Let's Talk About Dating

Of all the intergenerational conflicts that Indian immigrants and their children straddle perhaps none is as intense as dating. The children grow up in a far more permissive and liberal culture and often resent the restrictions imposed upon them by parents over conduct commonplace among their student peers.

Rima Patel, a 20-year old nursing student in California says, “I was raised in an environment where it was all seen as wrong — dating, relationship, sleep over — and I was taught to do the ‘right’ thing only.”

Parents who are overly restrictive with their children run the risk of alienating them. “My mom doesn’t like me hanging out even at the mall. Her not trusting me has led me to lie to her. I mean…I feel that is the only way I have,” says Patel. Her mother was born and raised in India and moved to the United States with her husband after marriage at the age of 19. Patel has dated a non Indian without her parents’ knowledge.

It is an experience all too familiar to Nishta Sookdiyal, 22, a media student from Durban, South Africa: “When I was a teenager, my parents were very strict about dating and going out late at night. They would take me to where I was going, and then pick me up. I wasn’t allowed to go places alone and do things on my own. We don’t become independent and this hinders us in the future.”

Sookdiyal dated a boy in school, but hid him from her parents. “Eventually I had to tell them about my boyfriend because my family was seeing us together and that was upsetting my parents because they didn’t know who he was. Once they met him, they knew him and they still didn’t like the idea of us dating,” she says.

Immigrant parents strive to preserve the cultural mores and traditions of their home country in rearing their children. “Dating is against Indian culture,” says Renu Jokhun, 46, a primary school teacher living in Mauritius.

Her 21-year-old son Keshav demurs: “I believe there is nothing wrong or against Indian values in dating someone. But it is very important that both partners stay within their limits and avoid any physical or sexual relationship before marriage. Taking a girl out for a movie or for a coffee may be considered a date and I do not see anything wrong in this.”

Do Indian parents living abroad make a deliberate attempt to protect their children from western influences? “No. We live in a multi-cultural society and our children know where they are coming from due to the religious practices that are performed in the household,” says Nishta’s mother Shakila Sookdiyal, 52, a home executive in Durban.

But Renu Jokhun is determined to keep Indian traditions alive in her family: “I try to keep my children rooted in Indian culture than be influenced by western culture. We perform prayers every morning and evening, chant ‘Ramayana’ regularly, eat Indian food, dress according to Indian culture and celebrate all Indian festivals.” Her son Keshav Jokhun concurs, “Thanks to the efforts of our parents and especially our grand-parents, we have not left aside our Indian values and cultures.”

In their bid to preserve Indian culture as they knew it when they left India, many Indian immigrants are oblivious to the wave of modernism that has swept Indian cities. Indian parents in metros are increasingly accommodating dating and inter-community marriages by their children. Smita Dev, 37, a home executive and mother of a teenage son, in Mumbai says: “Dating and relationships are an eventuality. But if you are not open to them, your children will never tell you about it. So it’s better you accept and be open to it.”

Rima Patel is struck by how life in Indian cities has transformed. “India is becoming another America: teens are doing hookah, going to the clubs. I thought they would never do something like that, coming from generations and generations of strict values and culture. Wasn’t that meant to be preserved? Things are changing very quickly. Parents are allowing their kids to go out and do things that they weren’t able to do; they want them to have the fun they didn’t.”

The change is beginning to touch overseas Indians as well. Says Ankit Doshi, 24, a business management student who works as a receptionist in a hotel in Charlottesville, Virginia, “I am an Indian and I do love my culture, but I need my freedom and space.” His parents gave him the independence to date a girl in college and he introduced her to his family.

With or without the knowledge and consent of their parents, overseas Indian youngsters date and have relationships like their local counterparts. But would they dare to marry someone who is not an Indian and how would their parents react to it? “I’m open to dating and marrying someone who is not an Indian,” says Doshi.

“As long as they are happy and stay true to each other, we are fine with that,” says his father Hiren Doshi, 59, an executive at the supermarket chain Kroger.

Keshav Jokhun stays that he too is open to marrying someone who is not Indian; however, he has never dated a non-Indian so far. But for his conservative mother Renu that won’t be as easy to swallow: “Firstly, I shall ask him to think over the matter very seriously before taking a final decision, talk to him about the possible consequences of such a marriage, giving examples of cases which we both (parents) know about. If I see that he is still convinced about it, I’ll support him.”

Likewise, Nishta’s mother admits that she will be disappointed if her daughter makes such a choice and it would be very difficult for her to accept. “But at the end of the day, it would be my child’s decision and she would have to face the consequences of that,” Shakila Sookdiyal says.

Nishta insists parents should not be determining the life partner of their children: “If a relationship doesn’t develop into a commitment, then they should also accept that and not hold it against you in the future years. I would date a person of a different race but his morals and values of life should be similar to mine.”

But for Rima Patel, it’s more important to uphold her family name than to exercise her freedom of choice. “No, I don’t want to be looked down upon or bring shame to my family. I have a really wonderful and loving family and I just don’t want to lose them. My parents and brothers have been there for me always irrespective of the things I have done.”