Not True Love

In the 3 stories I have chose clothing by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, silver pavements golden roofs by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, and visitors by Bharati Mukherjee is all stories about arranged marriages and the difficulties that come with it, about the curiosity about who you may or may not be marrying. Women and men are put into arranged marriages every day. More and more men and women are turning to arranged marriage instead of taking their time and finding true love with that one special person.

When I read clothing by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni I realized I must not really know a lot about arranged marriage. In this story a woman Sumita sitting in her tub bathing when she is rushed out to get ready for her husband to be. “His name is Somesh Sen, the man who is coming to our house with his parents today and who will be my husband.”(18) Her father had a special expensive sari for her to wear to her arranged wedding. It was a pale pink with embroidered stars of real gold zari thread. And it was unexpectedly heavy. She believed it would dazzle Somesh and his parents. Somesh lives in the United States and she would be expected to go with him. “I’d be going halfway around the world with a man I hadn’t even met.” (18) She tried keeping herself calm while on the plane by steady breathing as well as slow breathing. Her hands still clench the folds of her sari. When she began to think about the sari she is wearing, she thinks about the arguments that her mother and her had. She wanted blue the color of possibility. But her mother had other plans. She said there must be red, the color of luck for married woman. But her father satisfies both of them by getting a midnight blue sari with a thin red border that matched the marriage dot on her forehead. “It is hard for me to think of myself as a married woman.” (20) The store is called 7 eleven open all day and night. The store sold all things imaginable. The store even sold cases of beer. “That is where the money comes from, especially in the neighborhood where our store is.” (21) “A lot of Americans drink, you know. It’s a part of their culture, not considered immoral, it is here. And really, there’s nothing wrong with it.” (21)

Somesh buys her new American clothing that is very becoming. When Somesh is killed he was working a graveyard shift at the store the man took every last bit of the money. Before leaving he emptied his bullets into somesh’s chest. Somesh’s parents would expect her to move to India and live with them. But that’s not what she wants she wants to stay in America. So she gathers herself together and fixes the white sari that indicates widow, and embraces the fighting that is to come.
Silver pavement, golden roofs by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni is another story that touches on arranged marriage but this story tells the other side of it. A young woman moves from India to America to live with her aunt and uncle and to start school at the university in Chicago in September. When she arrives in America her aunt and uncle meet her at the airport and she decides that they are different. “His voice isn’t unkind. Still I feel reprimanded, as though I am a little girl again, and spitefully I wonder how a marriage could have been arranged between a man like bikram uncle and my aunt, who comes from an old and wealthy landowning family.” (39) When they get home she starts going off about being in America. “Uncle grunted noncommittally, regarding the teacups with disfavor. He stomps into the kitchen where I hear him rummage in the refrigerator.” (42) She doesn’t really like the apartment but she makes the most of it. “Things aren’t as perfect as people at home like to think. We all thought we’d become millionaires. But it’s not so easy.” (43) She and her aunt are walking home one day when all of a sudden a bunch of kids start throwing snowballs at her and her aunt. They get home and her aunt can’t find the key, her uncle opens the door and is very mad. He is so mad that he hits her aunt and she finds herself outside and her hands turn white from the cold she. And she begins to ponder on the things of hands. Hands that threw the snow balls, hands that were looking for the key, hands that hit her aunt.
Visitors by Bharati Mukherjee is about a lady Vinita who grew up in Calcutta India and was married off to a 35 year old accountant sailen Kumar who lived in America. Her parents wanted to marry her off to a doctor or an engineer of the right caste and class but resident abroad, preferably in America.” (682) “Marriage suits Vinita. In the months she has been a wife in Guttenberg, New Jersey, she has become even prettier.” (682) “Vinita expected married life, especially married life in a new country and with no relatives around, to change her. Overnight she would become mature, complex, fascinating: a wife instead of a daughter.” (683)
In conclusion the life of arranged marriage varies. Some arranged marriages are great for women their husbands give them everything they want. And then there are the arranged marriages that just really meant to be because the men either bet the woman or they just don’t show respect or love or that they really want that relationship. Arranged marriage may be the answer for some people but not for me. More and more men and women are turning to arranged marriage instead of taking their time and finding true love with that one special person.