She moved to the United States when she was 19. While in college in Ohio, she met the man who would become her husband in a marriage of their own making. It took six months to convince her mother to accept the marriage. Through her life and the experiences of those around her, Chitra has gained compassionate understanding of the struggles between the new and old values. Arranged marriage is seen as exotic and people fail to see why someone who was brought up in the United States would choose it.
Arranged marriages come from a different concept of the family.
You trust the wisdom of older relatives. Ideally, they make good decisions for you and the rest of the family. Here we are so used to make our own decisions and arranged marriage sounds so strange. And families are very different in India, Chitra says. In India, the needs of the individual are taken care of by the family and society at large, so you can let go of your own needs.