Chaborkia.com

We’ve had the pleasure to acquaint with some locals after starting our exercise routine. One day, we visited our friend’s house. It was elaborately decorated, Indian style. The floor tiles, the beddings, the cupboard designs, all of them are full of Indian flavour.

I hope I can bring pictures for ya all, but since it’s our first time visiting, it’s not nice to step into a person’s house and snap pics as you please, innit? It isn’t like in Malaysia where you can just camwhore and let people stare or complain that you’re vain and LOL it off.

But anyway, I’ll try. Since I’ve got no pics this time, lemme compile a list of facts that I found out about…

Indian weddings. Or maybe Gujarati weddings, if you may. Just like the Chinese, we have Cantonese, Hakka, Teochew and etc clans, so stuff might differ.

First and foremost,

MOST weddings are pre-arranged by the family. Which explains the staggering amount of movies revolving around Indian brides. Running away from home to achieve their own dreams to escape the ghastly fate of marrying someone you never knew and never loved ARE true and not a fragment of the director’s imagination.

Secondly,

The standard age to marry is 22 years old. For females. Males I dunno lah. My friend’s daughter will be getting married in another 2 years with a pre-arranged partner. She is the same age as me and currently still in college. And it took a lot of self-restraint from going OMGWTF at their face. This family I’m talking about… They’re the rich class of Indians, you’d expect them to be more modern when it comes to these matters… But no, it’s still a die-hard custom. Die lah if I marry 22, I still wanna hang out check out cute boys clubbing flirt fool around enjoy my youth leh.

Thirdly,

Indian weddings are grand affairs. They party for days and nights and the bridal money (礼金?) is given by the female family, not the male. The rented house we’re living at is a gift from our owner’s daughter-in-law to her husband’s family. And mind you, this house is VERY big and kononnya hai crass for India’s standards (luxury residence?!). So yeah, if you dun have moolah, no wedding for ya.

These facts are collected from a mound of broken languages and very rusty English from a local individual. So it might be right, it might be wrong too. But that’s what we’ve heard lah.

It’s really surprising to learn that pre-arranged weddings still exist in such a modern part of India. And movies do not necessarily portray reality wrongly sometimes - if you’ve watched Heroes Season 3 Volume 4, Hiro saved an Indian woman from a pre-arranged wedding. It’s dangerous to do that actually, because if someone witnessed a robbery or a crime or an elope attempt, it will be either:

• They walk away without helping
• Take matters into their own hands and beat up the culprits. Seen these type of reports in the local papers for way too many times.
• The girl who tries to elope will be dismissed by the family. And in an extreme case from the local papers, a girl from a rich and well-respected family was shot because she ‘disgraced’ her family from running away from her pre-arranged wedding. She died and the main suspect was her own family.

And they call this place a safe state? Niasing lah!

Boy am I glad to be born in a place with decent (yes just decent! not great! Bolehland you hear me?!!!!!!!!!) female rights and independence to choose my own partner. I really cannot imagine bringing myself to marry a guy whom I’ve never knew my whole life, and suddenly being pushed into a scenario where I’ve become his dearest. Seriously crazy shit.

More Sauce to Whet your Appetite

1. The Chaborkia Goes To ‘Incredible’ India.
2. The HARD Facts about India’s Water Supply.
3. Authentic India Mehendi Art and some LOL Foreigner Moments~
4. A (Slum) Dog’s Life at India.
5. Goodbye India.