The newlyweds Rearranging marriage in modern India

Journalist Choksi debuts with an engrossing study of traditional matchmaking and modern youth in India. Despite a population that skews young (two-thirds of adults are below age 35), arranged marriage is widely accepted in India, largely due to considerations of caste and religion. Choksi, whose mother married for love and later divorced, explores whether a marriage in her native country can endure if it is "tainted with shame" by deviating from the norm. She spotlights three rebellious couples, including village neighbors Dawinder and Neetu, whose elopement in 2016 was enabled by the Love Commandos, a vigilante group whose mission is to provide shelter for runaway couples. Arif, a Muslim, and Monika, a Hindu, married after Monika became pregnant and faced violent threats from supporters of prime minister Narendra Modi's Hindu nationalist party. Meanwhile, LGBTQ couple Reshma and Preethi fled to Mumbai, where they grew apart despite being supported by the lesbian community. Choksi fluidly traces the path each couple navigated from parental home to independence and persuasively analyzes the economic, religious, and cultural stresses they endured. This is a heart-wrenching and inspiring portrait of love under pressure. (Aug.)

In this book, Dubai-based journalist Choksi examines India as a society in transition through the lens of contemporary marriage. Choksi writes that marriages in India are traditionally arranged according to intricate rules by the couple's families; however, some couples choose to defy tradition and marry for love. She follows three Indian couples as they navigate marriage: Neetu and Dawinder, who are forbidden to marry based on traditional rules of their community; Monika and Arif, who belong to different religions; and Reshma and Preethi, who are lesbians. For each couple, Choksi shows how they met and made the decision to get married. Additionally, she focuses on the reactions and responses from their families which range from acceptance to violence; since these couples are breaching cultural taboos, they run the risk of punishment or even murder by their families and communities. Finally, Choksi chronicles the highs and lows of the marriages, as the couples navigate stress points such as jobs, children, estrangement, unscrupulous actors and domestic violence. The book includes background information regarding Indian laws around arranged marriages, religious conflict, honor killings, and same-sex marriages to inform unfamiliar readers. VERDICT An interesting and highly readable examination of the complexities and intersections of love, marriage, and tradition in India.--Rebekah Kati

A Dubai-based writer follows three couples in India as they pursue romantic relationships that subvert dearly held community norms. In a village in the northern state of Haryana, Dawinder Singh, the Sikh son of a truck driver, fell in love with his neighbor Neetu Rani, the daughter of a well-respected family in the village. When the two eloped, they sought the help of self-described "Love Commando" Sanjoy Sachdev, who swindled them out of their savings. In the western state of Maharashtra, Hindu Monika Ingle fell in love with Muslim Arif Dosani. When Monica became pregnant, she converted to Islam to secretly marry Arif and to circumvent the public comment period associated with the Special Marriages Act that would have allowed their interfaith union. On the border of Telangana and Maharashtra, Reshma Mokenwar fell in love with her distant relative Preeti Sarikela. The two women pretended to live as sisters to protect themselves from India's homophobic legal system. The families of these couples opposed the unions largely because they could serve to disrupt systems of class, caste, and religion that are designed to safeguard hierarchies of power. "The goal of marriage is to cement those boundaries to ensure the survival of power hierarchies because we are a society that places greater emphasis on collectivism than individualism," writes Choksi. "We derive our identities from the groups we belong to; our daily lives and our politics are arranged around them. When young people choose their own partners, we threaten order with chaos." The author skillfully uses these human stories to highlight the dangerous trajectory of Hindu fundamentalism under the regime of current Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Her descriptions are rife with detail and, at times, truly lyrical. However, the couples' stories end abruptly, rendering Choksi's overall argument difficult to discern and the narrative frustratingly open-ended. A moving and largely well-reported account of love in modern India. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Chapter 1: Kakheri Excerpted from The Newlyweds: Rearranging Marriage in Modern India by Mansi Choksi All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.