The idiosyncrasies of love stories turning into arranged marriages in India or South Asia, for that matter, are the same. The boy and the girl love each other and wish to get married. However, for the wish to materialize, the boy’s family has to like the girl and the girl’s family has to like the boy; the boy’s family has to like the girl’s family and the girl’s family has to like the boy’s family. Then the families have to agree to get their children married (oftentimes with conditions applied).
One cannot be sure about how the demarcation of boundaries on ethnic and regional lines would take its toll on the love stories in the days to come.
Marriage as an institution is regarded to be very powerful not only in terms of its functionality of continuing the generation but also in terms of making choices. These choices, however, to a large extent, are choices of parents and families rather than that of the ones who are getting married. Parents, if not families, prefer to choose, guide and dictate whom their child/ren should marry. Sometimes, I wonder if one of the reasons for child-marriage to have started in the first place could be to nullify the threat of losing out on the choice of parents and families.
My parents married 30 years ago giving a successful succession to their love story. It was indeed a sign that love stories turning into successful love marriages would be widespread in the years ahead. But sometimes I wonder how easy it would be for my own inter-caste love story to amalgamate into a successful love marriage owing to attitudes in our society that still prevail.
At this point of time, we, in Nepal, have been advocating for federalism based on various models ranging from ethnicity, region, ideologies, et al. What we are advocating for may bring about positive political changes in the country. However, one cannot be sure about how the demarcation of boundaries on ethnic, regional and ideological lines would take its toll on the love stories in the days to come. Love stories, for that matter, would have to fight and survive the overt and covert manifestations of this divide that on the one hand advocates for self-determination while on the other hand poses a threat of fundamentalism.
In Bhagat’s novel, the struggle was hard and difficult but bore fruits at the end. No one can deny the possibility of another Bhagat and his story of marriage in Nepal. However, at the same time, we cannot guarantee that all those stories will have a positive ending.
If only the logics of the head understood the reasons of the heart, it would not be that difficult.
swagatrajpandey@gmail.com
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