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Radical Couple Realizes Rebellion Has Limits

Sonia Chopra

A Pakistani woman and an Indian man have taken the commandment 'Love Thy Neighbor' very seriously. And last month, while the two countries were involved in an intense, heated battle in Kargil, the happy couple were exchanging vows.

"I guess we'll always remember the time we got married. It's ironical, historical, but in a way completely irrelevant to us. It's not an issue," said Mona Ali, 24, who is a graduate student in a New York City school, where she also lives. But two weeks after the marriage, after proclaiming their leftist credentials, after being interviewed by couple of mainstream American publications, Mona Ali is scared.

She does not want her picture or picture of the wedding be published; she does not want the exact location of her residence be mentioned. She is afraid, she says, "some mad man" will come after her. Though in New York City and across America there are many inter-religious families, with one of the parents being a Pakistani and another Indian, Mona Ali's marriage seems to have upset some people because of its timing.

Her husband Amitava Kumar, 36, is a professor at the University of Florida and was still doing his post-doctorate fellowship at Yale University in New Haven when they got married.

"Our religion, the war, all that was never an issue," said Ali last week. "We were introduced by a mutual friend in a bar and the chemistry was instant. We just hit it off. We both love literature and are amateur poets, And we didn't care about being different or whatever, we are both very radical, almost rebels," she added

Soon after they had met, two years ago, the couple had decided early on that they were getting married. That was easy. But there were a few nagging doubts "It wasn't so much about India and Pakistan. It was more like, how are you going to adjust culturally and religiously and things like that,'' said Ali, of the marriage plans.

They had not thought that their marriage last month should have an ideological purpose. It was more of a necessity, she admits, they decided to get married in the middle of the war.

The marriage ceremony -- a Muslim one in Toronto, where the bride's family lives -- was very sudden. "It was for a very practical reason. Amitava had just moved to Florida where he had bought a house and I wanted to go there and help set it up but in our culture we just don't live with each other like that, so we decided to get married right now,'' said Ali, who added that the groom's parents in Patna, India and his sister in Washington DC were unable to attend the ceremony.

"But the next time it will a Hindu ceremony," promised Ali, who is six credits shy of her degree and will wait until she graduates in Fall to join her husband in Florida.

And there's one more thing that the couple completely agree on -- peace between their two countries is a definite possibility. "We think that the conflict is fueled by internal politics and politicians of the two countries," said Ali, who remembered that she had met Amitava Kumar during the weekend of Indian Independence Day.

Kumar, who is away for a month studying the Indian Diaspora in South Africa, calls for greater communication between the people of the two countries. In an article in Little India magazine he noted:

"We need everything we can get to stop war. It needn't be love... And marriage... But, for this to happen, there have to be fewer restrictions on travel and exchanges between the people.."

He continued: "It is nothing short of a tragedy that we allow only 11 men in white flannels from both countries to meet each other. Only to bowl a ball or swing a bat."

He does not want to be like Toba Tekh Singh, the inmate of a lunatic asylum in Saadat Hasan Manto's famous short story, who does not know whether he belongs to India or Pakistan -- and dies standing on the Line of Control.

Neither he nor his wife will occupy, the hyper-nationalist zones called India or Pakistan, Kumar said, adding the two of them claim "allegiance to the people of both nations." Both he and his wife want "a name for those, who, willingly and in full control of their senses, say 'no' to the lunatic war machines."

As for the couple's plans: Apart from living happily ever after, next year, they plan to visit each other's countries for the first time. "And I really hope we have no visa problems," said Ali with a sigh.

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