Mumbai

“Was it a marriage for love or was it arranged?” Indian people ask this question as often as we ask, “Was it a church or civil ceremony?”

For anyone who is female and single in Mumbai, life can be very complicated. They often lead double lives. None of the women I have met here in Mumbai speak openly about their love lives. We will call her Priya. Priya is 26 years old, she usually wears jeans, but sometimes a kurta – a colourful, shimmering sari worn only for special occasions, for instance when she is invited to an Indian wedding. Her toenails are painted dark blue. She is a Hindu, but only practices her religion for occasions such as the colourful Holi Festival or the New Year’s festival, Gudhi Padwa.

Priya has a boyfriend who she met through friends. They have been going together for two years. You really have to call it that: they go to the cinema, go out to eat, go to the littered Chowpatty Beach, which the Mumbaikar lovingly call the “Queen’s Necklace.” Her parents and his parents know nothing about their relationship. If they were to learn of it, the two would have to marry immediately if the parents would agree to it. Both families are Hindu. This has one advantage. “It would never be possible for me to be with a Muslim,” says Priya. She wouldn’t want to be either; Muslims can have more than one wife. Living together without taking wedding vows? It is unheard of even in modern Mumbai, a city where so many emulate the west. Priya gives me some examples from among her friends. One girl’s family wanted to marry her off at 20 so she fled overseas to study.

Neha and Rahul are a couple and have untypically been living together for a year now. Both of them came to Mumbai for their studies, which enabled them to escape their parents’ homes. They use a trick: officially they live as flatmates with a male and a female friend who are also a couple. Whenever their parents come to visit, everything has to be rearranged. The contents of the wardrobes and toiletries in the bath have to be switched so that the sham isn’t uncovered. The generation conflicts in today’s Mumbai are extreme in spite of its cosmopolitan appearances. Some women in their mid-twenties would like to live like women in the west, but are still very moored in tradition. Change can be seen, however, in the way that arranged marriages are made. Parents now search for suitable partners for their children online. The criteria, besides, religion, are background and origin. It is like if you were not permitted to date someone outside the borders of the state of Baden-Württemberg. Only 30 years ago, women had to demonstrate their cooking and sewing skills and parade their walk to show that all their bones were healthy to receive the approval of the parents of the groom. The future married couple usually did not meet until their wedding day. Today, they are permitted to speak to one another and get to know each other. But some decide on their own, of course.

Young Indian women are now struggling for their place in society. Emancipation was simply skipped over, but nonetheless many have arrived in the western world, at least when it comes to appearance and love. They want their freedom, but do not fight openly for it. Mumbai lacks many amenities, including public places where couples can meet. Couples sit on the wall on Marine Drive, but if they hold hands, they may be issued a caution by the police. Kissing in public is unheard of. The Shiv Sena Party rules with an iron glove. Valentine’s Day and similar western inventions are boycotted. Instead, couples meet street-side on the way to the Bandra district. They sit on mopeds and talk. That is just about as romantic as having a date on the verge of the B 27. Or they sit on the cliffs by the beach at Bandra. Some of them underestimate the tides, are caught by the waves and washed into the sea to drown. Then, the parents learn of their children’s double lives in a sad way.