Liz: One of the first things that became clear to me is that in Mumbai, everyone is ready to pitch in and help you with your love life. That might seem horrifying at first but I’m not so sure about that.
You had your family looking for you for a good woman and you were looking you know out in the world and you were also on sites?
Pradip: Yeah, yeah.
Female: That’s how it comes about like someone knows someone and then they bring us together.
Male: I asked my mommy that that girl is very good. I like that girl. I asked that girl’s father to come and see my mommy, they came together and they get arranged and then I got married.
Female: Mine was an arranged marriage, arranged by both the families by my husband’s parents and my parents. One mediator, one of my aunts, she had brought this proposal and there was a “Seeing Ceremony.”
Liz: A Seeing Ceremony.
Female: Of a girl.
Liz: And the girl is presented to the boy and it’s actually a ceremony?
Female: Yeah, it was just like a film. I had to bring tea and all for him.
Liz: You have to bring tea?
Female: Tea, yeah.
Pradip: They called my wife and I saw it’s okay, she was good and not that much fat and not much very height. It’s okay.
Liz: And then did you get to talk to your—
Female: No. I didn’t know
Liz: You never talk? So, it was just you serve tea and then what happened?
Woman2: Then it’s between the parents who made the decision whether—
Liz: That is a lot of pressure on serving tea. That is a lot of pressure.
Pradip: Our family, they fix a date for engagement, where we changed our rings.
Liz: So, the next time you saw her was to being come engaged?
Pradip: Yes.
Liz: Okay.
Nirnjan: The good thing is that in an arranged marriage, it’s not just the two people who are in love or who are getting married or coming together. It’s actually a very social coming together of two families and that builds a very great support system for the couple.
Liz: Yes.
Female: Grandmothers.
Liz: Grandmother’s, aunts, uncles, brothers, sisters?
Female: Just about everybody.
Liz: Cousins?
Female: Yeah.
Liz: Whole group effort.
Female: Extended family, relatives.
Liz: Doctors.
Female: They don’t have any other ones.
Liz: Perfect Strangers?
Female: Yeah I encountered one—a friend of mine.
Liz: I mean why should you leave such an important matters regarding compatibility and matrimony and family to the couple involved?
Nirnjan: So, I think that is one of the biggest pluses of an Indian arranged marriage.
Liz: Because they are invested in the marriage.
Nirnjan: Yes, and also secondly when the couple has a problem between them. The families kind of come in to win and they try to settle the problem as much as possible.
Liz: So, if your husband is very messy and he’s a pig and he’s sloppy all over the house, the parents will come in and say you’ll be better husband.
Female: Yes.
Liz: And have you had to have your parents or his parents help you with him? Have they had to come in?
Female: —Yes.
Liz: Yes and it’s good?
Female: Yeah.
Liz: So your family mange to find 25 men for you?
Female: Yes.
Liz: Okay, so they were working hard.
Female: They were. They were.
Liz: They were like scouring?
Female: Ads in newspapers, internet.
Liz: For you.
Female: For me.
Liz: They were out there working.
I’m just saying that I think you know we can learn something in America to show a family about looking for a man. You know what I’m saying? I just think it was—I think it’s nice.
Female: Yes, it can help.
Liz: I’m out there alone, sliding away on my own in New York, nobody helping me. And I think this is the last way, there is always people are very concerned about anybody’s love lives, no one cares about my love life—
Can I get on the phone I guess. Get some more boots on the ground as they say.
Whether they like it or not in Mumbai, the single life is a group effort. And it’s not just their parents they might have to consult with.
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