Marrying Anita

May 26, 2008
In 2005, Jain announced in a New York
magazine article that she was tired of American dating and would consider an arranged marriage, an Indian tradition she had always resisted. Only mildly piqued by her parents' endearing obsession with brokering a shaadi
, she had ribbed her father for writing her profiles on Indian matchmaking Web sites. In a radical return to tradition, she decides to move to her native India in search of a husband. Pondering the foibles of American dating strengthens her resolve to embrace life in Delhi, even as she adjusts to its new cosmopolitan energy and Western attitudes. Jain struggles to negotiate the security of tradition with the allure of modernity. She is flummoxed by the caste system as well as the stigmas attached to single women. Torn between “old-world” suitors and the confident, latter-day Indian male, she concedes, “Dating in Delhi is no less complicated, perplexing and ego-deflating than in New York.” Even the ad her father places in the Times of India
matrimonial pages (“thirty-three years old, Harvard graduate... looking for broad-minded groom”) fails to arouse much interest. With her world-weary yet earnest voice that finds humor in humiliation, Jain is sure to delight readers.