Analyzing Monsoon Wedding Essay Explores Arranged Marriage In The Movie.

Overview of Monsoon Wedding

Question:

Write an essay on the "Arranged marriage in the movie". 

The movie named “Monsoon Wedding” was directed by Mira Nair and it has been released in the year 2001. This movie was a blend of the India’s traditional and cultural ideas with the contemporary elements of foreign culture. The whole story of the movie mainly focuses on the two aspects and those are arranged marriages in India and the child abuse performed in any form. There are many other aspects which can be seen in the movie such as Indian customs and values, globalization, the influence of western culture in India, gender, nationalism, etc.The movie won the “Golden Lion Award” for the Best Film at Venice Film Festival and celebrated a huge success by becoming a great blockbuster hit in the United States (Beebe 75-78).

The story line mainly revolves around the two characters introduced as HemantRai, the groom and AditiVerma, the bride from the starting till the end. But there are many other couples whose love stories can be seen surrounding that focal relationship.Both the characters belong to the Punjabi families who are categorized as upper middle class. Punjabi weddings in India are a demonstration of a great Indian culture which can apparently beseen in the movie.Marriage is a process in which two people generally a man and a womanenter into a mutual relationship and agrees to share a bond between them. It is a legal process and one of the most important and popular traditions in India. Earlier, there were many forms in which a marriage takes place but nowadays, two aspects of marriages are followed. One is the arranged marriage, which is essentially planned and fixed by the families and the other is the love marriage, in which the two persons chose each other and enters into a marriage.The kind of marriage shown in the movie is an arranged marriage (Strier and Zidan 203-211). Marriage is the concept which has changed many lives, for some it has proven the best thing could ever happen while for others, it became a nightmare. Nearly 75 percent of people in India believes in and go for arrange marriages, the ratio of which is now decreasing. The success of an arranged marriage totally depends on how it is being handled by the two persons and their families. Some of the negative aspects of arranged marriages are as follows:

Incompatibility- As it is shown at the start of the movie Monsoon Wedding that Aditi agreed to the marriage proposal that her parents have arranged for her, and she wanted to get settled. But soon she realized that it is not very comfortable to be with a person whom she did not know at all and the thought of being with a stranger for the rest of her life haunted her, and she became nervous about her marriage. Sometimes, the concept of arranged marriage does not prove to be successful for many persons as it lacks the compatibility between the two (Myers, Madathil and Tingle 183-190). The two individuals do not know each other at all; they are unaware of the likes and dislikes of each other, and therefore, sometimes it creates clashes and incompatibility which ultimately lead to divorce.

A Focus on Arranged Marriage

Lack of love and trust- Generally, in arranged marriages, there develops a feeling of lack of trust as the two persons who are going to share the relationship does not know anything about each other’s past life and their relationships. It creates trust issues between both of them, which is not at all good for any relationship. When the compatibility and the thought process of two individuals who are bound to live together do not match, leaves a person with frustration and situations of conflict arises. If one person does not try to adjust and understand the other person, the love which should be the base of a marriage comes to an end.

Lack of understanding- It obviously takes so much of time to understand a person’s needs and desires, his/her likes and dislikes, his/her nature and behavior (McCannon 416-419). In arranged marriages, the two persons hardly get time to know each other, and they are forced to enter a mutual relationship which demands so much of a person. When a person does not know the other one, it creates the issues of lack of understanding which results in so much of negative experiences and worries.

Feels much of an obligation- When a couplestarts living together and gets to know each other well, they sometimes do find so many differences in opinions and thoughts that there develops no feeling of love. In this situation, women feel more obligated to continue her relationship just for the sake of her parent’s respect, especially in India as India is a land of culture and traditions (Carter and Duncan).

Another aspect of this movie shows about the issue of Child Abuse, which is a bitter truth to be accepted. It persists in many of the countries in various forms. In this movie, it has been seen that the brother-in-law of Lalit who is introduced as TejPuri in the movie, flirts with a young girl named Aliya. This is known as child sexual abuse, in which an adult tries to get a child for sexual pleasure (Johnson and Kumar 215-227). This is a psychiatric disorder which is also known as Pedophilia. In India, there are many laws formed and enacted against the child molestation. But this is really a serious and a critical issue. Child marriage is another form of child abuse in which kids below the age of 16 are forced to get married so that they can be harassed and molested ("Fathers, Child Abuse And Child Protection" 231-236). This affects the psychology of a child very badly. Hence, it should be treated and protected strictly to avoid such happenings.The main plot of this movie revolves around the lives of a Punjabi family residing in Delhi who prepares for the wedding of their daughter with a boy who is a software engineer in Houston. Considering its main plot, the story is all about a traditional family and its cultures and on the other hand; it reveals the blend of traditional and contemporary culture between India and foreign countries (Sharpe 58-81). In the meanwhile, the film also shows the influence of western culture in India and the resistance of the Indians to globalization. There are some characters in the movie who has direct or indirect influence of foreign countries and cultures as it has been seen that the bride’s father is an international businessman, and the groom itself is an Indian, who works in a foreign country named, Houston (Caspermeyer 2498.1-2498). 

Conclusion

Overall the film “Monsoon Wedding” demonstrates and expresses a great variety of emotions and highlights a real-time story of almost every Indian family. The movie surrounds itself within a family and the various relationships from all around the world who are gathered to celebrate and help in the preparations of an arranged marriage function. The movie excellently represents all the issues, relationships, traditions, cultures, values, and beliefs of India and manages to hold its audience until the end in a very subtle way and left a great appeal to the world. It very effectively represented the concept of arranged marriage prevalent in India and the areas of concern of a woman who is going through all such situations. It provided a deeper understanding of the emotions of all the members of a family and also challenged the assumptions of so many people about the modern Indian society and its cultures. Hence, the movie became successful in demonstrating the relevance of its story in an effective and appropriate way (Dubey, Nair and Shah). 

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