Thursday, October 4, 2007

The exchange (India)

We have a new designer in the office. Typical to Indian management, she has zero experience in what she was hired for and a strong accent that makes it difficult for us westerners to understand her. She got the job without receiving an explanation of what her duties would be and was shocked to find that the majority of the office is foreign. What we need is a graphic designer who can do the layout and format of the magazine but she is a fashion designer (or rather, the person who chooses the fabrics and the stitch type, etc) and has no experience with InDesign. She has been very shy for the last two days but decided for some reason today that I was unscary enough to chat with. We had an awesome conversation. She's really cool even though we live extremely different lives. She graduated from college a few years ago and has no interest in an arranged marriage, so has been living at home with her parents while her older brother got a job as an electrician in Madurai, the nearest city. As far as I can tell, she spends the majority of her time alone, as her parents don't get back from their shop until 11pm, watching television and movies. The options here for women are so limited, both in terms of employment and recreation, it's scary.

I have no idea what she is going to do in the future and I don't think she does, either. My guess is that she will be forced into an arranged marriage sometime in the next five years unless she strikes out to a city like Chennai (Madras) or Mumbai (Bombay) on her own and against her parents' wishes. Once the marriage happens, the wife will spend the rest of her life cooking, cleaning and babies. This is sometimes still the case in the US but the difference there is that it is not the requirement. In the towns and villages here, and even in the cities to some extent, it is extremely weird for young people to live with friends or on their own. The family is quite strong here, even more so than in China. We had a bit of a slow cultural exchange this morning as she said "I know nothing about your culture."

She wanted to know my favorite Indian/Bollywood actor. I couldn't name a single one and she was shocked. She said, "I like one of your actors. Arnold." And I said, "Oh, did you know he is a politician now?" Blank look. "Works for the government?" No, did not know. We talked about the giant Hindu temple in Madurai I went to a few weeks ago and she named the king it was built by. Each detail depicts a different aspect of Indian life. She was shocked again when I had no idea who the king was (ca. 1650).

Here, marriages are set up by parents. Advertisements looking for brides or grooms are online and in print but the majority are set up via village networks-- aunt's cousin's friend's daughter with qualities x, y and z, etc. If a married couple has a real problem, it is worked out by each set of parents. There is beginning to be a backlash against the old ways... many of the young people I have met, especially the women, have voiced their desire against having an arranged marriage, preferring to be single forever than married to someone they don't know, or only know vaguely. The only common career option for women seems to be to become a teacher.

She said her father is very strict and would never let her ride a bike and that the Indian man in the office who was hired two weeks ago warned her that the "foreign women are very bold." I'm sure this is a more polite rendering of his actual opinion. She takes the bus to work. I asked her if she told her parents that most of the people she works with are foreign and she said, "Yes, I told them and their eyes went like this!" and mimed shock with her own. Hopefully, she will be allowed to stay. We are quite bold when compared to the Indian ladies in the office and, in reality, they don't even know the half of it in regards to our lives at home. Here, we wear pants and voice story ideas and let them know if something has gone wrong and ride bicycles to work and take breaks when it is convenient and don't go to church and probably a whole slew of other shocking behaviors that I haven't realized are out of the norm yet and that is enough.

She wanted to know about the US. I said that it is quite normal for a couple to live together before they are married, for friends to live with each other, or for someone to live alone. That if a married couple has a problem, they would be angry if their parents got involved; usually they go to a therapist, a doctor who they pay, to help them with their problems. Explaining things out like this made it sound really wacky, particularly given the context and the society here. Also, that women can do whatever they want, pretty much any time; parents don't treat daughters much different from sons. The fact that about half of marriages end in divorce and families will often end up spread very far away from each other was the most surprising and unfathomable to her.

"Photo please?" The kids are usually screaming with excitement but get very somber for the photos, as all Indians do.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Carrie-try to find out the history of eyebrow threading. On every other street corner there is a thriving shop of Indian women who thread eyebrows (an alternative to waxing). JD Pawtucket RI