Planning Your Big Indian Wedding--and ending up here.

I've had a lot of readers from India lately. Allow me to explain dear brides and/or grooms:
This blog has been in existence since shortly after Mr. Ex's Wedding in September of 2008. My husband  left me for a younger woman. They had an Indian wedding, and one night a couple of weeks later, I woke up in the middle of the night and started this blog. It's not about wedding planning--although I suppose if you were a clever detective, you could spend hours reading through old posts, looking for clues to Mr. Ex's identity, then find his wedding album on the internet. 


I did. 


Those photos devastated me--but for you they would be pure research. As I recall, the wedding was immensely elaborate. There was a horse, costume changes, colorful saris, and exquisite make-up. I wish you a wedding even more beautiful. 


One of my favorite movies has an Indian wedding in it--Mira Nair's "Monsoon Wedding." There's a bit of dialogue in "Monsoon Wedding" that says a lot about marriage. "Whether our parents introduce us or whether we meet in a club, what difference does it make?" As I recall it, the groom, who is quite conservative, speaks this line to his fiancée. She's not so hot on the idea of an arranged marriage, and he's trying to point out to her that how a couple meets is not what makes a marriage succeed.


A few months after my marriage ended, I ended up in a taxi cab with an Indian driver.  “My soon-to-be -ex-husband is marrying an Indian woman,” I told him. Although I thought I had endowed my voice with a reasonable tone, there was alarm in his eyes as he glanced at me in the rear view mirror. 

            “My people usually stay married to one person,” he said. "I’ve had one wife for thirty years.” His marriage was an arranged one, he went on to tell me. His parents chose his bride for him, and he and his betrothed met once as children and then didn’t see each other again until the day of their marriage.  “Most of  marriages I see breaking apart are marriage from love match,” he told me. His English was heavily accented and not very nuanced, but I had a question I wanted him to answer.

            “Do you believe in Fate?” I asked. 

            “What is this?” he asked, trying to repeat the word. I attempted to explain about the hand of God, the workings of the universe.  

            “Do you believe that God has a plan for every person,” I asked while I gestured at the holy card of a swami on his visor. “Do you believe that no matter what that person chooses, God’s plan--or Fate--will take control over the person’s life?” But the driver didn’t really grasp what I was saying so we gave up and talked about our mothers instead.  

So dear readers from India-- as long as you are here, can you take a moment and tell me what you believe about Fate and marriage?