Tuesday, February 15, 2011

What Will People Think aka Ruining Reputation

I was amused and somewhat proud to find out that before my trip to India Anil's mother initially did not want me to stay at their family house as "it could ruin Anil's reputation". Apparently, if the news that a white woman stayed at their house would spread, his chances of marrying an Indian girl would be close to zero. Since Anil was never interested in marrying anybody of Indian origin, I decided to insist on staying at his parents house.

You may think that it was culturally insensitive of me to do that, but from my point of view the primary reason to go to India was to visit and get to know Anil's parents. If I had stayed elsewhere, it would have been much more difficult to achieve that goal.

In the end Anil managed to convince his mother to let me stay with them, his reputation did not get ruin, he did not have to marry any Indian girl, moreover we got married and I became a heroin in a medieval love story... ;)