Seeing the magic happen

While in India, I was able to attend Pramod’s older sister, Supriya’s marriage. Supriya married a man who lives two houses away from their house and yet she had never spoken to him.

Supriya was 25 years old when getting married. Up until this point in her life she had lived in the same house, with her siblings and parents, her entire life. She had very little freedom to go out with friends or be independent. Every day she had to be home before 6:30, there were no sleep-overs, and there was certainly no interaction with unrelated boys of the same age—even into her mid-twenties.

Now, all of a sudden, her marriage is arranged and she must plan to be living somewhere else, separate from those who she slept next to every night for 25 years (due to living situations in their community, most families sleep side-by-side on the floor). Until this day her life has been pretty constant, she moved from school to work, it is now just her, her dad, and her brother (her other sister married shortly after their mother’s death), but nothing else is different. Then all of a sudden, everything changes in one day.

The day of her marriage, I saw her leave her house as a tired looking, teary-eyed girl who seemed to be terrified of the unknown yet to come. This is a very understandable response in my opinion. However this is speculation for though all these facts are true, I have no idea how she was feeling at the time. On the wedding day, I have pictures of her tired face changing from a scared child to an excited woman. Slowly her mood seemed to change and I have one picture from that moment her and her new husband met each other’s eyes and smiled together for the first time.

The natural response is to be scared of the unknown: moving to a new home to be with people she hardly knows is a new, different, and probably scary reality. However, Surpiya’s culture taught her throughout her life that this is what’s supposed to come for her and all girls. She quickly got over her fear and became excited of her new life to come.

***This is a picture from Supriya's wedding to her husband Swamy. The two people standing over them are Vedashree, Supriya's younger sister, and her husband, Manju.