I like it best with onions
The second matrimonial candidate was presented to me a few months after my college graduation. Instead of a tiny studio somewhere in Greenwich Village, I was once again back in my old room in a crowded suburb in Northern New Jersey. My mother, after working for over eight years as an insurance company, decided to take on a second job – my marriage maker. She had been a Gujarati and Hindi literature teacher in India, but transitioned into the immigrant work force once we migrated to the US. With a Master’s degree in hand, my mother started with a glamorous job working on an assembly line at a bra factory until she gained enough confidence to move into office work. I was to be her only client as my younger sister had just left for college.
He was the nephew of Bina auntie, who was not my auntie by blood but because any older person who is Indian is always addressed to or referred as an uncle or auntie. We had met Bina auntie when we moved into a large apartment complex in Elizabeth, NJ. There were six Gujarati families in the complex which was mainly filled with Columbian and Puerto Rican families. Between the ages of ten and fifteen, while living there, I spoke Gujarati as my first language, Spanish as my second and English only in school. My parents’ not wanting my sister and I to become completely Americanized or in this case Latin Americanized, made sure we spent more time playing with the kids of the other Indian families in the complex, however, my best friend was Yvonne Herrera and her mother made the best rice and beans I had ever had. I have tried for years and still can’t replicate the recipe.
This was also where I had my third crush on a boy named Papi – which in hindsight – yuck! Papi used to make fun of us girls and make us climb the stone gates of the complex and when we couldn’t get down he would make fun of us and leave us up there until we started crying. He was a prize. My second crush was a year before in fifth grade with a boy named Harry. We were in the same class and on a class trip to the park, he caught a fish with his hands brought it over and threw it at me. My first crush was very different though. He was in my fourth grade class and I was still shy about speaking English because I didn’t know all of words. Every day at the end of school, Angel, who sat in the desk behind me, would help me put my coat on and tie the strings to my hood so that my head was secured by my hood. I hated wearing the hood but since Angel tied the strings I kept that hood on all the way home.
Matrimonial candidate number two was not like Angel or Harry or even Papi. He came to pick me up at my parents’ house in a silver Toyota Corolla and I remember that it had really shiny hubcaps. He was fairly average, in body and looks. Again, close your eyes and picture an Indian guy and add a small beer pooch and there you have matrimonial candidate number two. He took me to Pizza Hut about ten minutes away from my parents’ house.
“I love pizza, it’s my favourite food,” he offered as we were seated at a white and red checked table with crushed red pepper and garlic powder dispensers.
“We’ll have two Cokes and a large pie with extra onions and jalapeno peppers,” he ordered without even asking what I wanted. Great sign that.
“Do you like pizza?”
I wanted to say no, but instead I said, “Yeah.”
“My mom makes the best pizza, she puts like jeera in the crust and it’s like thin in the middle and like really thick around the sides.”
He was actually salivating.
“Do you know how to make pizza?”
“Uhm no.”
“It’s the best with onions and peppers. I mean I like it loaded too, with veggies only, like olives and onions and peppers and sometimes garlic. I don’t eat meat, I never have so I don’t know what it would be like with pepperoni, but I wouldn’t like it. It’s also really good with just cheese but I think you have to have onions because onions taste good on everything.”
He reached in and grabbed the largest slice when the pie arrived and spent a few minutes mesmerized by the taste of really adequate pizza.
“So my mom didn’t tell me a lot about you, what do you do?” I asked at the risk of interrupting his pizza euphoria.
“I’m a computer programmer,” he said with his mouth full. I could no longer look at him.
“What do you do?”
“I work for a travel publishing company.”
“Wow, that’s cool, so do you get to travel.”
“No, not really,” my company sounded glamorous but my job was pretty mundane. I was a media trafficker for a quarterly travel directory.
“That’s too bad. You know where I want to go? Italy. They have the best pizza there.”
“Oh, of course.”
“Have you been to Italy?”
“No.”
“Are you going to have any more?”
There were four slices left and I had half of one.
“No, I’m done.”
“Cool. I’m going to wrap this up and take it to go,” he told the waitress.
“I’ll get it,” he said magnanimously when the check came.
“I’ll get the tip,” I offered.
I never saw him again or even heard about him. My mother asked how it went when I got home and I told her I really didn’t like him. He must have said the same thing to his mother and both of us moved on to the next in parents’ quest to marry us off.
There are plenty of good boys out there
My matrimonial resume, created by my mother, had been floating through the Gujarati Indian population for over a decade. It had a circulation of about 44 states (there aren’t that many Patels in Alaska, Hawaii, Wyoming, Utah, North and South Dakota), 4 countries (US, India, UK and Canada) and two continents. Its sole purpose was to find me a husband. According to my parents, my husband should meet three criteria:
- He should be Indian, specifically a Gujarati, more specifically a Brahmin, even more specifically a Patel. As a side note, if you’re wondering why there are so many Patels who are not related to one another, it’s because we all come from a specific region in India, the state of Gujarat. Our most famous Gujarati, however, was Mahatma Gandhi (not a Patel).
- He should be a professional of some sort; only doctors, pharmacists, engineers, computer scientists; CPAs, MBAs, etc. should apply.
- He should be a ‘suitable boy’ from a ‘good family’. This could mean many things, but I always took it to mean that there were no skeletons in his or his family’s closet; no cousins or siblings married to non-Indians, no rumors of past girl friends, etc.
My parents’ weren’t picky however – looks, personality, sense of humour, chemistry – were all negotiable; nice to have but definitely not necessary.
My first marriage proposal was over an orange Formica table at a Denny’s in Cherry Hill, NJ. I was a senior in college with visions of climbing the corporate ladder to a corner office in New York City. It was over that murky, bitter cup of Denny’s coffee that needed five spoons of sugar to make it drinkable, that I realized that I was never going to be just like my friends. I was meant to live within the confines of my parents’ culture; my culture. See from the time I had learned to speak English from the age of nine, I was American and even when I looked in the mirror and saw brown skin, dark brown hair and dark brown eyes, I saw myself as an American.
Growing up, I had mostly white friends named Vicky and Anne and Lisa so I became Nena thanks to my first Spanish teacher, Senor Hayden, who couldn’t pronounce my first name and decided to give me a nickname. The name stuck and from then on, everyone outside of my parents and my numerous aunts and uncles called me Nena.
As Nena, I went to the prom with my boyfriend, telling my parents that he was really my best friend’s boyfriend. As Nena, I went to frat parties and drank warm beer and got my nose pierced (until I found out that a lot of traditional Gujarati girls had their nose pierced and my mother didn’t mind my piercing so much). I still have an indentation to remind me of my rebellion that wasn’t. As Nena, I kissed boys, lots of boys, but was afraid to do anything more because again, even though I wasn’t told by my parents, I just knew that I would have to be a virgin on my wedding night.
I guess it shouldn’t have been so much of a surprise that my parents decided to start the search for my husband before I graduated college. Something must have told them that with me it would take some time so might as well get started as soon as possible. My mother, who was to be the cruise director in my quest of marriage, called me at my on-campus apartment to tell me to drive an hour to my aunt’s house in Cherry Hill. I was going to meet a boy.
‘Oh and make sure you wear something that makes you look thin, and wear some make up,’ were my mother’s words of wisdom before hanging up the phone.
The boy was a computer programmer from Detroit, Michigan. He had been in the United States for about eight years and was around 24 or 25. I can’t remember his name because I am really bad with names. I can only recall names of people that I want to genuinely get to know or people that I find ridiculously attractive. It wouldn’t bode well for my foray into the Indian marriage market.
When I got to my aunt’s house, my father – the same man who refused to let me go hang out after field hockey practice with my team because boys might join us – decided that this suitable boy that none of us had ever met and barely knew anything about should go get a cup of coffee and talk.
“So your dad and my dad went to college together,” he started as stirred the straw in his Diet Pepsi.
“Oh, okay,” let me clarify, up until this point I had kissed some boys and had even had a really sweet boyfriend, but by no means did I have the skills to talk to the opposite sex for any period of time without alcohol.
“Are you excited to graduate?”
“Sure. I mean yes.”
“Do you, uhm, what is your major?”
“Communications.”
“So you are an expert communicator,” he cracked himself up and I cracked a smile. He was wearing a purple and black checked shirt tucked into black slacks and everything about him was average. Close your eyes and visualize an Indian man, there you go, that’s what he looked like.
“So what kind of job would you get with communications?” He continued after a few sips through his straw.
“Uhm, I’m hoping to go into Advertising.”
“Oh so like you would make up slogans and things.
“Yes.”
“So have you ever been to Detroit?”
“No.”
“It’s not so bad. It’s a little cold but I have good friends there. There are lots of Gujarati people there and they even have Indian grocery stores. Do you cook?”
“Uhm, not really,” at that point I was resentful of anything to do with traditional female roles because I took several Women’s Studies courses in college and felt that Naomi Wolf and bell hooks really spoke to me. I had even stopped shaving my legs for a few weeks my junior year until I realized it was a boy repellent.
“Well, I’m sure you can learn. I do a little cooking, but I’m hoping that my wife cooks. I mean I don’t mind if she works and has her own career but I am traditional so I would want my wife to cook.”
“Okay,” I mean how do you respond to that?
“So I think we would be a good match. Our families are from the same caste and my dad really respects your dad. I think we would suit.”
“Suit? For what?” I knew what he meant but I was buying time as I had just started hyperventilating.
“For marriage.”
“Oh, uhm,” and I had no words, just panic. Just thinking back to that moment still makes my chest thump in nervous anxiety.
What was worse was that I had no idea what was expected of me. Did I have a say? Would my dad just expect me to go along? Would it be my dad’s decision? And then nothing, my mind went completely blank. As he left after dropping me back to my aunt’s house, I started to cry in front of my aunt and uncle and my parents. I had never been much of a crier but I couldn’t stop. I was crying so hard I was hiccupping and wheezing all over the place. My aunt and mother started patting my back and asking me what happened and what was wrong.
Finally, I looked up at my dad and through my tears blubbered out that I didn’t want to marry him. And then he told me what was expected of me. I get to choose who my husband is. They, being my parents and later everybody that my parents knew, would introduce me to suitable candidates but I get to pick the one I want. This was just the first one, he said, there are plenty of good boys out there.
What I didn’t have the nerve to ask back then was – how many was plenty?
