Book Review: The Newlyweds

The profundity of the stories in this book is only further emphasized in it's gruesome re-telling of the price one is willing to pay for love. All of the couples in this story must deal with the trauma that comes with loving someone that they aren't supposed to; there are deep, depressing boundaries drawn between castes, religions, and genders. Individuals must fall within the expectations of society if they are to succeed within it, but once they deviate from those expectations, they are immediately eradicated by it. Outliers are treated like a disease to society as they threaten to expose the corrupt manifestations of those in power. Those who dare to break the mold, like the individuals in this book, are only met with torment as they try to navigate a world that no longer welcomes them. It's harsh, but it's true.

Frankly speaking, my blood is boiling thinking about the archaic tactics used to oppress people from liberating themselves; the shackles of society are welded shut around too many hearts. The lack of choices that these individuals had is what led them to run away from everything they had ever known. What matters more than self-expression is honor, maintaining respect, and holding a position of authority and power. I can confidently say that despite being raised outside of India, I have seen the imaginary hands of "izzat" (i.e. personal dignity) puppeteering the lives of many.

For some reason, our culture is obsessed with vanity and appearance. Everyone seems to have their hands down everyone else's throat, bombarding each other with shallow questions that they can talk about behind each other's backs. You can imagine the culture shock of those around me when they saw a sharp-tongued, foul-mouthed, free thinker like me who didn't even know how to ask for a glass of water in her mother tongue. I owe this privilege to having parents who had no idea what they were doing. My father's attempt at an iron fist was met with the fire that was burning inside of me; deep down, I knew I needed to be more than the quiet, little girl he wanted me to be.

On the surface, it looks like each couple is going through something totally different as they navigate being isolated, shunned, and attacked by their families; but there are some threads that tie them together. I was gobsmacked by the slow and steady heat that fumed beneath many of the women in this book. At first, they're caught in the allure of love and the fantasy of fatal attraction, but each relationship ends with someone in the relationship (mostly the woman) feeling dissatisfied with the lives they've chosen. This isn't to say that their families were right, or that such heinous crimes like honor killings (which should just be called murder because there's nothing honorable about them) are justifiable, but it just goes to show that women, no matter how much they think they're choosing themselves, end up falling deeper into a system that was created against them.

Many South Asian women are tossed like a ball their entire lives. If they're not under the thumb of their father, then it's their husbands, or in some cases even their sons. When will women ever get a chance to look out the window without a man breathing down their neck? Women will bend and break and shatter all because they've been told they need a man to survive. I'm not sure how it happened, but something inside of me knew there was something terribly wrong with the ritualistic sacrifice that I had seen many women in my life go through. Perpetuating traditional fallacies about women felt exhausting; I had better things to do than to absorb the things people like my father were telling me.

We need to choose ourselves completely and entirely before we give ourselves away to anyone. All of the things that we seek outside of ourselves are already within us if we take the time to cultivate and nurture them. I'm not saying you shouldn't fall in love and run away, I'm just saying fall in love with yourself before you run away and that you should also look where you're going; instead of running away, you might actually be running into something that'll only suffocate and strangle your soul even tighter.

So screw you society, you're only perpetuating your own suffering.