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A suitable boy, part two

During college, I was at somebody or other's graduation party or sweet sixteen, one of those Indian parties that are always at the same restaurant with the same people, talking to a friend. She dropped her voice. "You know what your mom said to my mom?" she said. "She said she thought you would marry a" -- she whispered the next two words -- "white guy."

I laughed. She was a little shocked, I think. That made me laugh too.

It somehow did not occur to me until recently, despite all the books I've read and weddings I've attended and lectures my parents have given me, that a lot of the people I grew up with actually went out of their way to date and marry other Indians. I was talking to a couple, both Jewish, who had met at Hillel at their college. "Probably a good place to meet your future spouse," I joked. "It happens a lot," the husband agreed. Suddenly I thought of the Indian couples I saw walking around campus, and the fact that there aren't a whole lot of us at the law school to choose from. I thought of a conversation I had recently about not really being involved with the South Asian community on campus with someone who said, "Yeah, but you know who all the Indians are, and they know who you are." Which is true, at least for my class. And how the head of SALSA, casually inviting me to a meeting when he bumped into me in the Hark, responded to my comment about not having been to a meeting since 1L year with a pointed, "We've noticed."

We've noticed. I felt like I was being observed by a cabal of Indians, hiding behind trees, taking notes. Married a white guy. Doesn't come to SALSA meetings. Does not know every Indian at the law school, only the ones in her class.

I wonder when my parents stopped keeping this list on me. They must have given up a while ago. But I guess they had a brief flare of hope, that maybe they could get me to marry a nice Bengali boy, bring me back into the fold. At the time, I rolled my eyes and felt indignant that they would try to set me up. ME, their very independent daughter who they should have known well enough to know I would make my own decision. Now I understand what that first setup meant. They must have been putting out feelers, talking up my achievements to other people's parents, scouting out a good match. Imagining me in a red sari, in a home with someone they could understand and trust and maybe even relate to. It must have been hard for them to give that up. Now that I'm older, I can see that.

I asked my father once why he warmed up to JW when he gave my brother such a hard time about his long-term non-Indian girlfriend (who he broke up with a long time ago for, I think, unrelated reasons, and married someone awesome who is Indian but not Bengali). He said, "You kept bringing him around. Eventually, we knew you were serious."

Full post as published by Magic Cookie on May 16, 2008 (boomark / email).