CompleteMartialArts.com - For Matrimonial Purposes
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List Price: $23.95
Our Price: $8.44
Your Save: $ 15.51 ( 65% )
Availability: N/A
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Average Customer Rating:   
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Binding: Hardcover
Format: Bargain Price
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 277
Publication Date: 2003-06-01
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Editorial Reviews:
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Spirited, elegant, fun, with an enchanting authorial voice, For Matrimonial Purposes -- a first novel which was the subject of a fierce international auction -- is a remarkable achievement, an original in the contemporary women's market. The main character, Anju, born and raised in Bombay, is now a fashion journalist in New York. But twinned with her enjoyment of the American scene, her single, glamorous life and the fashion perks it brings, is her determination to remain true to her Indian roots and her love of her extensive family. Marriage is the most important role for an Indian woman, and arranged marriages are still the custom: 'I am not working for your happiness, but for you to be married,' says Anju's mother. Anju is 30, old in Indian terms, and her mother and aunt fear that her independent ways might make her less acceptable to other family's eyes. They set about organising possible contacts in their home town, Bombay. But now a prospective bride or groom, or their families, can decline the suggested marriage after a meeting. For Matrimonial Purposes is the hilarious, poignant, loving story of Anju's journey, the rare selection of men and their families that she meets, and the choices that she must make while trying to remain true to herself and satisfy her family and tradition.
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: a fun read! lighthearted and lovely
Comment: This bubbly book was an entertaining and lighthearted read. Readers who criticize the main character for being superficial are missing the point. Similarly, those who criticize the "unrealisticness" of a character being into fashion and work, while at the same time longing for tradition and comfort, underestimate the multi-layered potential of the human life. I found the main character, Anju, to be very realistic, and even though I have no firsthand knowledge of Indian culture, I sympathized with the common feminine dilemma of wanting to please while at the same time wanting to be self-actualized. That being said, this is not a serious book, so don't get too deep in the analysis! Enjoy it and have fun! Great insight into Indian culture, by the way.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Loved It!!
Comment: I loved this book. This is a must read!1You feel the character's pain,you understood her family life, i also cried in some parts. Very sad that the book ended. Must read!!
Customer Rating:
Summary: chick lit lite
Comment: This book followed most of the rules of Chick Lit Writing 101, so while I suppose it is successful as a chick lit novel, it fails to make much of an impression otherwise.
Jane Austen wrote about young society women who are dealing with matrimonial prospects. But her books, unlike so many modern day adaptations, managed to convey some broader truths about human nature and romance.
Like many chick lit protagonists, Anju 1) has the backbone of an overcooked noodle; 2) manages to have a glamorous career with lots of free time to complain and gossip, though without much in the way of an education or resume; 3) goes back and forth between desperately wanting a man/marriage and stating that she is fine being alone. The last is not too convincing, even though at the end of the book, she says she's changed and grown (and perhaps the author believes she has), I saw little evidence of it.
At first I was going to chalk up her passivity to her background (she is Indian), but in a lot of chick lit novels, the American-born heroines are pretty passive, too, until the end where they pitch a fit, quit their job and gallop off into the sunset with a guy. That's pretty much what happens here.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Anything for matromonial purposes
Comment: For Matrimonial Purposes is a hilarious story of a young Indian woman on a global search for a husband. The narrator, Anju, isn't willing to date, doesn't want a boyfriend, and is expected to be married once she turns twenty-six.
"I didn't want a boyfriend, I wanted to scream at him. I wanted a husband."
She does, however, fast three days a week to appease Hindu gods, wear a coral ring to bring her a husband, a black thread around her right wrist to ward off the Evil Eye, and a yellow sapphire to calm her nerves - all suggestions from swamis and her mother.
True to the chick-lit genre, For Matrimonial Purposes is full of fluff and fun. Yet there is richness to the characters and unique cultural references that make this seemingly typical finding-herself story anything but ordinary. Westerns will be amazed at the details of arranged marriages and women everywhere will relate to the societal pressures to find a mate.
Anju gives up hope of finding a boy she likes in India who also meets her community's requirements and convinces her parents to let her study abroad in NY. She continues her search but is burdened with her culture's taboo on dating. She wants a traditional Indian man to satisfy her parents' dream of an arranged marriage, but she also wants a man that allows her to keep her independence. She says of her life in NY, "It had taken me some years, but now it was a life I had grown intimately familiar with and happily accustomed to. And, like so many women in my situation, I wanted a man to fit neatly with it. I wanted him to live the same life, enjoy the same things, look the part. And, simultaneously, I wanted him to be chosen by my parents, sanctioned by the rest of the family."
Her quest becomes a joke among her American friends who nevertheless help her find love. Anju tries everything from party hopping to Internet match-making - she even takes the Concorde from London to NY to meet a potential match at a party. He leaves without saying two words.
"How I yearned to be chosen by a fair-skinned Indian man dressed in a white silk tunic," Anju laments. "How I dreamed of his parents coming to mine, their arms outstretched, asking for me, saying they would take me "in a sari" - Indian-speak for "without a dowry." How I knew that being selected by a stunning eligible man - the kind that all the girls wanted - would finally win me the approval I had never had."
Can we not all relate to that?
As she continues to be exposed to Western society, Anju develops insights into why marriage is so important for her. "My having a "perfect" mate would, finally, end the regretful sorrow and lasting disappointment in which I believed my parents held me. I was, finally, going to do something to make them love me."
It is Daswini's combination of Anju's desperate need for approval with her bravery and intelligence that make this book impossible to put down. On the one hand you are rooting for Anju to find the husband she craves, but on the other you hope she first finds herself.
http://sarkajeanee.blogspot.com/
Customer Rating:
Summary: Every Indian Girl has these moments!
Comment: I liked this book.
Every girl has a moment in their life where they feel like they might never meet that special someone.
This book gives proof to the saying someone where is out there for you.
Also it teaches about timing is something that only fate controls!!
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