'Brides and Borders' is a heart-warming tale about cross-border Rajput weddings written by Baisaheb Priyamvada Singh of Meja and first published in the March '21 issue of eShe magazine.
Destiny Matrimony is happy to share this story on its platform because it offers an interesting glimpse into the matrimonial alliances between Rajput families of India and Pakistan, and celebrates the institution of marriage in a way that is unique as well as endearing.
The categorical relevance of this initiative inspired me to revisit the Indo-Pak relation dynamics within my own extended family, and the journey down memory lane reinstated my belief that women have and always will be the most capable ambassadors of transnational culture. Pakistan for me has never been a forbidden word because I have always had family on the other side of the border. I belong to a village called Meja in Rajasthan, and my grandfather’s sister Indira Kumari is married in Amarkot, Pakistan.
Throughout my life, I have witnessed Indira Ba visiting us along with her family just like her two other sisters who visit us from Gujarat and Uttar Pradesh. In fact, Agra and Amarkot meant the same to me until I grew up and geography lessons got the better of me!
Indira Ba was married to the late Balbeer Singh Sodha. The Sodhas are known to be the only Rajput clan in the new nation of Pakistan, and since they cannot marry within their clan, they must seek matches with families in India. Sodhas are proud practitioners of Hindu traditions and culture, but also full of reverence towards their country Pakistan. Indira Ba’s father-in-law had passed away just before Partition, so the pressure fell upon her mother-in-law Dev Kanwar to decide whether to migrate to India or stay back and face an uncertain fate. Her family in Jaipur tried their best to pursue her to return but, as the matriarch of the family, she decided to remain in Sindh.
Years later, Dev Kanwar’s choice was validated when her son carved an exemplary political career spanning half a century. The fact that one of Indira Ba’s sons Vikram Sodha has earned a prestigious position in the civil aviation sector goes to prove how the country has embraced them wholeheartedly.
It was quite an extraordinary feat for a relatively naïve woman to take this unconventional decision of sheltering her family under a tattered shroud of an ill-fated Partition. Yet, it was a female foresight that led to Indira Ba’s family creating such a successful and secure life for themselves in spite of being a Hindu family in an Islamic nation.
In the past few years, Indira Ba’s family has had several reasons to rejoice as her grandson Tejvir Sodha from Pakistan married Rajshree Kumari from India, and her granddaughters Kiran and Sonal from Pakistan made India their home by marrying Dhruv Singh and Yash Raj from Jaipur and Baroda respectively. I was ecstatic about attending all these weddings as they not only united two families, but were captivating communions of two previously integrated countries.
“Marriage is all about striking a perfect balance between one’s own cultural lineage and the cultural milieu of your new family,” says Kiran, who moved to Jaipur five years ago after marriage and instantly fell in love with its skilled art forms and jewels.
“I am married in Gujarat, and even if I belonged to Rajasthan instead of Pakistan, I would still have to freshly encounter and embrace things like dhoklas, fafras and meethi daal!” she smiles. Even as we witness numerous instances of cross-border matrimony resulting in happy marriages, the restrictive visa regime between India and Pakistan often poses problems. Half of Kiran’s trousseau could not get to India in time for her wedding as the family member meant to carry those bags did not get a visa. Days before her wedding, the would-be-bride was sprinting around shops in Jaipur getting things made right from scratch.
Talking of hospitality, nothing comes close to the pampering one gets in their nanihaal (maternal grandmother’s home). I recently went to mine in Ajmer after a long gap due to the pandemic. As I expressed my gloom about not being able to visit them for 10 months, my cousin Gajraj reminded me that he has not been to his nanihaal for several years. His mother, my aunt Ram Kanwar, belongs to Rar Mau in Pakistan, and she has not visited her parental home for a very long time either.
One of the Pakistani baayas Neeta Sodha stirred a buzz in 2020 when she contested the local elections just four months after being granted an Indian citizenship and was elected the sarpanch of Natwara Panchayat in Tonk district.
Neeta had migrated to India almost 18 years ago from Sindh’s Mirpur-Khas to pursue her higher education. She settled here after marrying Punya Pratap Karan in 2011. “Since the time I have come here, I have received great support from my family and the people of my area, which has given me the confidence to do something meaningful with my life,” she shares.
A member of the Global Women’s Peace Initiative, Sarita Kumari believes that whatever the political situation may be, one cannot take away the fact that both the countries have offered unconditional love and acceptance to brides from across borders. She reminisces how, during these peace talks, the Pakistani delegates would refer to her as “hamari beti” (our daughter) and the Indian delegates would retort saying, “hamari bahu” (our daughter-in-law). “The magnanimity of our culture is reflected in the fact that it does not discriminate. It embraces everyone who wishes to bask in its splendour, and marriages emerge as the most definitive and organic form of cultural dissemination,” she affirms.
I witnessed another display of cultural camaraderie in recent times when my college friend Mili Duggal married a Pakistani gentleman Sajid Sahibzada in 2019. The wedding celebrations in Lahore were followed by a couple of ceremonies in Chandigarh after which the newlyweds headed back to Washington DC where they currently reside. I constantly stalked Mili’s Facebook profile in those days to admire the gorgeous pictures of all the wedding festivities, but the image that remains most strongly etched in my memory is one in which she is walking across the Wagah border all dolled up in her post-wedding glow.
