MAHENDI

(Archived from my journal August 9,07)

Puttie is giving me a 'Mahendi' /henna tattoo on my feet. When she picks me up on her scooter at my house, she looks 14. I find out later she is 23. Everyone here looks so young!

We arrive at her house and she offers for her brother to go get me some take out food. Declining, I sit on her bed like a teenage friend and put my feet on her henna stool. On a laptop, a Bollywood movie soundtrack plays as Puttie sings along happily in a confidence not normally seen in the West. As I look around I ask why all the windows have bars in India. She is perplexed and asks "Do they not have bars in Canada? Just plain glass?" Apparantly it is for security...I laugh and inquire if it is to keep the snakes out. She said yes! She has seen them as big as my ankle!


My house in India...bars everywhere

I ask her about life and boys and I am surprised about how open she is as she goes into detail about falling in love. What a drama! Puttie explains how she met a boy of another caste in college and when her parents found out, they made her quit school and forbid her to see the boy again. She says her brother also is having an 'affair', meaning a girlfriend from another caste. The parents know and are trying to force him to break up but he refuses. Puttie supports him: "I help all lovers who love and don't believe in castes. I loved a man for 4 years but my parents didn't allow. We may have promised not to meet but he is still in my mind."

Puttie's parents are still looking for a husband. They have tried to force her already and she flat out refused, saying that she will live at home forever and never marry. If she moves out alone, she can only afford an ashram or hostel and that would embarrass her parents as they are responsible and if anyone sees her there it is bad. I ask if others run away and marry and she says, yes, but that is no respect for parents...she'll be happy alone. Her mother knows what they have done is wrong, but the Dad is strict about the caste.

Typically, the boy comes to meet the selected bride, and if he likes and all the parents like, they marry, despite what the girl thinks. She has no choice- its the parents choice, but sometimes the man is given the choice by the parents. Some men ask for a dowry. Her cousin's husband didn't ask for a dowry...she says he is a good man.

"I don't think I'll love again- I missed one and my heart is full of him. I have alot of sweet memories. Now, my parents think I'm happy and have forgotten him, but I'm not.

I ask her if she thinks about Western ways of love and she says yes, but it too may still fail. There are few divorces in Southern India she assures me. Puttie asks how we marry in Canada and I say whomever we want. She asks, "No problem with parents?" I laugh and say no, they really don't care, but maybe they should. After all don't your parents know you best and what is best for you? I wonder how my life would be different if it was an arranged marriage. No sex before marriage in India and Puttie is shocked when I ask. She looks at me in horror and asks if they do in Canada?

Her mother brings me a hot tea and I wonder if she is listening to our candid conversation. With working from 5:30 am to 2 pm, tutoring students in the evenings, plus henna tattoos, Puttie's schedule is too full for men. When speaking of her students, she says not all kids can go to school here. The school may be free but the parents can't afford the other fees and uniforms associated with going to school. This explains all the children I see selling flowers on the street, working in stores and begging.


Puttie at work

She scrolls on the thin tube of henna paste and explains that if the design gets really dark it means your husband will love you lots and he is a good man.

"Love seeketh not itself to please,
Nor for itself hath any care.
But for another give it's ease
And builds a heaven in hell's despair."
~William Blake

Three hours later, her brother walks us to my house. I am barefoot waiting for the henna to dry. Puttie is scared to walk at night, maybe its the snakes, or maybe the boys. I think about the snakes too, but more about my barefeet on Indian streets.

Everything beautiful has to be worked for...

On the flight from India to Dubai, I chat with an Indian man. He talks about his wife and their arranged marriage. He says it took him 7 months to fall in love with her.