By: Jacqueline Fix
In 1976, Sharad Kumar and Kanchan Mehra, two immigrants from India, met on the tennis courts in the United States. Six months later, they went to India to get married. Nine years later, they had a baby girl named Puja. Puja grew up in America with Indian parents. She thought that it was normal that her parents met, fell in love, and got married-- that's what all parents in America did.
When Puja moved to India, however, she learned that things were much different there, and that her parents were exceptions to the rule. In India, young men and women have "arranged marriages." In an arranged marriage, you do not choose who you are going to marry. Your mother and father decide who you will marry. In India, the opposite of an arranged marriage is a "love marriage." When Puja moved to India, she learned that all her relatives-- aunts, uncles cousins-- had arranged marriages. She also learned that her mother's family and her father's family were very different. They would never have been chosen by their parents to marry each other.
Puja made friends with many Indian girls while she was living in India. These girls would ask her about her mother's last name and her father's last name. In India, last names reveal a lot about the families. When Puja's friends learned her parent's last names, they were always surprised. "Oh!" they would say, "It must have been a love marriage!"
Puja's experience in India was a little bit confusing because she always thought that her parents were pretty normal. Living in India, though, where most peoples' futures were decided by their parents, Puja felt extremely inspired by her parents who beat the odds and had a love marriage.
