I was watching a hindi movie this weekend where the hero and heroine, depicted as Indians living in the US, got married with an "I do" and exchange of rings, and the bride wore white. Needless to say I was shocked. I never imagined that the rituals and traditions of marriage will ever change, esp in the case where two Hindus were involved. Of course, movies are not reality but I think they do sometimes depict the aspirations of people that make them. Most Indian movies nowadays have a guy proposing to a girl on his knees with the invariable diamond ring in his hands, and people praying in churches with candles, instead of temples with oil lamps. This is a relatively new phenomenon. India is getting modernized, and somewhat homogenized by the global corporate culture and also by exposure to western TV shows etc. I can understand the changes in diet, the proliferation of starbucks-type coffee shops. However, I never expected a change in the religious rituals. Doesn't faith go deeper than that! I am waiting for a real celebrity wedding in India that will happen in the western "I do" style and I am convinced it will happen. I even have a celebrity picked out who I think will wear white for her wedding.
I read somewhere that the values of an immigrant get stuck in the era he left his country, while his country keeps evolving. As a result most immigrants tend to be much more conservative than their compatriots who stayed in the native country. This seems to make sense. This is probably why I cannot stomach an Indian wedding culminating with "you may now kiss the bride". I had been living in fear that my daughters, who will grow up watching American movies will always equate wedding with a white dress and saying of vows, as opposed to a red dress and circles around a fire. From the look of it, that era has passed and I am apparently stuck in old times.
Raising kids in a non-native environment while constantly worrying about striking the right balance.
2 comments:
For whatever it's worth... a few years ago when my friend Garima married an American boy, they had a traditional Indian wedding, in San Francisco. So maybe some Indian traditions will be exported to the rest of the globe, too.
I'm intrigued by what you say about a person's values being connected to the time when they left their original country, while the country itself keeps on evolving. I'd never thought of it that way, and it makes a lot of sense. Seems painful for the one who left, though.
-Valerie
Interestingly most Indian guys who marry an American woman, have only a church wedding and no Hindu ceremony. But most Indian women who marry American men have Hindu ceremonies. Immigrants do like to preserve their culture as much as they can because they realize how unique it is only after they move to an alien environment. But the people who stay behind in the old country evolve and also aspire for something different for the same reason a westerner might opt for a wedding in India.
After all Elizabeth Hurley did go all the way to India to have a Hindu wedding.
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