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| ashu | Posted
on 16-May-03 11:09 PM
To beat the humdrum of daily life, one of the sources of quiet amusement -- to me, anyway -- is watching Kathmandu's new sons-in-law making a display of their new-found wealth and status, gotten primarily from their brides' families. Enjoy the article. oohi ashu ktm,nepal ************** Dowry Too High. Lose Bride and Go to Jail. May 17, 2003 By JAMES BROOKE NOIDA, India, May 16 - The musicians were playing, the 2,000 guests were dining, the Hindu priest was preparing the ceremony and the bride was dressed in red, her hands and feet festively painted with henna. Then, the bride's family says, the groom's family moved in for the kill. The dowry of two televisions, two home theater sets, two refrigerators, two air-conditioners and one car was too cheap. They wanted $25,000 in rupees, now, under the wedding tent. As a free-for-all erupted between the two families, the bartered bride put her hennaed foot down. She reached for her royal blue cellphone and dialed 100. By calling the police, Nisha Sharma, a 21-year-old computer student, saw her potential groom land in jail and herself land in the national spotlight as India's new overnight sensation. "Are they marrying with money, or marrying with me?" Ms. Sharma asked today, her dark eyes glaring under arched eyebrows. In the next room a fresh wave of reporters waited to interview her, sitting next to the unopened boxes of her wedding trousseau. After fielding a call from a comic-book artist who wanted to bring her act of defiance last Sunday night to a mass market, she said, "I'm feeling proud of myself." "It Takes Guts to Send Your Groom Packing," a headline in The Times of India read. Rashtriya Sahara, a major Hindi daily, said in a salute, "Bravo: We're Proud of You." "She is being hailed as a New Age woman and seen as a role model to many," the newspaper Asian Age wrote next to a front-page drawing of Ms. Sharma standing in front of red and green wedding pennants while flashing a V sign to cameras and wearing a sash over her blue sari with the words Miss Anti-Dowry. "This was a brave thing for a girl dressed in all her wedding finery to do," said Vandana Sharma, president of the Women's Protection League, one of many women's rights leaders and politicians to make a pilgrimage this week to this eastern suburb of Delhi. "This girl has taken a very dynamic step." India's new 24-hour news stations have propelled Nisha Sharma to Hindi stardom. One television station set up a service allowing viewers to "send a message to Nisha." In the first two days, 1,500 messages came in. Illegal for many decades in India, dowries are now often disguised by families as gifts to give the newlyweds a start in life. More than a media creation, Ms. Sharma and her dowry defiance struck a chord in this nation, whose expanding middle class is rebelling against a dowry tradition that is being overfed by a new commercialism. "Advertisements now show parents giving things to make their daughters happy in life," Brinda Karat, general secretary of the All India Democratic Women's Association, a private group, said, referring to television commercials for products commonly given in dowries. "It is the most modern aspects of information technology married to the most backward concepts of subordination of women," Ms. Karat continued in a telephone interview. Last year, she said, her group surveyed 10,000 people in 18 of India's 26 states. "We found an across-the-board increase in dowry demand," she said. Much of the dowry greed is new, Ms. Karat added. In a survey 40 years ago, she noted, almost two-thirds of Indian communities reported that the local custom was for the groom to pay the bride's family, the reverse of the present dominant custom. According to government statistics, husbands and in-laws angry over small dowry payments killed nearly 7,000 women in 2001. ********* Today the Sharmas had no regrets about their expensive wedding collapsing in chaos. "People say now it will be very difficult to marry my daughter again," Mr. Sharma said. "But I thought, if trouble is starting today, tomorrow may be worse. It could be killing. I thought, let the money go." Unfazed by the loss of her fiancé, Ms. Sharma said that since Monday she had received 20 to 25 marriage proposals, by cellphone, e-mail and letter. MORE at: http://www.nytimes.com/2003/05/17/international/asia/17INDI.html?ex=1054151105&ei=1&en=afa5319b40615f7c |
| vivid | Posted
on 17-May-03 12:55 AM
Strength of a woman........ :) |
| bajai | Posted
on 17-May-03 03:57 AM
kudos to ashu for sharing this article with us. but then, the dowry system is rampant in nepal as well, innit? when will we be able to read about a nepali woman with as much courage? |
| ruck | Posted
on 17-May-03 06:10 AM
Wow.. thats the way aha aha...... |
| SITARA | Posted
on 17-May-03 06:50 AM
Ashu: Thanks for sharing. |
| bhunte | Posted
on 17-May-03 09:08 AM
Daijo, the fashion of the old days, has noe turned into socio-economic catastrophe in the modern day South Asia--especially in Bihar and UP of India. How come Britishers didn't banned or borrow this culture from India during their regime in India? |
| Satya | Posted
on 17-May-03 09:09 AM
If you are wondering how this heroine looks like hers is her picture: |
| Bhunte | Posted
on 17-May-03 09:10 AM
oops...poor me noe=now banned=ban |
| Satya | Posted
on 17-May-03 09:13 AM
Sorry, link did not work. Here it is (hopefullly)" |
| Satya | Posted
on 17-May-03 09:18 AM
NIndra lagya just cha, my link is also sleeping..  |
| le chef du nuit | Posted
on 17-May-03 02:09 PM
hell yeah sharma jyu lai mero saastanga dandabaat ps dont she kinda look like jess from 'bend it like beckham'? |
| khimu | Posted
on 17-May-03 02:18 PM
totally same le chef hey satya is that you? |
| NK | Posted
on 17-May-03 02:57 PM
When I read the rest of the reporting, I realized the groom's party was much more sinister than I thought. Aren't these the types of people who burn their daghter-in-law claiming it was just an "accident?" Just imagine slapping your futre in-law and spitting on his face for not fulfilling their outrageous demand! Ashu, it made me pause when I read about new Nepali grooms and their newly found riches. Aren't they a bit ashamed to flaunt - even a teenie bit??? |
| ashu | Posted
on 17-May-03 08:22 PM
>>>>Ashu, it made me pause when I read about new Nepali grooms and their newly found riches. Aren't they a bit ashamed to flaunt - even a teenie bit??? <<<< Well, not all grooms are like that, of course. Some are, and they are more amusing than disgusting -- to me, anyway. [Interestingly, the wedding-venue of choice of these newly-rich happens to be Hyatt Regency in Bauddha.] But keep in mind that there appear to be more millionaires (even in US dollar terms) in Kathmandu today than there were even six years ago. This is evidenced by the increasingly long list of Nepali members (each of whom has to fork out over Rs. 300,000) at that exclusive golf club -- Le Meridian -- in Gokarna. Talking about the rich, I have yet to find Nepali Gatsby in Kathmandu. :-) oohi ashu ktm,nepal |
| Gurl_interrupted | Posted
on 17-May-03 08:36 PM
Thanks God!, Somebody was thinking. Prospective Grooms>>>"Dowry Too High [?] Lose Bride and Go to Jail." ;-). |
| tobasco | Posted
on 17-May-03 09:37 PM
Other Side of the Story ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Sunday Times of India, 18 May 2003 Nishas boyfriend, not dowry disrupted the wedding By Lalit Kumar TIMES NEWS NETWORK Ghaziabad: Munish Dalal, now in the Ghaziabad jail for allegedly demanding a dowry of Rs 12 lakh from Nisha Sharmas family, has claimed that his wedding was called off because Sharmas former suitor, Navneet, created a ruckus during the ceremony. The trouble started when Navneet, an old suitor of Nisha, arrived at the wedding pandal with his friends. He told my mother Vidya Dalal that for all practical purposes, he was already married to Nisha. And there was no way he was going to allow anyone else to marry her,said Dalal. At a meeting in the Ghaziabad jail on Saturday afternoon, Vidya Dalal alleged that Nishas father Devi Dutt Sharma bit her and beat her with a chappal. According to Munish, Navneet and Nisha were classmates at her computer institute. A few days before the wedding, Navneet threatened D D Sharma not to marry Nisha to Munish. Sharma had even informed a senior Noida police officer about this, he added. When Nisha was contacted, her family claimed she was suffering from fever and not available for comment. Sharma admitted that Nisha had once been close to Navneet. She wanted to marry him. I had gone with her to meet Navneets father. While his father agreed to the match, he told us that Navneet was unemployed and had no means of earning a living. He suggested that Navneet come live with us. We did not agree to this proposal.I am glad my daughter broke up with Navneet. Sharma also admitted he had recently told a Noida police officer that he expected trouble from Navneet at the wedding. The officer contacted Navneet and assured me there would be no trouble. Vidya Dalal said: Navneet phoned me on May 8. He asked us to call off the wedding, or he would forcibly stop the ceremony. Munish said when they reached the pandal they were not allowed inside. Our band was not allowed to play. I was not even allowed to mount the horse. Navneet was there with a dozen of his friends. When we tried to enter the pandal, we were beaten up. My mother was assaulted with chappals. Munish alleges that Nisha called the police during the confusion to give the whole thing a different color. It was not about dowry at all. |
| Satya | Posted
on 17-May-03 10:25 PM
Thanks tobasco for the other side of the story. I hope we will know the truth very soon. Khimu ji, I am not a female. The girl in the picture is real Nisha Sharrma which is shown here via link to bbcnews. Here is link for the story from bbc: Dowry demand lands groom in jail By Rajyasri Rao BBC correspondent in Delhi |
| ashu | Posted
on 18-May-03 01:29 AM
OK, with enough masala, confusion and lots of characters now, this story is ripe for a Bollywood movie starring: Preeti Zeinta as Ms. Sharma Salman Khan as the greedy finace. Shah Rukh Khan as the real boyfriend. Prem Chopra as the father of the greedy fiance. Music by: Anu Malik A jhatka number performed by Malaika Aurora Script by: Honey Irani Directed by: Karan Johar. Produced by: Bharat Shah. Soon to be playing a theater near you. oohi ashu ktm,nepal |
| ashu | Posted
on 18-May-03 01:30 AM
>>Soon to be playing a theater near you. READ AS: Soon to be playing in a theater near you. |
| ruck | Posted
on 18-May-03 07:22 AM
Ashu, you might want to consider Mira Nair...... |
| ashu | Posted
on 18-May-03 07:50 AM
Ruck, Fair enough. Let Mira Nair of "Salaam Bombay, Kamasutra, Misssisippie (sp?) Masala" fame direct this movie. But I would want no other than Malaika herself to perform the jhatka item in this movie :-) oohi ashu ktm,nepal |
| ashu | Posted
on 18-May-03 08:13 AM
On a serious note, though, those of you who are married or have, from close quarters, seen others in your circles get married , what are some of your "daijo" experiences in and among Nepali communities across the world? I mean, it's one thing for parents to give their daughter a little something as presents. It's completely another when the groom and his family start asking for and get motorcycles, cars, DVD players, cold hard cash and much, much more, as though they have just won a lottery!! A friend who recently visited Janakpur reports that a male engineer of marrigeable age there can "demand" up to Rs. 12 Lakh from his prospective bride's family. oohi ashu ktm,nepal |
| Biswo | Posted
on 18-May-03 10:15 AM
>A friend who recently visited Janakpur reports >that a male engineer of marrigeable age there >can "demand" up to Rs. 12 Lakh from his >prospective bride's family. We often bring this 'Terai' and 'Janakpur' thing [while talking about dowry issue] more than they fairly deserve. It is time that we recognize that the scourge of dowry is somewhat equally deep-rooted in our society,and finger pointing to one of our communities will not serve many things. Worse, it may exacerbate communal harmony. Having said this, I know a good [Teraibasi] friend of mine, who was TU gold medalist, who later did his postgraduate course in western countries. In his marriage, he made sure that no dowry transactions take place despite his father's ire.So, let's not single out Terai when we talk about this issue. -- Gary Becker, a University of Chicago Economist and a Nobel laureate, is often credited to analyze this issue into our attention, scientifically and economically and his classic book, The Treatise On The Family provides a very good insight on this issue. I had a good fortune of reading that book last year. Also, I remember one of the articles published about the so called "marriage market" in University of Chicago paper Journal Of Public Economics (JPE) long ago, perhaps not by Becker himself. Here is a brief of what I learnt. In several villages of India, [now we go to India!] the fraction of dowry in the total assets of bridegroom's household reaches as high as 2/3. Because the population of India is growing, and so there are always more young people than old people, and since often grooms are older than brides, there are always more women in the market than men of marriageable age. So, no wonder demand-supply thing works, and men become more 'precious commodity'.The more older the women become, the less chance of her getting [good] bridegroom, and the more she had to pay to acquire such groom. etc etc.. Well, that's too "hardnosed" study. But as long as it can be easily, scientifically, explained, it takes more than guts, laws, and wills to eradicate such system. |
| ashu | Posted
on 18-May-03 10:45 AM
Biswo, You and I have a different way of understanding the world. I made a GENERAL enough of a remark about the dowry situation in Janakpur, based on a recent conversation with a friend who has worked in Janakpur. You twisted my GENERAL remark: a) to lump Janakpur with the rest of the tarai, as though anyone would actually think in terms of tarai equals Janakpur. b) to portray it as some kind of a finger-pointing action, when nothing of that sort was intended. Remember, I started this thread talking about -- hello? -- Kathmandu. c) and once (a) was achieved, you made a SPECIFIC reference to a tarai-basi friend of yours to make a point that not all tarai-basis run after dowry. FYI, I talked about Janakpur -- NOT about the whole Tarai. Talking about Janakpur is NOT the same as pointing fingers to any particular community. Janakpur -- a place I've visited twice -- is as diverse as the rest of Nepal. And third, just because some of us have friends who turned down dowries does NOT mean that the system does not exist in Nepal. The article you are talking about is: "The Rising Price of Husbands: A Hedonic Analysis of Dowry Increases in Rural India" by Vijayendra Rao; Published in Journal of Political Economy, v. 101, no. 4 (August 1993): 666-677) oohi ashu ktm,nepal |
| NK | Posted
on 18-May-03 12:29 PM
>Talking about the rich, I have yet to find Nepali Gatsby in Kathmandu. :-) ... I would have imagined you would be looking for Daisy :)))))... no? |
| Biswo | Posted
on 18-May-03 05:12 PM
>You twisted my GENERAL remark Well, Ashu, I don't think I twisted your remark, nor did I mean you are some kind of hatemongerer. You, in serious note, asked about our experiences, and your first example of dowry thing in that 'serious note' was about a case in Janakpur.That statement was what I thought provided me as an illustration of how we normally try to stereotype a special community/place while talking about the problem that permeats almost the whole society or almost the whole nation.Let me repeat, it is not you I am blaming. It is our collective propensity to single out 'a specific region' while acting as if we are immune to that tradition. As for finger pointing, I think we need to point the fingers, but not to deride a particular community. My experience in visiting TU hostels [in Engineering college and other professional colleges] is that people there do deride a particular group, Teraibasi, for this. Again, I don't think you did provide the example wittingly to deride anyone, but subconsciously,the stereotype might have crept into your thought process while writing that example, and it is equally likely that any one of us could cite such example like you did. >FYI, I talked about Janakpur -- NOT about the > whole Tarai. Talking about Janakpur is NOT the > same as pointing fingers to any particular community. That's not what I asserted in my posting. >Janakpur -- a place I've visited twice -- is as >diverse as the rest of Nepal. Interestingly, I went there thrice. And thanks to mobility in our population, most of the major cities in our nation are diverse. >And third, just because some of us have > friends who turned down dowries does NOT >mean that the system does not exist in Nepal. Did I say the system does not exist in Nepal? -- Thanks for the link. I know you are a knowledgeable guy and I am, as always, very much impressed. It was the same paper I talked about. |
| ashu | Posted
on 18-May-03 06:40 PM
NK, Your witticism is charming, to say the least. :-) Still, truth be told, with poverty as crushing as ever in the countryside in Nepal, I do feel like anomalously living through some kind of a glittering Fitzgerald-esque Jazz Age in Kathmandu . . . as those who've gotten fabulously rich (don't ask how) in the last 10 years consolidate their wealth and now throw early-summer week-end barbecue parties on their carefully manicured greenest of lawns at Bhaise Pati and the Budhanilkantha residential area!! Biswo, No, yaar. I was NOT being derisive of Janakpur in any way. Sorry if derision came out in ways you said it did. With two formidable friends from Tarai (Paramendra Bhagat on the Net and Pramod Mishra in Kathmandu) educating me about the virtues of the tarai, I cannot afford to be derisive of Janakpur or any other Tarai ko places. :-) oohi ashu ktm,nepal |