Relationships are never easy. Every day you wake up and you make it work through every conversation and action. When you are both from different cultures this adds a new dimension.
We met online in 2009 on desktop, the old-fashioned way. After five years of being on Tamil matrimony and Shaadi.com and going on many awkward dates with Indian men, Carl’s English humour and self-deprecating 'ginger' jokes were a breath of fresh air. He is open-minded and curious about different cultures, so his Catholic upbringing wasn’t an issue.
We experienced the culture challenge early on. Having had our first few dates it felt right to invite him to a Cuban themed party I was having at my place in celebration of my 33rd birthday. That was until my parents decided that they wanted to visit last minute.
Having been brought up in a fairly strict Tamil Brahmin household where boyfriends were a no-no and the norm was to have an arranged marriage by the time you were 25, introducing Carl as a love interest so early on was just not going to happen.
Especially as I had spent the last five years working out my beliefs when it came to marriage and in a sense appeasing my parents through going on various dates via matrimonial websites and personal connections (they still had hope I’d marry a Tamil Brahmin boy or at the very least, someone Indian).
Plus my parents' marriage story was very straightforward: my dad was sent a picture of my mum, he liked the look of her, they met once and then got married when my mum was 19 and he was 23. No dating, no working out if each other was “the one”. Same culture, same values and beliefs. Done. They are celebrating 47 years of marriage this year.
Boyfriends were a no-no and the norm was to have an arranged marriage by the time you were 25.
So, I politely told Carl that he was welcome to come but I would introduce him as a friend. To keep up the ‘friend’ guise, I also asked him to come late and potentially think about bringing a mate so he had some company. Not surprisingly, he didn’t come to the party and I didn’t hear from him for a week.
But eventually we caught up and we reignited the relationship culminating with him coming to my grandmother's 80th birthday in Melbourne two months later, meeting my extended family plus the broader Indian community and staying with my parents, in separate bedrooms of course.
I think through that experience and the intensity of questioning (“do you want to get married?”) he understood my hesitation in introducing him to my family earlier when the intentions of our relationship weren’t clear.
Throughout our relationship we’ve had to deal with many other major and minor cross-cultural challenges. Moving in together for four years before getting married, my parents unsubtly dropped hints about Carl proposing at every opportunity.
Attending my cousins wedding in India unmarried meant I couldn’t participate in some of the ceremonies. Carl had to learn to to eat with his hands.
After the birth of our beautiful daughter we had conversations around the tradition of shaving her hair and piercing her ears as a newborn (a firm no on from Carl on the head shaving and a compromise of 11 years old on the ear piercing) and navigating the amount of oil my mum put in our daughters hair prior to bathing to avoid her looking greasy in daycare photos.
Overall there is an intensity about Indian culture which clashes with the politeness and reserve of English culture that raises its head time and time again.
Overall there is an intensity about Indian culture which clashes with the politeness and reserve of English culture that raises its head time and time again.
It is not just Carl and I that have dealt with this cross cultural challenge. I take my hat off to my parents who, given their upbringing, have been extremely welcoming, accommodating and accepting.
When exploring the possibility of arranged marriage, I remember feeling so pressured, like my head was in a vice. I used to wonder why my parents couldn’t see where I was coming from when it just didn’t feel right. But they have their own context which is years of tradition and a way that life and doing things that they never questioned. A desire to continue this tradition of language, custom and food which is hard when you marry outside of your heritage.
I’d like to say that love conquers all, but ultimately Carl and I share the value of family and our relationship is bigger than us. It has been the ongoing openness and commitment from both of us and everyone in our family that has kept our partnership going and resulted in a wonderfully rich life where we celebrate Diwali and Christmas, enjoy a BBQ and a simple south-Indian meal and the challenges and joys that a marriage of two cultures brings to every single day.
