The Newlyweds: Rearranging Marriage in Modern India

by Mansi Choksi

Overview

A thought-provoking and moving investigation into India as a society in transition through the lens of forbidden love, as three young couples reject arranged marriages and risk everything for true love amid social and political upheaval.

In India, two out of every three people are under the age of thirty-five. These are men and women who grew up with the internet and the advent of smartphones and social media. But when it comes to love and marriage, they’re expected to adhere to thousands of years of tradition. It’s that conflict between obeying convention and embracing modernity that drives journalist Mansi Choksi’s The Newlyweds.

In this “heart-wrenching and inspiring portrait of love under pressure” (Publishers Weekly), Choksi shines a light on three young couples who buck against arranged marriages in the pursuit of true love, illustrating the challenges, shame, anger, triumph, and loss their actions set in play.

Against the backdrop of India’s beautiful villages and cities, Choksi introduces our newlyweds. First, there’s the lesbian couple forced to flee for a chance at a life together. Then there’s the Hindu woman and Muslim man who escaped their families under the cover of night after being harassed by a violent militia group. Finally, there’s the inter-caste couple who are doing everything to avoid the same fate as a similar couple who were burned alive.

“The most nuanced, lyrical, and moving book about love and marriage in modern India yet written” (Suketu Mehta, author of Maximum City), The Newlyweds raises universal questions, such as: What are we really willing to risk for love? If we’re lucky enough to find it, does it change us? If so, for the better? Or for the worse?

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781982134457
Publisher:	Atria Books
Publication date:	06/18/2024
Pages:	288
Product dimensions:	8.30(w) x 5.50(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Mansi Choksi is a graduate of the Columbia School of Journalism and two-time Livingston Award Finalist. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times, The New Yorker, Harper’s Magazine, National Geographic, The Atlantic, and more. She lives in Dubai with her husband and son. The Newlyweds is her first book. Follow her on Twitter @Mansi_Choksi.

Read an Excerpt

Chapter 1: Kakheri

Table of Contents

Cast of Characters ix

Introduction 1

Part 1

Chapter 1 Kakheri 7

Chapter 2 The Love Commandos 19

Chapter 3 Snakes and Mongooses 31

Chapter 4 Right Wrong, Wrong Right 47

Chapter 5 I Am Reshma 63

Chapter 6 You Look to Me, I Look to Y'ou 75

Part 2

Chapter 7 Dirty Children 89

Chapter 8 Manoj and Babli 101

Chapter 9 Love Jihad 113

Chapter 10 A Delicate World Toppled 127

Chapter 11 A Free Life 141

Chapter 12 Take Me as I Am 153

Part 3

Chapter 13 Within Yourself Make Patience the Bow 167

Chapter 14 Love Marriage = Destroy Life 179

Chapter 15 Objects in the Mirror 191

Chapter 16 Sorry, Wrong Number 205

Chapter 17 A Matter of Pride 219

Chapter 18 How to Say It 231

A Note on Sources 243

Afterword 245

Acknowledgments 251

Credits 253

Index 255

Editorial Reviews

"Choksi observes them like an anthropologist, documents their courtships like the investigative journalist she is – and writes like a poet. The result is a meditation on love, and what we sacrifice for it."
—Lauren Frayer, NPR Books We Love

“Choksi's narrative structure braids [her subjects’ strands] cleverly so that, as the stakes keep rising, the tension escalates through cinematic jumps and cuts. Her scenes are alive with singular details, vivid language and crisp dialogue. The net effect is that we become so vested in the lives of these six people — and the collateral damage they leave in their wake — that they linger with us long after reading.”
—The Star Tribune

“A profound book on the politics of love, of couples who brave everything and everyone to be together. Told with warmth, truth, and humanity, Mansi Choksi's The Newlyweds is an extraordinary look at what it takes to be together in modern India.”
—Nikesh Shukla, author of Brown Baby

"An interesting and highly readable examination of the complexities and intersections of love, marriage, and tradition in India."
—Library Journal

"Staggeringly good. . . Much like Lisa Taddeo's Three Women, it reads more like a novel than a piece of non-fiction. . . it does what all great writing should – it puts us into the world of someone else, so completely that days later I find myself missing the couples and wondering how their stories end."
—Marianne Power, The Times

"If you believe in great love stories, read Mansi Choksi's The Newlyweds. In this exemplary work of narrative nonfiction, Choksi follows three Indian couples for six years to bring us the most nuanced, lyrical, and moving book about love and marriage in modern India yet written. Essential reading for anyone seeking to understand youth in India today—or for anyone who believes in the galactic powers of love to change history, personal and political."
—Suketu Mehta, author of Maximum City: Bombay Lost and Found

“The Newlyweds is stunning. It’s a sharp and moving exploration of the relationships of three embattled couples; the writing is beautiful and the storytelling blindingly clear. Mansi Choksi looks at love in modern India with the appealing perspective of both a knowing insider, and a curious, wary outsider. The result is an intimate story of India, and of the perils and pleasures of love, like no other.”
—Alexis Okeowo, New Yorker staff writer, and author of A Moonless, Starless Sky: Ordinary Women and Men Fighting Extremism in Africa

“Choksi debuts with an engrossing study of traditional matchmaking and modern youth in India. She 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.”—Publishers Weekly

“[Choksi] 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. A moving and largely well-reported account of love in modern India.”
—Kirkus

“The Newlyweds is a remarkable work of storytelling that penetrates deep into the heart of India to give us an unforgettable portrait of love in dangerous times. Choksi invites us into the lives of working class Indians, often from families who live close to each other but come from worlds apart. These couples struggle against the grand social forces that are shaping the destinies of billions across the planet—and also against the tensions and contradictions of love that are as old as time. With writing that is beautiful, intimate, and moving, The Newlyweds is a masterpiece of reportage that will change the way you see India—and modern love.”
—Anand Gopal, author of No Good Men Among the Living: America, the Taliban and the War Through Afghan Eyes

"Love is transformative, even when it fails. That is one of the lessons of The Newlyweds. And just as it is with love, I felt most alive when reading this book."
—Amitava Kumar, author of A Time Outside This Time

From the Publisher

04/04/2022

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.)

Publishers Weekly

05/01/2022

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

Library Journal

2022-03-22
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.

Kirkus Reviews