life-long bonds (warning, this could be provocative)

like i said in the last blog-post, i was invited to attend an indian wedding on monday. i was sitting and having breakfast with preeti that day (the new volunteer staying for one month) and we started talking about weddings and settling down and children and all, and she ended up telling me many many interesting things about what this system is like in india. first of all one should know that we're not talking about marriages out of love, but arranged marriages. esther told me in my very first week here that she thinks out system is bad, because there are so many divorces. in the indian system, there is no room for divorces. once you are married, you are married and you stay married.

but how do you end up getting married? well, it's up to the parents to decide that and it's not as simple as it might seem. the ideal partner for your daughter/son should be a member of the same caste, community, state and religion (and preferably the age-gap shouldn't be too big but that's not a priority). other factors that are important are your astrological compatibility and how wealthy the family of the other is. it doesn't sound simple, yet it is almost a social scandal if you are an unmarried 25-year old. there is always someone to get married to.


the first conversations i had with many people here were about marriages and such, and it immediately struck me how fundamentally different the general view on life is. in western countries, freedom and independence are very important factors and taken for granted. i can choose if i want to get married, who i want to marry, if i have kids.. i can travel if i want to, i can work 3 jobs if i feel like it, i can get a divorce, i can choose not to believe in any god if it's what i really want. these things we take for granted. here, freedom and independence are words not commonly used. you are born into a certain caste and forever bound to the attributes associated with your caste. religion will always play a major role in your life. you have little say in the matter of if you will get married or not and to whom, children are almost a must. being a woman is way worse than being a man, because society is male-dominated. it's not uncommon to go around and see men just sitting in restaurants drinking tea and smoking and women working for hours and hours in the fields in the bright sun. also, married women are not allowed to talk to other men, whereas married men are free to do whatever they want.


the thing about india is that this way of life is taken for granted, and it is hard for me to understand. maybe the fact that i have all the freedom i want is what is preventing me from being able to properly understand their lifestyle. there's this saying that if you have a bird in a cage for a couple of years and then open the door of the cage, the bird would not flee. until now, it has not known this freedom and life has been okay. so why leave the cage and plunge into the unknown? the same is valid for the people here. everything works so fine with their system, everyone has his or her place in society, the plan for your life is laid out in front of you the moment you are born. nothing is unknown. so why strive for freedom?


being here has made me realize that there are so so so so so so many things that i just take for granted in my life. but we are living the lives that people just like us, who had the 'misfortune' of being born in another part of the world, can only dream of. some don't even know that such things can exist. i've spent the last week meditating over this and i think that i probably won't go back to living the same way i did before i came here. it's about cherishing the small things, the details, all the miniscule components of your life that you take for granted and not about complaining when your life seems boring or when you can't access facebook for an hour. it's all so much simpler than that.


ANYWAY. this blog-post is dedicated to my dear brother, who is currently dealing with matters like children, marriage, building a house.. :)
so i went to this wedding about two hours away. it was a tiny tiny village, we drove through the plains, you could see for miles and miles on each side. there was absolutely NOTHING there. we started to hear music. as we got closer, it got louder and louder until we were standing in front of a gigantic sub-woofer with a crowd of people gathered around. welcome to the wedding! there was a little kind of 'walk' with a roof and at the end of it a little stage with two chairs on it. in front of it, on the ground, were seated the families of the bride and groom (but only the men). when the ceremony begins, you don't see the couple yet but only the parents exchanging gifts (a sort of symbolic dowry) consisting of fruit, money, candy...

preeti told me during the ceremony that depending on caste, the ceremony varies. this must not have been a very 'good' caste, because there was no fire. normally when it comes to weddings, there is a huge fire in front of the two chairs and everything that happens, chanting, exchanging of goods, dancing, the actual wedding, everything happens around the fire. here, there was no fire. instead, everything happened outside the little walking area right next to the sub-woofer that was blasting bad tamil 80s pop music. after the little gift-exchange, we heard shouting and chanting coming from outside. the groom's family was approaching - many carrying flower-necklaces, which they would later put on the groom. afterwards, it was the bride's turn, same thing. as they were both covered with flowers, the rings were exchanged (still standing next to the sub-woofer, entirely unspectacular. apparently rings are not important. and they're not for the hands, but for the toes.)

if i may just add, the amazing part of it all was that the wedding guests mistook me for the official photographer, because i had a better and bigger camera than the actual guy who got paid to do the job. haha. he shot me a couple of nasty looks, but when it came to the important part - the ceremony - he let me stand next to him right in front of the stage (photographer's VIP area) and smiled. 

the actual wedding ceremony was quite spectacular. it is common for the groom's family to buy the bride a beautiful and expensive sari which is first presented to her and which she is then expected to wear. so the bride disappears for a couple of minutes after having received her toe-ring and the groom just stands around and waits. when they're both ready, they step onto the stage, pictures are taken (no one EVER smiles for pictures here), and then everyone cheers and petals are thrown. they both proceed to then dipping their fingers into either a red or a yellow paste, and make a dot on eachother's forehead. 

someone, i think usually the groom's father, then comes with a piece of cloth and ties their hands together. viola, a new married couple. no kissing, by the way. it is socially unaccepted and totally inappropriate, even at a wedding. preeti also told me that the actual first kiss that takes place between husband and wife is usually dreaded, because neither of them know anything about it. so usually it's not common for married people to kiss. i wonder what they must feel like when it comes to reproducing, because they KNOW that they're expected to have children. jeez. but like i said: the perspective is different here and as long as no one forces me to be exactly like them, everything's fine.


all in all i had a fantastic time. i had never ever been to a wedding before, not in austria, not in singapore, not anywhere. everyone was shocked when i said that. chitra's opinion was 'nineteen years old and never been to a wedding? now that's almost a scandal in india!' haha. 
other than that, life has been good. i have had a major teaching breakthrough and actually managed to come up with a decent curriculum for both the montessori kids and the evening tuition kids. it's something i can actually do for five months and where i (they) can make some PROGRESS! now i'm off to meet one of the teachers in kodaikanal - amala, the headteacher - she invited me to her house for lunch and to practice english and tamil. i love the give/take policy here. :) hope everything is well wherever you are, keep me updated!