerous stares and looks of an all-
together different nature greeted them. It almost seemed that wherever they
walked, they left a wake of whispered “can you imagine?” and “how
inappropriate!” Vijay couldn’t tell if the comments were because Jennifer was
dressed in Indian clothes or whether it was a larger issue based on the fact that
he was even with a “Jennifer.”
As much as Vijay felt the stares and heard the whispers, Jennifer felt and
heard them more. They didn’t even last through the whole wedding before she
said she had to leave. In the car ride home she started crying, realizing how
difficult it would be to fit in, how simply putting on a sari and wearing a bindi
would never satisfy everyone.
The story was much the same at other Indian events that they attended as
well. Throughout all of this, Vijay realized that his relationship with Jennifer
would always be viewed with skepticism and disfavor, perhaps just like his
choice to become a lawyer as opposed to a doctor.