Journal 22

Monday, July 10, 2006

Dear Journal,

Today Abbie and I went to St. Ann’s College at noon. The first thing we did was walk over to meet with Mrs. Lata Subramanya, who is a Professor of Psychology at the College. We want to talk to her to see if we could sit in one of her classes this week, since we missed our appointment with them last week, due to me being sick. She tells us that there is a Psychology class at 1:10 p.m. – an hour later. We decide to go down and talk to Mrs. Radika to confirm our appointment with her for next Wednesday to make sure that we can get some more information about the school’s history and some more information on the student and teacher body itself. We talk with her for about 10 minutes and set up a time, and then we walk out into the yard to conduct some interviews. I walk past the basketball field and observe the students around me. I choose a couple of girls sitting near the basketball court for my first interview, mainly because I wanted to try to find one or two girls at a time to interview, instead of having big groups.
I find two girls and introduce myself. After talking to them I find out that Ayesha is 18 years old and seems so confident and secure. Tarannum, 18, who is sitting next to her, appears a little shier right away, but as soon as I introduce myself she starts talking away about everything and anything. After I tell them about me and why I am there, I find out their names and age. When I ask about their religion, both of them answer very energetically: “Islam!” as if I shouldn’t have even asked. Ayesha describes her family’s status as “upper-middle class” while Tarannum says she comes from a middle-class family. Unlike in any of my previous interviews, when asked about their relationship status, they don’t giggle or shyly turn their heads, Ayesha simply looks me straight in the eyes and says: “Yes, I am in a relationship. I will get married, but it is a love-marriage” and Tarannum’s eye’s light up as she says: “Yeah, me too!” I congratulate them and ask if their parents know about this and if yes, what they think about it. As if planned, in a perfect chorus they say: “Yes, my mom knows, but not my dad.” And then they both start giggling, realizing that they did not even know that that they were both in the same situation. They both tell me that their families support arranged marriages, but that their moms are understanding and willing to accept love marriages, whereas both say they don’t know what their father would say. I ask what they will do once they actually want to get married and they say that they will do a “private wedding” (at the courthouse). They also say that both their boyfriend’s parents know and that they support the love-marriages and that for them it is not an issue at all. I am getting curious as to how they met their boyfriends and they tell me that in both cases he was the neighbor and that was how they met. Ayesha tells me that her and her boyfriend have been secretly dating for 7 years (since she was 11 years old?!) and that she wants to get married this year. Tarannum and her boyfriend have been dating for 5 years; however, she says that they plan to wait before getting married because they want to get settled first. I find this very interesting, because to me it shows that many people really do get married because of pressures from family or others. For Tarannum and her boyfriend for example, it does not matter when they get married, because nobody knows. I have observed that in the States, where many people who come from very religious families and who are told that they should not live with their boyfriends until they get married, do exactly that, whereas I believe that many of them would rather wait a few years to make sure that they actually get along. In Europe it is much more common for couples to be together and live together for 5 or even 10 years before getting married, to make sure that they actually want to be together, which I think makes much more sense. I also understand that this would be impossible to do here, simply because it is socially totally unacceptable, and this, I believe, is a major issue for failing marriages, whether they result in divorces or unhappy couples. Obviously, both of them prefer love-marriages and would not want an arranged marriage. When I ask them what they think about dating they both agree that it is “cool,” but only if it you are serious about it. I ask them what being independent means to them, and almost in chorus they answer: “freedom” and Tarannum adds that independence for her means “having your own identity,” which I think is a great way to put it.
I thank the girls for the information and ask if they have any questions for me and right away I get bombarded with about 5 different questions. I take a few notes of things I found to be important. The girls all agreed that their society needs to change so that the husband will have more responsibilities and that wives do not have to live their lives according to their husbands but as THEY wish. They say that there are a lot of compromises in Indian marriages, as there are everywhere in the world) but that here they mainly go in favor of the husband. However, the Indian traditions are changing and they say that more than 25% are now love marriages.

First I was worried about finding enough time to visit my field sites enough and getting enough interviews for my paper, but now I am enjoying talking to all these girls so much and I find hearing their opinion on things so fascinating, that I am enjoying the project too much as to worry anymore.