Is White right?
Disclaimer: The following should not let anybody to believe that C and I have anything else besides dating going on between us. For the lack of a better word, we are in the "trial phase" with long ways to go before anything else. The following is just the flight of an imaginative mind which cannot help thinking aloud.
C is neither Sikh nor Indian. . In her own words, she is as white as they come. She also thinks she is a prude. However, she seems all right. A lot of people seem to think that we are the wrongest (if that is a word) people to be together. We come from completely different worlds. I was raised in a traditional Indian household where religion and family values were the predominant theme. She was raised in a conservative American Catholic household where I think religion and family values were celebrated with equal fervor. There are commonalities and yet there are differences.
Indian culture has traditionally delegated the role of home-maker to women. Indian men take great pride when their wives cook for them, take care of the house and raise the kids. This is irrespective of whether the wives work as hard as their hubbies to put bread on the table or not. I admit it. Indian men are lazy, chauvinistic pigs. We may pretend to be ok with our wives working or whatever. But we still like them to pamper us as spoilt kids. Many of my friends have warned me that an American woman would never be able to do that. They paint grim scenarios of me slugging in the dungeons of my kitchen with sweat oozing out of every pore of my body. They pick up the crystal ball and show me, lost in the meandering alleys of a grocery store trying to figure out which dressing to choose for the salad. And then they advise me to give up on my porcine love for Indian food coz she will never cook and all we will ever eat is salads and wine.
Implied in all these words of wisdom, is the supposition that I am trying to find a slave rather than a wife. Sure, I don't like to cook and sure I want to make more out of my life than figuring out which salad dressing to choose. I have big dreams and I will be damned if I am going to give up on those because I have to do grocery shopping. But little things in life are important and over time, they make the difference between a happy marriage and divorce. My problem is that I seek someone who will love me and for whom I can open up the reservoirs of love in my heart.If two people love each other and there is free and open communications, I think they can surpass any hurdle. I don't know. I am a hopeless romantic. Pragmatism is not one of my forte as yet. But for the love of God, I can't imagine not being with somebody because I will not get chicken tikka masala twice a week. And who knows. Maybe she will learn how to make chicken tikka masala and maybe I will learn how to make chicken Parmesan. Who knows?
The other big thing. Will our families accept us? When we make a decision to be somebody, it just doesn't affect us because there are so may other lives intertwined with our own. I can't speak for her parents but I know my parents will have a tough time in the beginning. There are going to be huge communication issues springing mostly from the diveristy of language and culture. But I know my parents. I can never see their hearts broken and I know they can't see mine either. If we work hard and try to love our elders, I think ,since they are much more wiser than we are, they usually give in to love and sincerity. Anyways, this is much further down the road.
C and I have been making a checklist of these commonalities and differences. Of course, this is being done without letting the other person know about it. Maybe I am just imagining things. Maybe I am an idiot and this is just another dream. But I sure don't want it to end.
C is neither Sikh nor Indian. . In her own words, she is as white as they come. She also thinks she is a prude. However, she seems all right. A lot of people seem to think that we are the wrongest (if that is a word) people to be together. We come from completely different worlds. I was raised in a traditional Indian household where religion and family values were the predominant theme. She was raised in a conservative American Catholic household where I think religion and family values were celebrated with equal fervor. There are commonalities and yet there are differences.
Indian culture has traditionally delegated the role of home-maker to women. Indian men take great pride when their wives cook for them, take care of the house and raise the kids. This is irrespective of whether the wives work as hard as their hubbies to put bread on the table or not. I admit it. Indian men are lazy, chauvinistic pigs. We may pretend to be ok with our wives working or whatever. But we still like them to pamper us as spoilt kids. Many of my friends have warned me that an American woman would never be able to do that. They paint grim scenarios of me slugging in the dungeons of my kitchen with sweat oozing out of every pore of my body. They pick up the crystal ball and show me, lost in the meandering alleys of a grocery store trying to figure out which dressing to choose for the salad. And then they advise me to give up on my porcine love for Indian food coz she will never cook and all we will ever eat is salads and wine.
Implied in all these words of wisdom, is the supposition that I am trying to find a slave rather than a wife. Sure, I don't like to cook and sure I want to make more out of my life than figuring out which salad dressing to choose. I have big dreams and I will be damned if I am going to give up on those because I have to do grocery shopping. But little things in life are important and over time, they make the difference between a happy marriage and divorce. My problem is that I seek someone who will love me and for whom I can open up the reservoirs of love in my heart.If two people love each other and there is free and open communications, I think they can surpass any hurdle. I don't know. I am a hopeless romantic. Pragmatism is not one of my forte as yet. But for the love of God, I can't imagine not being with somebody because I will not get chicken tikka masala twice a week. And who knows. Maybe she will learn how to make chicken tikka masala and maybe I will learn how to make chicken Parmesan. Who knows?
The other big thing. Will our families accept us? When we make a decision to be somebody, it just doesn't affect us because there are so may other lives intertwined with our own. I can't speak for her parents but I know my parents will have a tough time in the beginning. There are going to be huge communication issues springing mostly from the diveristy of language and culture. But I know my parents. I can never see their hearts broken and I know they can't see mine either. If we work hard and try to love our elders, I think ,since they are much more wiser than we are, they usually give in to love and sincerity. Anyways, this is much further down the road.
C and I have been making a checklist of these commonalities and differences. Of course, this is being done without letting the other person know about it. Maybe I am just imagining things. Maybe I am an idiot and this is just another dream. But I sure don't want it to end.
posted by harry singh at 2:14 PM
7 Comments:
That's a really sweet post. I can tell you about my friends, and perhaps you can relate to that. One is a white girl raised in a small town in the Midwest. Her boyfriend grew up in India and came here as a student.
She loves to cook, and she's managed to train the boyfriend, a pampered brat to clean up the kitchen and do the dishes. She cooks Indian food occasionally, but they usually go out when they crave Indian meals.
They both love rock, and attend concerts frequently. It's all about focussing on what draws people together, usually the differences are quite trivial.
A person can grow to his or her fullest capacity only in mutually caring relationships with others. If you have this with C than nothing matters. All of us truly are lovable and capable of loving.
Have you even thought about kids yet? It annoys me to no end when I see two culturally/religiously different people date for years only to realize near their wedding day that they want to raise their kids in different ways. Is she going to agree with doing your son's joora? Are you ok with your kids spending Sundays at Church? I can see that you're a romantic and therefore probably don't think things through (as is the case with most romantics) - but try to save yourself some heartbreak by at least thinking things through.
Nothing against you - I've just seen the scenario play out way too many times so I thought I'd throw an unasked-for opinion out there. Good luck.
By the way, if you expect her to do all the grocery shopping and cooking, my dear, this isn't India and you're screwed =)
white right?
dude! just take what u get. you seem to have exhausted the sikh women, through dating or through family...so chances are slim u'd ever get married.
just hook her ASAP, this is the correct advice.
"Indian men are lazy, chauvinistic pigs".
If you would have said that Most Indian men are lazy, chauvinistic pigs, it would have been more appropriate.
And Sonia is right. You shold look beyond the starry starry night....
I think singh here is trying to justify himself regarding the issue of inter-religious/inter-racial marriage by comparing it with bad examples of indian couple. There is nothing wrong with inter-racial marriage in sikhism but one has to think about future as sonia mentioned.
Hi..
I'm a 33 yr old single guy in Chandigarh, India, looking to get married now.
I'm looking for a turbaned Sikh girl who understands and desires to remain a Sikh as per orthodox tradition, and preferably in Punjab.
However, I wish that she come from a white background, as I can see no comparable potential person, both in terms of commitment to one's aim & purpose in life, and also, just the fact that I think I'll be better off with that kind of a woman.
If someone is looking for something like this, my blog is
www.akalsblog.blogspot.com
Akal
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