PRosé with Special Guest Anisha Bhatia
Vikki Locke and Cyndee Woolley spoke with The Rules of Arrangement author Anisha Bhatia on the PRosé podcast. Born and raised in Mumbai, India, Bhatia says her spunky main character Zoya Sahni is not based on herself as a young woman but takes from all the women and aunties she knew growing up where societal pressure to fit into the culture of conservative clothes and arranged marriages was strong.
“My family is from a region which was India 75 years ago,” she explains. “Then India broke into two countries, what we now know as Pakistan, and what we now know as India. When the two counties were broken up, my grandparents left quickly on boats to Mumbai. They were told that they could come back in two or three months, but they never were able to go back, as the situation got so bad between the two countries. So I grew up hearing about the house and the land and everything we had left behind that we were never able to go back to.” She started writing, she says, in part to preserve the stories she remembers from her grandparents.
Cultural differences between India and America are many, and one of the biggest is arranged marriages, which are common in India and of course not often heard of in the US. “I tell people it is like Tinder by your parents. They are introducing you to all the people; you swipe right, swipe left!” says Bhatia.
“These marriages are more family-oriented than being just between the man and the woman,” says Bhatia. “If you are helping your son or daughter get married, you have to know the other family. All these matchmakers have community connections. The aunties do this because it is from someone you know, not someone strange.
Bhatia is a big reader – in fact, she admits to owning more than 300 books and says her husband might be getting tired of putting up more bookshelves from IKEA. She shared with PRosé two of her favorite novels: I've Got Your Number: A Novel - and The Hypnotist's Love Story.
“Everybody has a story,” says Bhatia,“ even annoying matchmaking aunties.” Understanding each other’s stories and being compassionate to how they are is just something that will help you form newer bonds as you grow older.”
Listen to PRosé to find out how Bhatia compares San Diego to India, what book she’s working on next, what she thinks of Bollywood films, and the real reason why Indian arranged marriages seem to last longer than American ones.