Going The Distance

Bike needs attention so we head to the nearest Ural dealer to the Mexican border, 87 year old Red, in Sierra Vista. With any luck, we’ll actually cross the border today…

Whilst Mike is fixing the bike with Red, I coerse the Indian owners of the motel we are staying at to appear in our film. They represent a crucial missing piece of our marriage discourse: the arranged marriage. They have been married for 24 years, and agreed to do a quick interview with us (sadly, it ended up being only about 10 minutes). Those 10 minutes were not a great advert for arranged marriage… They said they had no regrets, because that’s what society expected of them, but they wouldn’t enforce (inflict?) an arranged marriage on their daughter.

They were introduced by a mutual uncle (by blood on one side, by marriage on the other), and they met for the first time after the marriage had been arranged, at the uncle’s house. Neither could remember the moment they first saw each other – which seems strange to me, surely that was a massive moment? Maybe it was something they blocked out. They said that arranged marriages could work because no one was left on the shelf… The one thing which we did learn from them, though it wasn’t the most uplifting of romantic thoughts, was that any marriage could work if you work at it. These two worked hard at the motel they ran together, and they lead a life which works for them. Not sure I’m totally sold on arranged marriages though. Not sure she was either.

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