Category Archives: Relationship

Celebrating our Bollywood themed first wedding anniversary

Posted on June 25, 2012 | 7 comments

As I had mentioned in my last post, it was our first wedding anniversary yesterday and we celebrated it with our friends and family.

To make things a bit more interesting, we decided to make it a Bollywood theme so I was wearing my Lengha and AS was in his Kurta.

Me and AS in our Bollywood dress

It took ages to do the Bollywood themed decorations but at the end it was all worth it. Everyone complimented us on the décor. We used my shawls and sari for decoration and used some lights to enhance the theme.

Decoration in the room

We got a few gifts from my friends and family but the best one was from my hubby. He bought me a watch while we were Switzerland and I love it.

my gift

For entrée we served bara, boiled egg, chiura, aloo ko achar, grilled chicken wings and saag. For main it was rice, daal, cauil ko tarkari, aloo ko achar and chicken curry. The dessert was rasbari with yogurt followed by the cake. We cooked lots of food yesterday and we have so much left over. I am partly to blame for it as I am always terrified that we will run out of the food for the guests and so cook too much and always have heaps left over.

The cake was really awesome. It was a rich chocolate mud cake as it is AS’s favourite.

Yummy mud cake

The evening went well and the last guest left around 1 am so we didn’t do much after that. Just off to our warm bed.

Me and AS with all the guests

AS was such a great host looking after everyone that it made my job lot easier to coordinate everything and making sure the all the guests were eating and drinking well. Overall, a fun filled evening to celebrate our togetherness.

Here are some photos.

Bolly theme decoration

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Posted in Marriage

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With love, to my dear husband

Posted on June 24, 2012 | 18 comments

I can’t believe time just flies and that is exactly what has happened to me. I can’t believe that I have been married to my dear husband for a year now. One year, which is 365 days/ 8,760 hours/ 525,600 minutes / 31,536,000 seconds. It looks like so many numbers and it has just passed. The greatest thing of all is that for every second of that, my darling husband was with me.  Today I want to dedicate this post to my dear husband who has supported me and loved me for who I am.

We have come a long way in a year and our love has grown so much in this time. I want to live the rest of our life like this and I am sure we will be celebrating 5 years, 10 years, 25 years, 50 years and then 99 🙂 in future.

Nothing in this world could ever be as wonderful as the love you’ve given me. Your love makes my days so very bright and brings a smile to my face just knowing you’re my darling HUSBAND. Thank you for loving and taking care of me .

Happy 1st Anniversary my love.

We are celebrating the day with our close friends and family. I will have more updates in my next post. Please click here if you have missed our wedding posts.

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Missing my parents

Posted on February 6, 2012 | 8 comments

People who have family close to them don’t often realise how lucky they are.I have seen my friends getting annoyed by the frequent calls from their mother. I have also seen lots of the children complaining a lot when their parents want to get involved in their life. They want to make their own decisions and don’t like their parents asking any questions about their decisions.

I work with lots of mums who feel hurt when they find out some major events of their kids’ life from someone else or at the last-minute. It makes them feel that their kids don’t care much about them. So while making their decision the kids didn’t even bother to call them to share the news or events.

When I see and hear this, I want to shake the kids and ask them to appreciate what they have. They are so lucky to see their parents so frequently and have them so close to them.

I left Nepal when I was a teenager so I missed out on spending lots of time with my parents. I was not there when they needed me and they were always far when I needed them. I always talked to them at least once a week but still those few hours of talk seems so less if you think about it . And I only saw them once a year or not even that sometimes.

I love them a lot and want them to be close to me. We even talked about them coming to Australia to live here. But they didn’t want to come as they have their own life in Nepal. They are independent and do what they want when they live there. Also they work there and that keeps them busy. I tried my best to visit them often but due to work and financial constraints I couldn’t go as often as I liked.

I tried my best to be there for my parents in every way possible. I know they are proud of me and everyone around them tells me how much they miss me and how much they love me. Actually, I know that without having to hear it from anyone. They have sacrificed a lot for me and I will be forever indebted to them. I always tried my best to make them happy in whatever way I can even when I am far away from them.

Every time I go to Nepal, I take them on a holiday and we spend all the time together. That is one of the best times of my life as both my parents are close to me. During these holidays our talks have bonded us a lot closer as we talked and shared lots of thing. If we don’t go on a holiday, both of them would go to work so we wouldn’t have much time to spend with each other.

Being selfish, I miss my mum a lot every time I get sick. I can’t tell exactly what but having her around when I am sick really calmed me down. My poor husband doesn’t know what to do when I get sick as I keep on telling him I want my mum.

I also miss my parents a lot when I go to the shopping malls, or to in the city when I see people with their parents. Father’s day and mother’s days are the worst as it reminds me how far we are. I feel like I am missing big part of my life and have always thought of going to Nepal and spending a year or so with them. I tried to do that in 2009. I went home and told them I will be there for at least 6 months before I go back to Australia.

Don’t know fortunately or unfortunately, I got a job offer for a job I wanted after 4 weeks of me being there. They wanted to set up an interview but as I was in Nepal, I email them back saying I can’t come for the interview. They emailed me offering to conduct a phone interview. The phone interview went ok and the company wanted to do a 2nd interview in person. I was not mentally ready to come back for an interview for a job which I may or may not get so I was reluctant to make the decision. My parents convinced me to go and give the interview saying I can come back again and stay longer if I did not get the job. So I was back in Sydney for the interview. I got the job and I am happy about it but I feel like I missed the chance of staying with my parents.

Now I am married, so every time I go back to Nepal I need to divide my time between my parents’ home and my husband’s home and I am a bit sad about it. I like my new family but I miss my parents so much that I want to spend more time with them. I really want to be a good child for my parents and look after them but staying so far away from them, it is not always possible for me to be there for them when they need me the most.

My parents are doing well so far but slowly as they get older, they will need their children be around them more. I hope when that day comes, I can be near them to look after them.

Someone wise once said ‘Do what you can when someone is alive because after they die, you can’t do anything.’

Being far away from ones family has huge disadvantages. Recently, 3 of my friends had to deal with the loss of their mum or dad. They died all of a sudden (one in an accident) and my friends could do nothing. They didn’t even have proper a goodbye. Then, they had to travel by plane for 23 hours (including transit) before reaching home. That must be the worst 23 hours of their lives. Among those friends, one was already going to Nepal to get married and had her flight booked and everything. Just 2 days before she was supposed to leave, she got bad news of her mom’s death.

If your parents are near you, you are really lucky so do visit them often. If they are far away, at least call them often and tell them you love them. As they get older, they will cherish the time they spend with you. One day we will be parents ourselves and at that time we will want our kids to be around and visit us when possible. So we need to do our share and show our kids family values. Never forget that they had sacrificed a lot in their lives to make sure you could achieve your dreams so keep them close physically and closer in your heart.

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Posted in Family

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Arranged marriage: My perspective

Posted on January 27, 2012 | 31 comments

Lately I have been reading lots of blogs that have a lot to say about arranged marriage. Some of the views expressed in those blogs are general ideas while some of them wrote their own personal experience with arranged marriage. I agree with a lot of information while there are some with which I disagree. One of the biggest misconceptions about arranged marriage that I want to clear out is that “Arranged marriage is not forced marriage”.

I was born in Nepal where arranged marriage is common even till today. I wanted to write about arranged marriage for a while but then I had a love marriage so I was not sure if I was right  in commenting about it. Finally I decided to write about what I have seen and learnt about arranged marriage in Nepal. My ideas and views are of Nepali arranged marriage, specifically in Kathmandu. I do understand that it may be different from other South Asian arranged marriages.

Both my parents and parents in law had arranged marriage. Both couple are happily married for around 3 decades now. I see love between them every time I look at them and there is no negative effect of arranged marriage in their relationship.

With my parents, they met 3 times before they decided to get married. Everything was arranged by the two families and they met to see each other and make up their minds.  On their first date, they had company while on the other two they were able to talk to each other by themselves. According to my mum, in those days it was normal to meet your future spouse only a couple of times before getting married.

After marriage, they slowly started to know each other and build their relationship. If you see them now, you will agree with me that they are soul mates who are in love and living their happily ever after.

My dad has 6 siblings and my mum has 3, out of which only 1 of my aunt and 1 uncle had a love marriage and the rest were arranged marriages. All the arranged marriages are going strong. Out of 2 love marriages, one has ended in divorce (not the fault of love marriage of course) and the rest are doing well.

You might say it is an old story but I know people who had arranged marriage just a few months ago and even a few weeks ago. One of them is a good friend while other is my cousin.

With my friend, she is a bit shy so she didn’t want to date anyone even though she had lots of guys after her when we were in college. When the marriage questions were asked by her parents, she told them to find a suitable match. So she was engaged last year and after a year of knowing the guy finally they got married in December.

With my cousin, he lives in US where he is super busy with his work. He never stays in one place for long enough (due to his work) that he gets to meet girls let alone fall in love. So when the family started asking him to get married, he handed down the responsibility to his parents who found a really nice girl and they got married last week in a traditional Newari marriage ceremony. His parents are really happy with this marriage and both bride and groom had 100% say in the decision.

The point I want to make is that just because it is an arranged marriage does not meant that it is a bad thing. It may sound weird to a society where it doesn’t happen but please do have an open mind when you think about it.

Let me put it this way, the modern arrange marriage is like joining rspv.com in the western world. Even I considered having an arranged marriage at one stage (read here for more). So it is not silly or backward thing but just a tradition in most South Asian society.

These days when a girl or guy tells their family that they are OK with arranged marriage, first the family and relatives look for a prospective partner with qualities like

  • Similar caste
  • Similar family reputation
  • Girls/guy’s qualification (study, job)
  • Girl/guy’s qualities  (look, hobbies, background)
  • Cultural and/or religious understanding

It is like RSVP scanning anyone who wanted to join their site. The hard part is done by the family so the girl/guy only meets prospective partners who are suitable.

So as a first step, photos of the prospective partners (already filtered by the family) are shown and they can pick a few they like. Then they will be given either phone numbers or/and email id of the prospective partners so they can talk and chat. These days Skype and Facebook seems to be the way people choose to communicate.

At this stage both guy/girl has time to evaluate the person and if they want, the next step will be dating. They normally meet a few times and stay in touch before they tell their family if they are happy with their prospective partners or not. I found out that at this stage most of the prospective partners fall in love. (I think it is similar in dating world as well anyway.)

If both parties have positive response then the family will get together and have an engagement function. These days I see couples engaged for one or more years before they finally get married. In some cases, marriage happens after only a few weeks after the engagement as well.

So both the boy and girl have full say in who they are going to marry even if it is an arranged marriage. Parents don’t treat their kids like a commodity to negotiate and scrutinize and make them marry just anyone without asking them. Family and society have changed according to time in Nepal so they understand that it is important to get the children involved on making decisions of their life.

Here are some advantages of arrange marriage

  • Financial security

You can call me materialistic but money does matter in real life. It is only in fairy tales that people can live happily ever after in a swamp or jungle. No parents wants their kids to suffer so they make sure when they are looking for prospective partners that they are secure and well off financially and is in the same level as their family.

  • Caste, cultural and/or religious understanding 

Family make sure prospective partner belongs to a similar caste and culture so they can easily adjust into their new life. It is same as RSVP asking what religion or ethnic group you belong to, in their form.

  • Family approval and support

As you know, eastern society live in a close-knit environment, it helps a lot when your in laws approve the prospective partner. This way the couple will get help from their parents physically, emotionally and in most cases financially as well. I think it is not a bad thing to have two sets of families in your life.

  • Avoidance of  (more) pre-marriage relationships/courtship

They say you have to kiss many frogs before you meet your prince charming. We all see and experience that and we have actually gone through a few relationships before we settle with Mr. Right. With arrange marriage, it eliminates the years many waste dating multiple persons, and allow a person to find a good spouse if you choose to follow this path from the beginning. In other cases, you have been there and done that and didn’t not want to go through the heartaches again, this can be a way out to make your life bit easier.

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Another happy ending

Posted on January 24, 2012 | 7 comments

The bride

On Saturday, one of my friends got married and it was a happy ending of yet another love story. 

My friend, HW is from China and her boyfriend, RF is an Aussie and there is a bit of story to tell you before I go into the details about their wedding.

HW and RF met in a university 6 years ago in a small town called Orange in country NSW. HW finished her bachelor degree and moved to Sydney to do her masters while RF stayed there and continued his study. So they have been having a long distance relationship for the last 4 years. They used to travel whenever possible to meet each other. 

SL and me- The bridemaids

On top of that HW’s family were not ok with the relationship in the beginning which pushed the wedding further because HW didn’t want to be married without the blessing of her parents. Like most parents, her parents wanted her to find a Chinese guy to be her husband. 

Last year RF had to go to China for work so he made an arrangement to go and see HW’s parents even  she was not there. I think meeting with the guy in person helped HW’s family to realise that RF is a good person and their daughter will be happy with him. Despite the language barrier, they were happy to meet the guy their daughter was talking about for a while. 

The happy couple

Luckily everything fell into place and last Saturday they got married. HW’s parents were here from China to bless her and RF had his family present as well. 

It was a beautiful wedding with their friends and family. They had a registry wedding followed by reception. 

The bride wore a while gown with maroon embroidery with a long the train for the wedding and she changed into a red gown with diamonds for reception. The groom wore black dinner suit. She made her own bouquet with pink and orange roses. 

Me and my friend SL were the bridesmaids. We both choose to go with a long gown; I wore an aqua blue one while SL wore a purple one. 

Posing with the bride and the groom

First we went to the marriage registry where they had their wedding vows exchanged in front of the wedding celebrant. Then we came back to the hotel where we had nibbles and drinks followed by a buffet dinner. 

There was a toast for the bride and groom with a few speeches which was then followed by the cake cutting ceremony.   

Here are some photos from the day.

 

So everyone out there in a long distance relationship and/or intercultural relationship (I have a few specific people in mind right now), hope this year will bring you lots of hope and good luck for your own wedding. I am sure I will be reading about your wedding preparation in the near future. 

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Posted in Wedding

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