In India, the idea of a love marriage raises many eyebrows—the lines that intersect caste and class start dancing immediately. And sometimes there are even landmines that one has to avoid in order to end up with the partner of their choosing. In the West, though, love marriages are the norm. Marriages, in the strictest sense, however, need more than love to stand on their own legs. Monica Ali, in her latest novel, Love Marriage, takes up many subjects at once, but mainly focuses her energy on the clash of cultures and the hoops that are set up by immigrants for their children to jump through.
The book isn’t filled to the brim with pop and colour. It doesn’t care enough to immerse its protagonists, Yasmin Ghorami and Joe Sangster, who are doctors, in a meet-cute, either. Rather, it swims slowly towards the territory of two families coming apart. And, honestly, that’s the best thing about this novel. In about 500 pages, Ali shows you that nothing can be taken for granted. While Yasmin pushes herself to understand what she wants from her life, her brother, Arif, the black sheep of the family, takes one day at a time, as he seems to know exactly what he wants.
Arif, at every stage of adulthood, disappoints his father, Shaokat, and embarks on an arduous journey to throw some light at the end of the tunnel for himself, albeit with the moral and emotional support provided by his mother, Anisah. The mantra, here, is that the mothers don’t usually give up on their sons. Anisah, initially, comes across as a homemaker whose opinions are brushed away by everybody around her, but she blooms into a fascinating character later on. She’s undeniably the glue that holds the Ghorami household together. And without her effervescent presence, Love Marriage wouldn’t have, perhaps, achieved its desired shape.
In the opening stretches of the novel, Anisah, owing to her upbringing in India, doesn’t have free and frank discussions, like Joe’s mother, Harriet, on topics that are considered taboo. But she crosses that bridge with the help of her new friends and the new freedom that she discovers in a home that welcomes women and their thoughts. Harriet is yet another interesting character and that’s not only because she’s a single mom, or because she’s a feminist who writes books. There are stark differences between Harriet and Anisah in the way they conduct themselves and yet they strike up a wonderful friendship that they both happily hold on to.
Ali also takes Love Marriage through the dark forests of Islamophobia and racial discrimination. A reader, who’s not clued in on what’s grabbing the headlines these days, may be surprised by such evils wielding power in 2022. But the fact remains that minorities are discriminated against even today in London and other parts of the world. And the biggest quality that makes Love Marriage a charm and a shocker at the same time is the manner in which the medical jargon and human empathy come together. There are little lines about the difficulty in drawing blood from elderly patients, a doctor running to save a baby, and a nonagenarian waiting for the pillar of death to fall on her. These are the places in which Ali scores. And these are also the places where you’ll spend your time the most. Ali’s Love Marriage won’t necessarily be uplifting, but it’ll certainly be a thought-provoking read.
Love Marriage
By: Monica Ali
Publisher: Virago
Pages: 512
Price: Rs 899