The Interview

Honestly I too will get a shock if I heard a girl from my community announce ``Sangeeta Shakir Ahmeb``

But it will be a reflex response and not a rational reaction. Samskar sit deep in our subconscious, it is not easy to shake them off.

A nice portrayal of what, where we are. It indeed has its threads linked with prevailing realities in our societies. Sometimes I wonder, with all this, do we deserve to be called EDUCATED and do we deserve to carry the flags of EQUAL RIGHTS??? I am afraid, my top of head bobs in “NO” as expressions of one of my friend does not match with his words.

Re: # 1
Honestly “I agree” but I reckon if my honesty leads me to think like that, I need to have a look of my so-called “Honesty Platform”. It takes time and not easy to shake off as you mentioned, but
“Chalain Tou Cut Hee Ja’ay Gaa Safar Ahista Ahista”

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For one, the Indian job market is terribily biased against muslims. For eg., only about 2% of UPSC jobs are taken by muslims.

On top of this, the mad mullahs who are generally uneducated themselves dont care a damn for the education or jobs of muslims - men or otherwise.

Given the Indian governments politically forced apathy to this issue, can it be an surprise that Indian muslims caught in a vicious cycle, are socio economically weak too?

``We further learn that there are Hinjus these days with cool names like Adrian instead of the plain old Sunny, Bobby and Fuddy that we meet here in the US.``


Adrian is a Christian Dufus! That is one of the points of the story; difference in perception between Christians marrying Hindu women versus Muslims.

``By marrying Hinju females, these guys will end up improving the ugly Hinju gene pool. The children of these marriages will be less hate filled than the average Hinju interactor that we observe on this website....``

I am all for improving the ugly gene pool of Hindus as long as it involves Muslims giving us their women, not their men scoping our women.

Indian Hindu girls (and boys) who marry christian Whites in US, enjoy celebrity status amongst the NRI community.

Go back in history ; earlier moghal emprors favourite wives were hindu. It was common and customary for the ruling muslim elites to have Hindu wives, perhaps to gain the loyalty of hindu majority. Indeed mother of Empror Jehangir was hindu. Even though we do not see any evidence of hindu elite marrying muslim girls, We could say that, in that era, the intermarriage between faiths at highest rungs was not only common, but encouraged. Within masses however it has been always been a taboo.

I can recall the shock I felt when I learned that a US educated daughter of a friend had married her american colleague , even though he had converted to Islam. The imprints of religious, social and cultural taboos have been deeply ingrained into our psyche. I do not think that most of us can rise above this prejudice and think and act judiciously.

In the US, the interfaith marriages are common between Christian, Jews and Muslims, but marriages between blacks and whites of any faiths are relatively rare and confront similar rejection and silent condemnation from the society at large.

I came to know recently that the Indian Government was collecting the data about the minorities in public service and facing sever resistance from the Army, who did not want to provide this information. Presumeably the representation of muslims in the army is minuscule; every one knows that the other minority ,sikhs, have a far greater share of representation in Armed Forces vis a vis population.

There could be several measures which could be adopted by Indian Policy makers to bring the impoverished muslims into the main stream of the nation. The Muslims could be awarded a quota in jobs and the law makers could make rules to severly penalize the individuals and organizations who discriminate on the basis of religion.

If Ranjana Shabbir Ahmad would have been a US resident and suspected that her marriage to a Muslim played any role in job refusal; a horde of shrewed trial liars would have snacthed the opportunity and easily secured few millions for her in awards and a hefty fee to themselves too.

Rajesh,

This is an interesting story. I am not sure if it is a real life story. I was at a gathering yesterday where I came across quite a few Indian women from Ahmedabad and Allahabad area. There were a number of Hindu women with Muslim last names. I did not put much emphasis on their spouse`s religion. They were confident and definitely capable otherwise they would not have survived on Wall Street.

[I mean, why does she have to go get married to a Shabbir. Yaar, Hum sab Gore, Kelkar were dead or what? This is so,…so frustrating.” ]

I found the above sentiments pretty hilarious. Typical guy`s sentiment. They are no different from any other culture or religion. A Muslim man will feel the same pain and anguish when he hears about the marriage of a Muslim woman with a non-Muslim guy. South Asian men are screwed up by nature. My apologies for being blunt :)

There is something that you have pointed out in your write-up about the situation of Muslim guys and gals in India. I have heard similar stories from other Indian Muslim Women who are in their 50s or so. One lady who is also a close friend shared with me that in her youth the Muslim families in India would not send their daughters to school. The Muslim parents feared that the Hindu women might influence their daughters. My friend who is in her 50s now has an amazing life-story. Her father was a principal at a school, taught science subjects and authored many books. She is married to an Indian Muslim Engineer. The hubby is very laid back whereas she is extremely business minded and entrepreneurial. This woman started her transportation business for handicapped children almost 15 - 20 years ago after encountering a personal life trangedy. At the time, I met her she had only 15-20 school vans. Now, after 10 years, she has over 90 school vans that transport the handicapped children back and forth from their homes to their schools. I have known this lady for a long while now. But just recently she shared with me the key inspiration that motivated her to make the dramatic change in her life.

She came from a large family with a number of doctors. This may sound silly but this is real stuff. One of her sister-in-laws threw a party where the invitation was only extended to the doctors` wives. My friend and one of her sisters were excluded from the list. This really disturbed her. She told herself that she had to work hard and be someone to be better than all of them. And, she made it happen with real hard work and learning on the job. This lady`s business is blooming. Her husband has recently retired from his private sector job in the US, and she is trying to recruit him to work for her. Interestingly, all her aunts and uncles migrated to Pakistan after the partition, but her father chose not to.

One of my pending projects is to write a feature on different phases of her life to inspire other Muslim women who did not come from career oriented backgrounds and were not given an option to pursue a career.

Thank you for an interesting read. Your story made me put some pieces together of many episodes and encounters I have recently had.

Re: # 6

[I am all for improving the ugly gene pool of Hindus as long as it involves Muslims giving us their women, not their men scoping our women.]

This is unfair!

I suggest that we switch the tables here. Let the Hindu women marry Muslim guys. I do not understand what these women see in the Muslim guys but that is a personal preference. After meeting with several strong headed hindu women who are aggressive, business minded and result oriented(something I can associate with), I give a lot of credit to their men who support their wives through thick and thin in pursuing demanding careers and balancing personal life. I have not seen that kind of support extended by the muslim men to their muslim wives. I do not want to stereotype muslim men, but there are very few role models.

Just recently, I heard an interesting comment by this Indian lady who is heading the Equities Division at one of the Wall Street financial institutions, she emphasized that women in finance and consulting should marry men who can tolerate their highs and lows. An average man cannot withstand that kind of hyper personality. I was laughing like hell when I heard what I heard. She is damn right.

Re: 7

From:
http://www.jointcenter.org/DB/factsheet/marital.htm

Interracial Marriages
· In 1960 there were about 150,000 interracial married couples(1) in the United States. This number grew rapidly to more than 1.0 million in 1998. In 2000, they numbered 1.46 million.
· Black/white interracial married couples have increased seven-fold since 1960, from 51,000 to 363,000 in 2000. As a percentage of all married couples, this type more than tripled during the period. However, black/white marriages, which represented 34% of all interracial marriages (40,491) in 1960, fell to 24.7% of all interracial marriages (1,464,000) in 2000. About 70% of Hispanics also marry outside their group.
· Non-Hispanic blacks and non-Hispanic whites are proportionately least likely to marry outside their groups, and whites who do so are almost three times more likely to marry Asians and American Indians than to marry blacks. Over 93% of whites and blacks marry within their racial groups, in contrast to about 70% of Asians, and less than one-third of American Indians. When minorities marry outside their group, their spouses are usually white.
Notes
1. Interracial married couples refer to marriages in which one spouse reported as white, black, American Indian, Alaskan Native or Asian/Pacific Islander and the other spouse belongs to another of these groups.

Is anyone pointing out that rejecting an applicant because of their ethnicity/race/gender/sexual/political orientation or that of their spouse is discrimination?

In most democracies, anyway.

Re: # 3

I don`t think you have seriously read my comment. I have no thinking problem. It is the reflex response that is the problem. I don’t believe in ghosts that doesn’t mean I can roam around graves in the dead of night without fear. Convincing subconscious is another matter.

Ref ZahraJ #9

[Just recently, I heard an interesting comment by this Indian lady who is heading the Equities Division at one of the Wall Street financial institutions, she emphasized that women in finance and consulting should marry men who can tolerate their highs and lows. An average man cannot withstand that kind of hyper personality.]

ALL men, sweetheart, have learnt to put up with PMS.

Sad but true.
Not only in employment but even in educational institutions this prejudice does exist.
Muslims would surely send more girls to serious professional education and not `cooking and mehendi` classes if they felt safe in society today. Even in one of the `elite` schools of Bombay I have known of instances of boys being teased and harassed because of their faith.
We cannot first terrorise a community and then say that they have a ghetto mentality. Can we forget that the first ones to get targetted in a communal riot were those who had chosen to join the mainstream and live in mixed localities?
But why don`t we remember and repeat the stories of many who braved fanatical forces to protect the innocent?

Re: # 8

This is not a true story but does contain elements I have encountered over the years. I call it the Sunil Shetty theory. He is from a conservative community of Bunts. He married a Muslim - a very gracious lady called Mana whose father is the eminent city father - Mr.Kadri and whose mother Vipula - I suspect - is Hindu. The character of Rohit is a combination of many people I know - who are otherwise wonderful people except when it comes to Muslims and women. Lastly, it was important that Adrian be Christian and that Ranjana be average. No Rohit could defend his case in any court if needed. I am ashamed to admit I would indeed be stricken if this were to happen in real life to me.

rajesh

Most stories do a poor job of articulating defensible views on conflicted matters.

I suspect I have an opinion exactly opposite of what you, anjali and most others here have. To aid clarity, could you please summarize your stand/views in a couple of sentences? Many thanks for the favor.