Had the sun got to me? It was a hot and humid summer afternoon in Washington DC and we were driving down Constitution Avenue. There before us, like some Don Quixote titling at the windmills, was this lanky gora (American presumably) astride a horse. Was this vision for real or was I hallucinating?The horse was accessorised colourfully. The man wore an achkan and an impressive turban on his head. Accompanying him were a handful of white Caucasian males (in bandgalas) and females (in saris). The living tableau was inching along, to some sort of Bollywood number. And it was moving towards the imperious, colonnaded and neoclassical Andrew W Mellon Auditorium, on the steps of which waited an immaculate Hindu priest, generously talculmed, in a dhoti and a fairly large group of goras and desis in formal Indian gear.
For a moment I wondered if we had landed in the middle of a Karan Johar film sequence. After all, he does love to shoot overseas.Better still make that a Gurinder Chaddha film: remember the awkwardly titled Bride and Prejudice with its desi bride and gora groom.
The big fat Indian wedding has almost attained a ‘cool’ status amongst the circle of celebrities. A smattering of Hollywood types, rock stars and models want to play at being Hindu grooms and brides. Seal and super model Heidi Klum renewed their vows for the third time in a Hindu ceremony in Mexico. Comedian Russell Brand and singer Katy Perry apparently plan to get married in India later this year.
Hindu priests are certainly in clover here.We will probably have to export more of them to the West, just as we did our nurses. There been a phenomenal increase in the number of Indian weddings taking place in the States. Traditionally, most desi-Americans used to flock to India — both for spouse-hunting as well as their nuptials.
Increasingly, second generation Indian-Americans are not only finding their mates here but also going round the fire here. Just this week the matrimonial announcements pages of The New York Times carried photographs and brief biographies of four desi-American women who had just got married.
But this is where the matrimonial landscape seems to have changed. Three of them (all apparently high-achievers following combos of the Indian and American dream) had married foreigners. Two of the grooms were American goras and the third of East Asian origin.
It wasn’t too long ago that Indian women who married foreign men were the exception. Indian men on the other hand often ended up marrying foreigners when they went overseas to study. Go back several decades, and across the Atlantic Ocean to the UK, and you had large number of Indian men who habitually married their landlady’s daughter, or nurses if they were doctors.Oh, yes, lawyers too — those who crossed the kala paani also returned home with another LLD — landlady’s daughter.
The Indian male abroad is, of course, still marrying pardesis. But there has been a slight geographical shift. Look around and you will probably see a fair number of Japanese wives.
Perhaps, they make more suitable brides for men who are looking for the cliched Asian woman. One who will put her man before her, in all senses of the word. You know, the stereotypical Oriental woman intent on pleasing her man as if he were some god. Evidently, an increasing number of young Indian women no longer treat their husbands like deities: they are also upfront about their own needs.
A distant relative — good Punjabi — struck lucky in the marital sweepstakes. When his Japanese wife goes to visit her family in Tokyo she cooks enough Indian food (even rotis) and puts it in the freezer for him.
Perhaps, the American groom on the horse in front of the Mellon Auditorium thought that he was getting a good Oriental wife.
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