Wit over White
A heart-warming story of my grand-parents from the 1930s
The recent uproar about fair and coloured skin reminded me of a story of the 1930s that my grandmother had told me.
In the olden days in India, with the system of arranged marriages, the bride and the groom generally did not meet each other before the wedding. The relatives and friends of the families would decide whether the match was right. The appropriateness of the match mainly depended on the families being nearly equal in terms of social and financial status.
But, sometimes, looks entered the equation; just like they did in the case of my grandmother’s marriage proposal.
A worthy proposal
To give a background of my grandmother’s family, all the brothers and sisters of my grammy were fair-skinned. Somehow she was the only dark-skinned member — the black swan of the family.
In contrast, my grandfather was a very fair young man. Now, his family got the proposal for my grandmom and since everyone else in her family was fair, it was assumed that my grammy was white-skinned too.
Everything else matched very well and lo and behold, the alliance was fixed!
