A strongly worded, long letter, that I want to email, but may not.

**this is a longer than usual read. I probably have no right and am in no place to say all this but then that's the benefit of this being my blog. **

Dear uncle and aunty

I would like to start with congratulating you on raising a perfect daughter. Having lived with her for two years, I got to know her fairly well and better than the rest of her friends. Never before did I meet someone who come-what-may never forgot to call you at 10:30pm every night. She could be out with her friends or in the library or in the middle of dinner – she never forgot to call you. She did everything she was told and was expected to do by you. So much so she even based her career choice on what YOU not her wanted her to do. Her career – the one thing that’s going to be her bread and butter is based on what her parents wanted her to study. And if this was not enough you made her – forcefully – switch schools in the middle of her graduate schooling.

Now any reasonable person would think, that a person who has been living in the US for as long as you have would have learned – that the only uniting factors for all Indians outside of India is that they are Indian. Not that they are from the same ‘gujarati samaj’ or the same ‘marathi mangal’ or the same area of ‘Hyderabad’. For people like me, from MP – you rarely ever find another person from MP – we just hope we find another desi person to bond with. No matter that he/she can't speak my mother tongue, as long as we both watch bollywood movies – we will probably get along.

Your daughter tells me you studied to be a lawyer, a fantastic profession to be in, which requires the sharpest of brains. Therefore my assumption that you are fairly sharp. I know you know what I am getting at. The whole time when your daughter did her thing at school – studying, making friends, growing up etc – she did one more thing, she fell in love. And she fell in love well. She fell in love with a boy who adores her and respects her. A person who will do literally anything to ensure that she never has to go through a painful ordeal. A man who will stand up to the whole world and if 
necessary to his own parents and family for her honor. A boy that is capable of bringing her every
happiness in the world and will leave no stone unturned to give her what she needs and more importantly what she wants.

I have seen their love grow right in front of my eyes and it is the most beautiful kind. Everything else
pales in comparison. Never have I seen two people who care more about each other the way these two did. Seeing them together was believing in something that most of us only see in movies.

And then you, her formidable, educated and loving parents decide that they shouldn’t be together.
Not because there is something wrong with the boy or his family, who also by the way LOVE and appreciate your daughter as their own, but because he is not what you think is “IDEAL”. Because he is not gujarati. I am sorry, I fail to see the logic. You are a logical person, please explain how this is rational? This is just stubbornness and ego that you believe you know better and because you didn’t handpick him – he is not worth your daughter.

I do not for one minute discount your wisdom or love for your daughter. I agree a hundred percent that you know ‘better’ because you have more experience. My own parents would think twice when I bring home the boy I do, because every parents have expectations for their kids. Which also, being the way Indians are, to an extent are reasonable. But I know with certainty that if and when I bring home a boy, my parents will at least try to make an effort to get to know him and hear me out.  This 
does not mean they love me any less, this just means they trust me enough to make a smart decision.  

Not only did you not even take a chance to meet this kid and his family, you dismiss him when he tries – because your biggest concern is ‘how will he communicate with the rest of the family’? And to top it all you threaten to disown her and break ties? Are you for real? Does this happen in normal life? You are going to give up on her, yourself because she didn’t honor the ‘values of your community’ and because your relatives, who couldn’t care less about your well being, will look
‘down upon you’. Instead of worrying about your daughter’s life and what’s important to her, you are concerned about your community will think of you? Bravo. I am sure you have a lot to be proud of. Applause. I am sorry to add that - relatives that will laugh or look down upon you for because you let your daughter marry the man of her dreams – are pretty shitty relatives.

Allow me to show you a few different scenarios – one in which your only daughter beings home a boy who is from a different religion – worse still someone who isn’t even in Indian. Imagine that. The shame! What will the people say??? 

How about this – your daughter brings brought home a girl? I would LOVE more than anything to see your reaction to that. I’ve heard Indian parents have a hard time with homosexuality.

Also let me list the other things your daughter could have done –

1.       Throw a fit because she is the only child, she is entitled to it, I have seen far more spoilt children that have done far crazier things for really small whims.

2.       Elope with him, and come home after she is already married to him.

3.       Threaten or blackmail you 

4.       Go to the police – you know, America is a great country that takes captivity very seriously.

5.       Not come to you at all?

She knows full well that you are going to reject her plea, so she might as well just run away and live with his family who will love her enough that she never misses you. But no, she gathers all her courage with hope that her parents who she loves more than anyone else will understand, that she is in love. That she wants more than anything for them to accept her choice as their choice.

But you just had to trample all the happiness out of her. And no you weren’t happy with saying no, you make her change schools, move cities, cut her from her friends so that there is no way that she is “influenced” by anyone.

I’ll let you know, even after that – she has had plenty of opportunity to ‘run away’ and be with him anyway and trust me when I say, we have all tried so hard to convince her to do so, but she won’t – because she doesn’t want to go against your wishes. And the boy, he still loves her, from a distance now, but respects that she respects you.

In the most polite way possible I challenge you and dare you to find a boy like him.