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Gulf Dream, Drug Trap

For hundreds of migrant labourers from Kerala, the Gulf dream ends up becoming 20 years behind bars — or, worse, a beheading. Jeemon Jacob explains how they are conned by a ruthless drug syndicate

Photo: Creative Commons Attribution/Simsa

When Shiju Thomas arrived at the Abu Dhabi International Airport on 18 June, he was still in mourning. Just two weeks ago, he had buried his father back home in Ernakulam, Kerala. He was reluctant to leave his grieving mother and return to his job as a fabricator in Abu Dhabi, but he had plenty of debts to pay off.

Many emotions were swirling in the 29-year-old’s head as the security personnel sifted through his luggage. Fear was the last thing on his mind. As the authorities inspected a packet of medicine again and again, he felt uncomfortable. When they asked him to step into a room, fear became the predominant feeling. A security officer told him bluntly, “Mr Thomas, you are under arrest for smuggling LSD.” His world came crashing down.

When Thomas was in Kerala to attend the funeral, he had a call from his colleague Rinoy in Abu Dhabi. Rinoy wanted him to carry a parcel from his friend Amal George for his cousin who was working in Abu Dhabi. Shiju agreed to carry what seemed to be a packet of medicine as he was travelling with minimum luggage. Little did he know that he was going to be a drug mule.

As Thomas languished in the Abu Dhabi prison, his family and friends ran from pillar to post to prove his innocence. Fortunately, the Kerala Police cracked the case and nabbed the real culprits. On 24 July, Thomas was released from prison after 36 days (see case study).

Thomas’ story had a happy ending, but there are hundreds of Indians who are not so lucky. Nobody knows how many have lost their lives so far or are behind bars in the Gulf countries on drug-trafficking charges, most of the time unknowingly. Their names remain withheld, death sentences are never reported and families are clueless about their executions.

CK Krishnadas, who ran an interior design business in Riyadh and Dammam, Saudi Arabia, from 1980 to 2002, met many Indians on death row. The police used him as the official translator when they interrogated Malayalees who had been arrested for various crimes, including drug trafficking.

Krishnadas, 57, who is now the district president of Pravasi Sangam, a CPM umbrella organisation that looks after the welfare of non-resident Keralites in Malappuram, believes that many of the Indians beheaded for drug trafficking were innocent.

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‘My Mother Was Going Through Hell When I Was In Jail’

On the scenic island of Pizhala in Ernakulam, Jancy Manuel, 54, was probably the happiest person last week. On 24 July, she had spoken to her youngest son Shiju Thomas after he was released from prison in Abu Dhabi.

Shiju Thomas | 29 | Pizhala, Ernakulam

“I thank everyone for helping us get justice for my son,” she says. “Finally, my son could prove his innocence. He was released after spending a month and six days in jail.”

Last December, Jancy dreamt of a comfortable life when Thomas got a job with Giffin Graphics in Abu Dhabi as a fabricator. Thomas had gone to Abu Dhabi so that he could repay the 1.5 lakh loan taken for his sister’s wedding. But he had to rush back after his father’s death in May. Manuel was a fish vendor who used to traverse the backwaters in his boat and sell the catch of the day. On 30 May, the boat sank in the backwaters. A polio-stricken Manuel, 64, could not swim to safety.

When Thomas was in Kerala, he got a call from his colleague Rinoy in Abu Dhabi. Rinoy wanted him to carry a parcel from his friend Amal George for his cousin who was working in Abu Dhabi. Shiju agreed to carry the parcel as he was travelling with minimum luggage. When Thomas arrived at Abu Dhabi on 18 June, police found 0.135 grams of lsd in his bag and arrested him.

“We wanted to kill Amal George for trapping my brother,” says Joshy Sebastian. “When we consulted the local elders, they advised us to stay calm and identify him. We filed a complaint in the Aluva Police Station.”

Meanwhile, Rinoy returned to Kerala and confronted George. George confessed to his role in the drug trafficking and revealed how he had concealed the lsd stamps inside the parcel. Rinoy used his mobile phone to secretly record their conversation and handed the evidence to the police. On 22 June, Geroge was nabbed.

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‘My Husband Was Trapped By His Friends Who Gave Him A Visa And Used Him As A Drug Carrier’

Suhara Kunjalavi was born in a poor family. Her parents got divorced when she was just three and left her in the custody of her maternal grandmother. Since then, she has been at the mercy of others. When she was in Class IX, her grandma arranged her marriage with a local youth.

Suhara Kunjalavi | 41 | Othukkungal, Malappuram

“I was 14 when I married Kunjalavi, a labourer, in 1987,” recalls Suhara. “After marriage, he went to Saudi Arabia and worked there. Two years later, he returned to Kerala and worked as an auto broker and real estate agent. We had a good life. Our son Ashik was born in 1990 and daughter in 1992.

“Sometime in 1993, he told me that he was planning to go back to Riyadh for work and was getting a job visa through friends. I was not happy with his decision. But he wanted to save money for our daughter. He left home in June 1993. I don’t remember the date. That was the last time I saw him.”

Later, she came to know through his friends that he was arrested for drug trafficking and beheaded in 1996.

“I came to know about his arrest very late,” she says. “I wondered why he never wrote to me. There were no telephones in our area during those days. In 1996, I got a letter apparently sent by my husband. He revealed that he was going to get beheaded for drug trafficking, and asked me to take care of our children. But I don’t think he wrote that letter because the handwriting was different. I received that letter 50 days after his alleged execution.

“I have no idea how he got involved in drug trafficking,” she says. “Some people told me he was trapped by his friends who gave a visa and used him as a drug carrier.”

She kept that letter in a box. But the letter also vanished, just like her husband. Now, she has no proof of his death.

After his death, Suhara’s life was trapped in poverty. She had no job. Feeding her children was her first priority. Initially, she worked as a maid in a school for the handicapped. And later, as a helper in a local hospital.

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 ‘The Drug Syndicate Is Out To Exploit Your Generosity’

Carrying medicine for an acquaintance proved to be a bitter pill for Rashid Aboobaker. On 25 June, the native of Meenappis in Kasargod district was returning to Kuwait after attending his sister’s wedding. Along with his luggage, he was carrying a tiny packet as per his friend’s instructions.

Rashid Aboobaker | 22 | Meenappis, Kasargod

Little did he know that the packet contained 700 tablets of methadone, an opioid analgesic. Methadone is used as a cheap replacement for heroin by drug addicts across the world.

“I have been working in Kuwait for the past 18 months as a household help,” says Aboobaker. “I met CK Favas at a music concert in Kuwait. He was from Mattool in Kannur district. He used to call me once in a while and chat on WhatsApp. When I told him that I was going home for my sister’s wedding, he requested me to bring back some medicine for his friend.

“I came home on 18 June. His friend Nasim Mustafa came over and handed me a packet. I didn’t check it because I trusted him. When I arrived in Kuwait, the airport security checked my baggage and found the banned drugs in the packet.”

When they heard the news, Aboobaker’s shocked friends tried their best to convince the Kuwaiti officials about his innocence.

When they alerted his family about his arrest, his father and uncle lodged a complaint with the Kanhangad Police, narrating the circumstances leading to his arrest. The police registered an fir and launched an investigation. They located Mustafa and arrested him.

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‘I’m Caught In A Debt Trap And Don’t Know What To Do Next’

TK Sainaba | 36 | Alanallur, Malappuram

For the past two years, TK Sainaba had been living on false hope. She knew that her husband Abdul Bashir, a taxi driver in Kuwait, was in trouble in a drug trafficking case. But she did not realise the gravity of the situation.

“On 24 July, he called me from jail to say that he has to serve a jail term for 15 years,” says Sainaba. “I was under the impression that he would be coming home soon.”

Sainaba got married to Bashir in 1990 when she was just 13. She was a Class VII student and he was a hotel cook. Before she turned 20, she was the mother of four girls.

“My husband left for Kuwait in 2002 and got a job in a hotel there,” says Sainaba. “Thanks to his remittances, we managed to build a house and got two daughters married off. Meanwhile, he got a driving licence and started working as a taxi driver. He had come home for the marriage of our second daughter and returned on 7 December 2011. That was the last time I saw him.”

After returning to Kuwait, Bashir bought a new car and started his own taxi service. He was very popular among the Malayalees working there and had a packed schedule.

“He was very happy because he was earning better than earlier,” says Sainaba. “We had taken a loan for our second daughter’s wedding. He told me that we could repay the loan within a year. But he was arrested on 16 June 2012. I came to know about it through his friends.”

On that fateful day, a Malayalee businessman hired Bashir’s car for a half-day trip. The businessman was a regular customer. After visiting two places, the businessman and his friend asked Bashir to wait inside the parking lot of a mall and went inside. While he was waiting, members of the Kuwait Police’s narcotics cell surrounded his car and took him into custody. They seized 40 g of brown sugar from the car.

The police checked his mobile phone and tracked the passengers. Soon, they raided the flat where the businessman and his friend were staying. The police seized 1 kg of brown sugar and arrested the businessman. His friend had already fled. I borrowed Rs 9 lakh and sent it to a lawyer in Kuwait to fight his case. But now I realise that it was of no use.”

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Cash, Weapons and Surveillance: the U.S. is a Key Party to Every Israeli Attack

Courtesy: https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/08/04/cash-weapons-surveillance

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Cash, Weapons and Surveillance: the U.S. is a Key Party to Every Israeli Attack

By Glenn Greenwald4 Aug 2014, 12:00 AM EDT368

U.S. President Barack Obama (L) greets Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during a press conference on March 20, 2013 in Jerusalem, Israel. Photo credit: Lior Mizrahi/Getty Images

The U.S. government has long lavished overwhelming aid on Israel, providing cash, weapons and surveillance technology that play a crucial role in Israel’s attacks on its neighbors. But top secret documents provided by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden shed substantial new light on how the U.S. and its partners directly enable Israel’s military assaults – such as the one on Gaza.

Over the last decade, the NSA has significantly increased the surveillance assistance it provides to its Israeli counterpart, the Israeli SIGINT National Unit (ISNU; also known as Unit 8200), including data used to monitor and target Palestinians. In many cases, the NSA and ISNU work cooperatively with the British and Canadian spy agencies, the GCHQ and CSEC.

The relationship has, on at least one occasion, entailed the covert payment of a large amount of cash to Israeli operatives. Beyond their own surveillance programs, the American and British surveillance agencies rely on U.S.-supported Arab regimes, including the Jordanian monarchy and even the Palestinian Authority Security Forces, to provide vital spying services regarding Palestinian targets.

The new documents underscore the indispensable, direct involvement of the U.S. government and its key allies in Israeli aggression against its neighbors. That covert support is squarely at odds with the posture of helpless detachment typically adopted by Obama officials and their supporters.

President Obama, in his press conference on Friday, said ”it is heartbreaking to see what’s happening there,” referring to the weeks of civilian deaths in Gaza – “as if he’s just a bystander, watching it all unfold,” observed Brooklyn College Professor Corey Robin. Robin added: ”Obama talks about Gaza as if it were a natural disaster, an uncontrollable biological event.”

Each time Israel attacks Gaza and massacres its trapped civilian population – at the end of 2008,in the fall of 2012, and now again this past month – the same process repeats itself in both U.S. media and government circles: the U.S. government feeds Israel the weapons it uses and steadfastly defends its aggression both publicly and at the U.N.; the U.S. Congress unanimously enacts one resolution after the next to support and enable Israel; and then American media figures pretend that the Israeli attack has nothing to do with their country, that it’s just some sort of unfortunately intractable, distant conflict between two equally intransigent foreign parties in response to which all decent Americans helplessly throw up their hands as though they bear no responsibility.

“The United States has been trying to broker peace in the Middle East for the past 20 years,” wrote the liberal commentator Kevin Drum in Mother Jones, last Tuesday. The following day,CNN reported that the Obama administration ”agreed to Israel’s request to resupply it with several types of ammunition … Among the items being bought are 120mm mortar rounds and 40mm ammunition for grenade launchers.”

The new Snowden documents illustrate a crucial fact: Israeli aggression would be impossible without the constant, lavish support and protection of the U.S. government, which is anything but a neutral, peace-brokering party in these attacks. And the relationship between the NSA and its partners on the one hand, and the Israeli spying agency on the other, is at the center of that enabling.

Tally of UN Vote on July 22, 2014 to investigate violations of international law in West Bank and Gaza (Credit: Ken Roth, Human Rights Watch)

Last September, the Guardian revealed that the NSA “routinely shares raw intelligence data with Israel without first sifting it to remove information about US citizens.” The paper published the full top secret Memoranadum of Understanding between the two agencies governing that sharing. But the NSA/ISNU relationship extends far beyond that.

One newly disclosed top secret NSA document, dated April 13, 2013 and published today by the Intercept, recounts that the “NSA maintains a far-reaching technical and analytic relationship with the Israeli SIGINT National Unit (ISNU) sharing information on access, intercept, targeting, language, analysis and reporting.”

Specifically, “this SIGINT relationship has increasingly been the catalyst for a broader intelligence relationship between the United States and Israel.” Moreover, “NSA’s cyber partnerships expanded beyond ISNU to include Israeli Defense Intelligence’s [Special Operation Division] SOD and Mossad.”

Under this expanded cooperation, the Americans and Israelis work together to gain access to “geographic targets [that] include the countries of North Africa, the Middle East, the Persian Gulf, South Asia, and the Islamic republics of the former Soviet Union.” It also includes “a dedicated communications line between NSA and ISNU [that] supports the exchange of raw material, as well as daily analytic and technical correspondence.”

The relationship has provided Israel with ample support for both intelligence and surveillance: “The Israeli side enjoys the benefits of expanded geographic access to world-class NSA cryptanalytic and SIGINT engineering expertise, and also gains controlled access to advanced U.S. technology and equipment via accommodation buys and foreign military sales.” Among Israel’s priorities for the cooperation are what the NSA calls “Palestinian terrorism.”

The cooperation between the NSA and ISNU began decades ago. A top secret agreement between the two agencies from July 1999 recounts that the first formal intelligence-sharing agreement was entered into in 1968 between U.S. President Lyndon Johnson and Israeli Prime Minister Levi Eshkol, and informally began in the 1950s. But the relationship has grown rapidly in the last decade.

In 2003 and 2004, the Israelis were pressuring the NSA to agree to a massively expanded intelligence-sharing relationship called “Gladiator.” As part of that process, Israel wanted the Americans to pay hundreds of millions of dollars to fund Israeli activities. The specific proposed “Gladiator” agreement appears never to have been consummated, derailed by Israeli demands that the U.S. bear the full cost, but documents in the Snowden archive pertaining to those negotiations contain what appear to be two receipts for one or more payments of $500,000 in cash to Israeli officials for unspecified purposes:

The surveillance-sharing relationship with Israel has expanded to include the NSA’s British and Canadian counterparts, GCHQ and CSEC, both of which actively participate in feeding the Israelis selected communications data they have collected. Several documents from early 2009, at the height of the Israeli attack on Gaza called “Cast Lead” that left more than 1,000 people dead, detail some of this cooperation.

One top secret 2009 GCHQ project named “YESTERNIGHT” involved “Ruffle,” the British agency’s code name for ISNU. According to the document, the project involved a “trilateral (GCHQ, NSA and Third Party RUFFLE) targeting exchange agreement covering respective COMSAT accesses.” One of the “specific intelligence topics” shared between the parties was “Palestinians”, although the GCHQ document states that “due to the sensitivities” of Israeli involvement, that particular program does not include direct targeting of Palestinians and Israelis themselves. Another GCHQ document from February, 2009, describes “a quadrilateral meeting for RUFFLE, NSA, CSEC and GCHQ.”

The British agency noted in early 2009 that it had been spying on emails and telephone numbers specifically requested by ISNU, “and they have thanked us many times over.”

The NSA and GCHQ receive intelligence about the Palestinians from many sources. The agencies have even succeeded in inducing the U.S.-supported Palestinian Authority Security Forces (PASF) to provide them with surveillance and intelligence about other Arab groups in the region. One July 2008 GCHQ document states:

Jordan also feeds surveillance data about the Palestinians to the NSA. One classified NSA document from 2013 describes how “NSA’s partnership with EWD [the Jordanian Electronic Warfare Directorate] is a well established, long-standing and trusted relationship dating back to the early 1980’s.” Specifically, the two agencies “cooperate on high-priority SIGINT targets of mutual interest” that includes the Palestinian Security Forces.

The document continues: “EWD provides high-interest, unique collection on targets of mutual interest, such as the Palestinian Security Forces; EWD is the sole contributor to a large body of NSA’s reporting on this target.”

But even as the NSA and its partners are directed by political branches to feed the Israelis surveillance data and technology, they constantly characterize Israel as a threat – both to their own national security and more generally to regional peace. In stark contrast to the public statements about Israel made by American and British officials, the Snowden archive is replete with discussions of the Israelis as a menace rather than an ally.

NSA documents previously published by the Guardian stated that “one of NSA’s biggest threats is actually from friendly intelligence services, like Israel.” Another notes that the National Intelligence Estimate ranked Israel as “the third most aggressive intelligence service against the U.S.”

British officials have a similar view of the Israelis, describing them as a “very real threat to regional stability.” One top secret GCHQ planning document from 2008 notes that “policy makers remain deeply concerned over the potential threat that Israel poses to a peaceful resolution of the Iran problem, and to some of Israel’s less desirable activities in the region.” Moreover, “Israel’s thinking on the long-term threat offered by Iran to its fundamental foreign policy strategy of armed deterrence may create very real threats to regional stability in 2009.”

The NSA’s 2007 Strategic Mission List, identifying priorities for surveillance targeting, repeatedly identifies Israel as one of the leading threats in a diverse range of areas, including: “Combating the threat of development of weapons of mass destruction” and “delivery methods (particularly ballistic and nuclear-capable cruise missiles).” The “focus area” for that concern is “WMD and missile proliferation activities,” and one of the leading threats is listed as “Israel (cruise missiles).”

The NSA internal discussion from that document regarding “Mastering Cyberspace and Preventing an Attack on U.S. Critical Information Systems” includes a subheading on “FIS [financial/banking system] threats.” The nations identified as the leading FIS threats include India, North Korea, Cuba and Israel. Similarly, Israel appears on the list of countries believed by the NSA to be “Enabling EW (producers/proliferators).”

Another section of the threat assessment document is entitled “Foreign Intelligence, Conterintelligence; Denial & Deception Activities: Countering Foreign Intelligence Threats.” It is defined as “Espionage/intelligence collection operations and manipulation/influence operations conducted by foreign intelligence services directed against U.S. government, military, science & technology and Intelligence Community.” The countries posing the greatest threat: “China, Russia, Cuba, Israel, Iran, Pakistan, North Korea, France, Venezuela, and South Korea.”

Asked about its cooperative relationship with Israel, an NSA spokesperson told the Intercept: “We are not going to comment on specific intelligence activities and relationships.  The fact that intelligence services sometimes cooperate in a lawful and appropriate manner mutually strengthens the security of both nations.  Whenever NSA shares intelligence information or technology, we comply with all applicable laws and rules.” A GCHQ official refused to comment on the record beyond the agency’s standard boilerplate claiming its activities are legal and subject to “rigorous oversight.”

Legal or not, the NSA’s extensive, multi-level cooperation with Israeli military and intelligence agencies is part of a broader American policy that actively supports and enables Israeli aggression and militarism. Every Israeli action in Gaza has U.S. fingerprints all over it. Many Americans may wish that the Israeli attack on Gaza were a matter of no special relevance or concern to them, but it is their own government that centrally enables this violence.

Andrew Fishman provided additional reporting for this article

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Jab We Met - Community is no longer a barrier in young couples’ search for the perfect soulmate

Society  /  Cover Stories MAGAZINE | JUL 28, 2014

P. ANIL KUMAR Kamal Kamaraju (Andhraite) weds Supriya Biswas (Bengali)“We call each other mutual appreciation club. There are no similarities in what we like to do, where to go, what films to watch. But our core values are the same,” says Supriya. MATRIMONY Jab We Met Community is no longer a barrier in young couples’ search for the perfect soulmate PRIYADARSHINI SEN COMMENTS PRINT MORE SHARING SERVICESSHARE ON FACEBOOKSHARE ON PINTEREST_SHARESHARE ON TWITTERSHARE ON EMAIL TEXT SIZE    ALSO IN THIS STORY    A couple of wing-backed chairs and sofas sunk luxuriously into the lush wine carpet at the chic restaurant in Hyderabad where Supriya and Kamal had met for the first time last September. Their lives were a world apart: she, 29, was a management consultant, child of a Bengali family settled in Bhopal; he, 32, was an upcoming Telugu actor, a far cry from the line-up of suitable Bengali boys Supriya’s parents had been parading before her ever since she came of ‘marriageable’ age. Countless such ‘boy-seeings’ later, she found herself face-to-face with Kamal, listening attentively as he talked about his hip Telugu lifestyle. “No averted eyes, guarded smile or pursed lips. The best thing about Supriya was her openness to other cultures,” recalls Kamal. When their conversation went on well past midnight over several plates of Andhra prawn fritters, red wine and the different acting styles of Mithun and Nagarjuna, they knew they had a match on their hands. “It wasn’t as if my pulse was racing, but I did not find myself tongue-tied either,” Supriya reminisces. “I felt an immediate connect with him.” Three months later, it was band, baaja and baraat for the couple. Inter-community marriages like Supriya and Kamal’s are nothing new, but so far they fell predominantly in the realm of ‘love marriages’. That now is changing, with marriage portals, social media, matrimonial columns in newspapers, even old-fashioned family, friend and religious networks actually ‘arranging’ such matches. ‘Caste no bar’ was once a measure of cosmopolitanism in matrimonial ads; today, even community is not, at least in the cities, sometimes even in the smaller towns. It’s still a small number, a huge 90 per cent of marriages still being arranged within caste and community parameters, but the signs are encouraging. Photograph by Jitender Gupta Reeba (Punjabi) weds Rajneesh (Assamese) “We knew we were getting into an arranged marriage, so it was important to know everything about each other before taking the final leap.” Reeba and Rajneesh, for instance, first met on an online wedding portal. People are nothing like their profiles on websites, they say, but Reeba found the appealing snapshot of a brawny Rajneesh on his high mountain bike against the looming landscape of Ladakh pretty close to real. “We met in a week’s time and then planned a trip to Lansdowne to see if the magic was still working,” says Reeba, 30, a hard-nosed entrepreneur from Delhi. Rajneesh, 30, her husband now of three years, had his eyes set on photography and design. “We went from Bangkok to Goa to London before finally getting hitched.” And thus it was that a loud, go-getting Punjabi kudi came to be wedded to the quiet, introverted Rajneesh, and to the northeastern culture of his home in Nagaon, Assam. Yes, they have overcome barriers of caste and community, region and language, but are couples like Supriya and Kamal or Reeba and Rajneesh more the exceptions than a norm that might come to stay? Says author Nandini Krishnan, “The shift in gender roles over the last few decades was bound to be a factor. Criteria have changed too—people are more concerned about what the other person wants from life, where they want to live and so on than where they pray, or what his or her ethnic identity is.” Nothing exemplifies this better than the ambition Rajneesh has set for himself and Reeba. On to a new business venture, he says, “We both want to be influential and rich, and of course see the world together.” This can have nuances. For Supriya, there are no similarities in what she and Kamal like to do, where they want to go or even the films they like to watch. “But our core values are the same.” And that is what conquers all: hiccups of rituals, language, cuisine. “Our marriage was a hotch-potch affair,” says Kamal. “She wore a Chandni Chowk type lehenga with shimmery bracelets, I wore an Andhra-style kurta with an ornate topor. The cuisine was a mix of Mughlai, Arabic and Bengali, with pineapple tikka, haleem and navratan salad. It was a non-ritualistic occasion. We had relatives and friends from Hyderabad, Bhopal, Calcutta and Delhi who wanted a little bit of both cultures.” According to matchmaker Gopal Suri, such marriages have actually doubled in the last six years, especially in educated and NRI families. “If they are financially equal, chances are they’ll look beyond their own community,” he says. Gourav Rakshit, coo, Shaadi.com, couldn’t agree more. “Now many Indians believe that the perfect match is more about matching compatibility than horoscopes. Education and social media have made spouse-hunting simpler.” Photograph by Tribhuvan Tiwari Leela (Bihari) weds Nitin Kumar (Tamilian) “We hit it off really well. A few chit-chats, informal meetings, and the marriage ball got rolling,” says Nitin. It’s no longer unusual to see singles sign up on countless matrimonial websites, microblogs and regional sub-sites, with the ‘Community no bar’ tab against their customised profiles. That is exactly how Leela spotted Nitin on a matrimonial site two years ago. “He hadn’t even uploaded a picture, nor was he the curious sort. But somehow I felt I must pursue this,” says the 29-year-old visualiser working in Delhi. And when they met a couple of days later, it felt ‘Oh so right!’ What didn’t help was the fact that Leela came from a strictly vegetarian, teetotaller, conservative Bihari family, and Nitin, 30, from an outgoing Tamilian one, and is someone who loves his beer, his Chicken 65 and late-night revelry that came with being the manager of a top Delhi restaurant. Worse, none in Leela’s family had married outside the community before. A bit of coaxing later, the two decided to go for an all-out Bihari wedding. Compromise and adaptability thus are two factors such marriages hinge on. And not just before the event. “When I was a bachelor, I had a freewheeling existence. My house was in a disarray, but now Leela insists on the minutest of details—from the colour of furniture to the choice of cutlery,” says Nitin. It hasn’t been an easy transition for Leela either. “I was a shy girl who generally kept to myself. But you should see me now: I watch late-night films, try out new recipes, even drink once in a while!” It was bound to happen. Beatrice Jauregui, an assistant professor at the University of Toronto who has worked extensively on inter-community marriages in India, says people are moving away from their home communities for education and work to large urban centres. “Quite naturally, they’ll be involved in a larger geospatial spread of activities, meeting different kinds of people.” Yet, says sociologist Surinder Singh Jodhka, the phenomenon is found more among upwardly mobile families. The middle class, he says, is increasingly looking at similar professional backgrounds over other factors. Youngsters travelling through the country on work, staying in different cities where they may be posted, cities becoming more multicultural have all contributed to this trend. High-rise apartment complexes in cities like Pune and Gurgaon also throw people of different regions and communities together, bound by the common way of life in the city. Photograph by Apoorva Salkade Raghu Ambekar (Kannadiga) weds Mayuri Utturkar (Maharashtrian) “We had clear notions of an ideal match, having lived and worked abroad for several years,” says Mayuri. At the engagement ceremony of Raghu and Mayuri in Thane, there are some 40 people gathered at their spacious residence. Even in this motley group, it’s easy to tell the boy’s family from the girl’s. They come from the border region of Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh, wearing their nose-rings on the right and speaking a thickly accented Marathi. They may be sparring over whether the milkier Marathi coffee beats the sharper version of the south, but they have agreed on the match. “We knew the boy is from a decent family and that is enough,” says Mayuri’s mother, multi-tasking briskly through the maze of activity at home. Raghu, 30, is a scientist in Minneapolis; Mayuri, 28, a dyed-in-the-wool academic. “We were both looking for sensitive, educated companions, irrespective of community,” says Raghu. “Our parents of course shortlisted profiles, looked out for the astrological signs and then gave us the go-ahead,” says Mayuri, dressed in a bright pink embroidered sari and a baroque Marathi nosepin. “But we had clear notions of an ideal match, having lived and worked overseas for a long time.” Planning for the big day was a bit frenetic, though. “Coming from different regions, our parents would not understand what the other was saying and often ended up agreeing to something they didn’t know,” Mayuri chuckles. Her folks had spoken to Raghu on the phone several times, but never met him. Photograph by Jitender Gupta Priya Banerjee (Bengali Hindu) and Shabaab Haq (Bihari Muslim) “There was some resistance from family and friends. But in the aroma of mutton korma, kasturi fish and rosogollas, the differences were submerged,” says Shabaab. Bridegroom Shabaab hadn’t seen Priya either, except in a family photograph. But the young entrepreneur had marked her out, the girl in the yellow suit. Their mothers had met in Delhi, become good pals, chitchatting over cups of chai, exc­hanging sweetmeats during festivals, sometimes even plo­tting to get their children married off. Never mind that Priya’s was a Hindu family from a small town in Bengal, and Shabaab’s folks are liberal Muslims from Bihar. “Our folks knew each other well and introduced us, silently hoping it would work out,” says Priya, 26. Three months later, the qazi came home to officially stir the Bengali Hindu-Bihari Muslim potpourri. Not religious but cultural differences caused some initial worry. “There was some resistance from friends and a few relatives, so we decided to bridge the gap by hosting a grand reception in Delhi,” says Shabaab. “With the aroma of mutton korma, kasturi fish and freshly warmed rosogollas in the air, it was impossible not to set aside the differences!” Such differences sublimated, will marriages continue to be a function of karmic destiny in India? Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, author of Arranged Marriage, believes families are becoming more accepting of the new trend, allowing couples to make independent choices even within framed set-ups. Arranged marriage as we knew it is being rewritten. It’s now called the Re-Arranged Marriage. By Priyadarshini Sen with Prachi Pinglay-Plumber and Francis Maindl