Take your shoes off my books:
McGowan, Jo
TARE YOUR SHOES JO McGOWAN OFF MY BOOKS NEGOTIATING A HINDU-CATHOLIC MARRIAGE V1 When my...
...I remembered coming home wedding night and the day after on Cape Cod and the next evening one afternoon to find Ravi sitting in one of the big chairs talk- we drove back to our apartment, stopping on the way to pick ing with three villagers...
...the expense and the pollution...
...Himalayas, on a combined yearly income of somewhat less than But then again, I grew up in America, where reality is very dif$5,000...
...stantial than a sofa set...
...expected and taken in stride and there are plenty of fellow pilgrims to ask for directions...
...433 S. Fifth St...
...professional writer...
...They tumbled the length of the couch and did headstands on the chairs, just as JO MCGOWAN, a regular contributor to Commonweal, is a free-lance writer living in India...
...Meinrad Seminary September that no one enjoys being left out, but he couldn't see why the Dr...
...Books were a representation took place there...
...to Ravi, over something substantial-at any rate, something more sub- pure luxury...
...But even I had to admit that the effect was a bit staggering...
...hurry just before a weekend out of town...
...He just shook his head, still shocked, still unconvinced...
...I got quite emotional describing my memories to Ravi: the constant adjustments and fine tuning required to make it all afternoon story hours with my mother in the center of the couch work...
...I asked, bewildered, thinking perhaps we had to the kitchen table fell flat: he didn't grow up with one...
...When I told Ravi, he said it was up to me, but in his innocence, he assumed I was buying only the couch...
...Funded by a grant from Lilly Endowment, Inc...
...the idea of it matter, he pointed out, whether we thought of a sofa set as a shocks me as much as it did him...
...great acquisition...
...The difficulties of a cross-cultural marriage are enormous, Name there can be no denying...
...everyone else most assuredly did...
...I am a for furniture was proof of my husband's contention that we Roman Catholic who attends Mass, keeps the prescribed fasts, were becoming a bourgeois, middle-class family, anxious to and uses a breviary...
...The mood tical...
...When Title/Institution I consider Ravi's virtues as a husband, words like fidelity and Street Address devotion come to mind, old-fashioned virtues met less and less City/State/Zip frequently in the standard American marriage...
...now, so many years later: the formal entertaining, the appar- Needless to say, I never have and now, having lived so long ent desire to impress one's guests with possessions...
...I lived as if in a foreign country...
...To me, a refrigerator is an absolute necessity...
...TARE YOUR SHOES JO McGOWAN OFF MY BOOKS NEGOTIATING A HINDU-CATHOLIC MARRIAGE V1 When my husband, Ravi, and I married I had done in my childhood...
...We've got our whole lives to be to- Samford University, gether," he pointed out quite logically...
...Of course, he could see St...
...And just as my mother had, I thirteen years ago, we had plenty of God- scolded them about ruining the springs and pointed out the given disparities to keep us busy...
...in metallurgy turned envi- Before moving to India, it had never occurred to me that a ronmental activist...
...The sofa set in question belonged to our share of compromising...
...As long as my skin reour values, both individually and as a couple...
...and his parents, niece, and coming here now...
...A child never rings a had put a pair of shoes on top of a pile of bell for her mother, as if she were a servant...
...In a marriage like ours, however, the requirements are and all seven of us ranged on either side of her...
...he thundered...
...several cousins came from India for the wedding...
...I was Family spirit did not suffer as a result...
...Bill Leonard 18-20,1993 timing bothered me so...
...To him, the awkward situation I was in vis-d-vis his religions have had on cities and the anticipated impact they will have in the 21st century...
...To put shoes, the dirtispheres and the couches were adult territory, meant for enter- est thing an Indian can think of, anywhere near her was containing adult guests...
...For the next two 16: 18 June 1993 Commonweal months (our honeymoon...
...the times when I would see her sitting on the gap between the two...
...To his credit, Ravi has proved remarkably open to my preconceived ideas and has more or less gracefully accepted the fact that much is required from both of us...
...It's of the other's, all the while totally unconscious of having ofessential...
...tempt and profanity of the worst kind...
...Dr...
...I was heel marks on the walls...
...And at the end of the day there's that couch to sink into and relax on...
...As for the couch, although they had not one but three in their When he calmed down (it took a while), he explained that living room, there were no cuddling sessions or story hours which what I had done was a sacrilege...
...We live in India, in the foothills of the secondhand, eight-year-old sofa set could be a status symbol...
...On Sunday curred to me...
...I gave that up rather sooner than she twenty-one and he was thirty-three...
...still bewildered...
...And indeed, as I learned more about the Indian concept of marriage, I found I An exciting opportunity to hear about the impact was right...
...Who did this...
...What our legs overlapping in the middle (and even he had to admit difference would a sofa set make...
...They had it built their first year here and it had been heav- Englander who wilted in Massachusetts summers to survive ily used by them and their two young boys, a cat, two dogs, in temperatures of 115 F. without one was too much-but it and an endless parade of friends...
...U Commonweal 18 June 1993: 17...
...the days when at times, excessive...
...The jolts and occasional breakdowns are FAX (502) 585-4266...
...room to snatch them up off the books...
...In America, on the other hand, many couples seem to begin Louisville, KY 40202 married life with the sense of charting unknown waters, ever mindful of the dangers of the journey and the flimsiness of their The Galt House Hotel is offering a discounted room vessel...
...In a rush to get to the servants, so the thought of treating my mother as one never oc- train on time, however, I left them where they were...
...I was tidying up our apartment in a "Only when I was sick," I said, defensively...
...time to get to know Dr...
...University of Florida Rev...
...Obviously, this didn't make me happy...
...We sel- ing to get it dirty, and my arrival made them even more nerdom got emotional and we usually could explain ourselves...
...family was perfectly ordinary for a new bride in India who must adjust herself to a family, not, as the Western version would Sponsored by the have it, participate in a process with her husband whereby each Cathedral Heritage Foundation of them adjusts to the other...
...I "It doesn't matter how sick you were...
...Robert Wuthnow attention to ask what they were all in stitches about, they'd Princeton University Interfaith be on to the next story and he'd be too busy listening to both- Dr...
...We'll have our hon- Birmingham, AL Dr...
...What we were this led us to the sofa set and what it meant to each of us...
...evaporated instantly when Ravi saw my shoes...
...fended...
...My ac- His first mistake was not quite so dramatic, or perhaps it only tivist friends think I've sold out," he said, "I can't say what's seems less so because I have become so accustomed to Indian going on in their minds, but I do know they are uncomfortable ways...
...he shouted, practically leaping across the "But, anyway, Ravi, the point isn't the bell-it's the couch...
...It was I who banned a television, altionally comfortable set, deep and roomy, with just the right though Ravi would love one (he says he needs it for "inforamounts of sink and spring to encourage leisurely reading, and mation"), and we both agreed not to invest in a car (although conversation...
...Well, I guess I did...
...We spent our This, I had to admit, seemed true...
...He has occasional Symposium Registration Form relapses when we are with his family...
...It didn't in India, I cannot even believe that I ever did...
...It was, to be sure, an excep- was the smallest model...
...Martin Marty Region: All of it might have been bearable, but during our whole en- University of Chicago Images of Dr...
...Ravi found this argument quite unpersuasive, and focused first on a side issue...
...Like our marriage, it looks like it's here to stay...
...Marrying into a traditional culture where marriage is still a sacred bond and Telephone (work) divorce still a scandal provides a security that I, for one, am (home) grateful for...
...But why, I asked (in he sofa set, on the other hand, seemed to touch what I hoped was not too plaintive a tone) should I give up what both of us in a deep and inarticulate way, stirring I considered normal and ordinary to reassure people who would up images of childhood and forcing us to confront find me strange no matter what I did...
...Worlds farther apart than a Hindu's India I would be home sick and my mother would set me up on the and a Catholic's America are hard to imagine, and there are couch for the day, a box of Kleenex and a bell with which to times when I wonder how we ever thought our love could bridge call her by my side...
...old habits die hard...
...to be materialistic, coveted it since the day they announced that The discussions we had over each of these items, however, they were being transfered to Africa and intended to sell most were reasoned and logical and had to do with practical conof their furniture...
...FAX (502) 583-8524, or return this form...
...books meaning to take the shoes down the "Well, unlike you," I said hotly, "we didn't grow up with hall to the closet when I left the room...
...But Registration fee: S100...
...but a living room containing it would not be a I have been less enthusiastic with each additional child...
...one end of the couch, perched awkwardly on its edge as if fear- This seemed strange to no one but me...
...The institution is stronger than the individual couple and provides a firm and certain footing which makes it pos- Make check payable and return to: Cathedral Heritage Foundation sible to take a great deal for granted...
...I am a college drop-out and a wealth...
...Cyprian Davis, Symposium What troubled me most in those days was that he didn't reO.S.B...
...Children and adults operated in separate of Saraswati, the goddess of wisdom...
...You rang a bell for your mother...
...he M y worst mistake occurred soon after our marasked, horrified...
...dragcandidate for a House Beautiful award...
...He, however, refused to concede anything...
...Instead, I seemed to be constantly Emory University, Atlanta, GA A National struggling to get a translation: by the time I could get Ravi's Dr...
...To register for the I am no longer twenty-one, I speak the language now, and I National Interfaith Religious Symposium, call the have made my own adjustments, not the least of which has been Cathedral Heritage Foundation at (502) 583-3100, learning to make chapatties...
...cerns: milk spoiling, the effect of TV on family life, and the Without exactly discussing it with my husband, I arranged with my friends to buy it for about half what they had paid and perhaps a tenth what it would cost to buy new...
...Somehow The discussion could have gone on and on...
...mained white, my Hindu accented, my body language Western, One night not long after the sofa arrived nei- and my style casual, loose-limbed, and free, I was going to be ther of us could sleep...
...I am had, however, as it suddenly occurred to me that my concern American and he is from India...
...Sam Hill Religious er with me...
...My comparison "Did what...
...grown-ups took turns at the very small fold-down dining table...
...NATIONALLYThey spoke almost exclusively in Punjabi (not a word of which RENOWNED I could understand), cooked only Indian food, went shopping GUEST SPEAKERS: "Religion and in Indian stores, and entertained Indian friends and relatives...
...I got the fridge on day one-even friends, a British couple who had lived in our town for eight a purist like my husband had to concede that expecting a New years...
...We'll get used to it, I assured him when he walked in and nearly tripped over the chair that was a bit too close to the door for comfort...
...it was comfortable) and talked about living in India...
...We were married in the U.S...
...This is a once-in-a-lifetime trip for Assumption them...
...He was at work when it all arrived-an enormous couch and two large chairs which had doubled in size on the trip from my friends' large living room to our small one-and I did my best to make it fit in unobtrusively...
...he is a Ph.D...
...Please don't ever do it It was the middle-class propriety of it all which bothered him again," he begged me...
...Roberta Bondi New Century" each other, to play house...
...Clyde Crews Cathedral of the eymoon once they leave...
...mature, I still believed there was something crucial in the fact Louisville, KY 40202 that he didn't share my disappointment...
...You would think that when we disagreed, it would be ferent...
...James Wall gagement I had treasured a romantic image of our first year Editor, Christian Faith for a as newlyweds: the candlelight dinners, the lazy Sunday morn- Century ings with croissants and the newspapers...
...He is a Hindu who prays daily, and ab- acquire symbols of status, eager for a life of indolence and jures temples and idol-worship...
...What are you so upset about...
...riage...
...I had, though I try not ging all three on Indian public transport isn't easy...
...We lay on opposite ends of the couch, an enigma and a puzzle to the average Indian villager...
...Here in India, the path is so well-worn and safe arrival rate of $59 plus tax for single or double occupancy...
...In our family lore, our favorite stothe couch, nursing the current baby, cuddling her or him until ries are of the times we transgressed some deeply held belief sleep arrived It's like a big kitchen table," I concluded...
...Bellarmine College, Undercroft Louisville, KY But even while I conceded that I was being selfish and im- 443 S. Fifth St...
...A bell was prac- night, we returned, tired and happy after our trip...
...In his been robbed...
...They were huddled close together at up his parents and niece...
...really talking about was the paradox at the heart of every marTo me, a big, comfortable couch is at the center of family riage: -the wedding of two entirely different worlds and the life...
...Commonweal 18 June 1993: 15 Ir convenience of a car vs...
...vous...
...But the rewards are equally great...
...And anyway, it was a big house...
...Over the years (we've lived in India for twelve), we've done You would be wrong...
...ally understand why I was so upset...
...family, the children ate in a long row on the floor while the "Put these shoes on top of these books...
...Our children, at least, were delighted...
...For reservations call so virtually assured that one hardly considers the bullock cart (502) 589-5200 or one is traveling in...
Vol. 120 • June 1993 • No. 12
