Mail Order Bride at Rolla, Missouri in 1971

 

This tale is a departure from the other tales told earlier. It is not associated with old Naani. It is a true happening at Rolla, Missouri (USA) where the author was a student in 1970-71. There much of the graduate student body were bachelor boys who had come to study and earn money. They longed for their homes back in India and at times went back to meet their families and get married. Everybody was not that lucky to visit India during their study years, hence parents back home would occasionally pack off a would be bride to their son in USA, hoping that everything would work out and their son would be a married man soon. The following is a tale of one such incident which unfolded in a comedy, as the "would be bride" did arrive in USA, but missed a few connecting flights and ended up amongst the strangers.

Scene 1  - Rolla, Missouri, USA

Amit Shah was a graduate student at Rolla, Missouri in 1971. He had just finished his graduate degree and had enrolled himself in a post-graduate program. That would take 3-4 years hence there was no room for him to return to India for a visit. Already 26 years old, he was yearning to visit his family in India. When in India he would get married too. This he had postponed for the last two years.

Amit left India at age 24, at that time his parents made him promise that he would return in a year or two and then they would solemnise his wedding to one of the girls within the Gujarati community of Kutch district of Gujarat. It was a promise, which Amit was unable to keep. His studies left no room for him to take a month or two off and undertake journey back home. 

Back in Gujarat the family was worried. All their plans seemed to be in jeopardy. The young lady whom the family had selected as Amit's bride was about to give up on him too. It was a situation to which Amit in US and his family in India were unaccustomed too. There seemed to be no alternatives other than to send the girl over to US and solemnise the wedding there.

The above was a strange idea to both the families and it was stranger to Amit Shah himself. When he broke the news to his friends in Rolla, the word spread like a wild fire. Everybody came to congratulate him. They were curious to know about the arrangements for the wedding in case the families decided to do the unexpected i.e. to send the girl over to US. If that happened, Rolla seemed to be the right venue for the wedding, but it would be utmost difficult to find a priest to conduct the marriage ceremonies and a hall big enough to accommodate 100 curious onlookers and friends in the meagre scholarship.

Suddenly these seemed to become lesser issue when the University Foreign Student Advisor came with help. He managed to persuade one of the Church priests to let the boys use the basement hall for a few hours after the regular Church service on Sunday. Also, he would witness the wedding proceedings himself. That would add a bit of credibility to the proceedings. A Hindu priest to conduct the proceedings was located 200 miles away in Kansas City. In fact he was no priest, he was a student like us at the Kansas City campus, but was fully conversant with Sanskrit and the marriage proceedings. He agreed to conduct the proceedings provided the Church priest seconds the proceedings and certify the marriage documents. Little bit of persuasion helped on all sides. It was decided that a court wedding would be conducted first followed by the Hindu wedding. 

With all this help around, Amit Shah wrote back to his family that in case the young lady was able to travel to US then he would make all the arrangements for the marriage here. The idea was far fetched as the girl, Amit was going to marry was unknown to him. She came from a respectable landlord family, had studied till grade eleven and was pretty as well as well versed in all household matters. She could read and write English, which was a plus and could travel to US of her own without a family escort. One limiting factor was her not being conversant with the spoken English especially in American accent. This was a small matter, which could be overcome with little bit of practice back home. Hence, the matter of the girl/bride travelling to US to get married over next month or two caught favour with the girl's family. The next step of seeking travel documents for the girl was not difficult in 1971.

 

Scene 2 - Indian Student Association Elect a new President

Every "Fall" semester there were new student union elections and this time a gentle but six foot tall hefty Sikh Balwinder Singh got elected as the President. It was a departure from the past as in the previous years mostly boys from Gujarat were President and Secretary. Student Union's key activities were to organise screening of Hindi or Gujarati movies, arrange Diwali, Holi and other festivals. At times they would persuade some of the student's wives to cook a feast. The Union would invite some special guests including the President of the University and other officials to the feast. These were good functions with amateur singing and dancing to the Bollywood tunes.

Additional duties of the Union President and Secretary were to take a lead role in social functions like the upcoming Amit Shah's wedding. Both the office bearers were unmarried hence were not of much help to organise the wedding function. This task was left to the two married students at Rolla. The Hindu acting priest did not have all the "Puja" stuff with him so he made do with whatever was available. A steel frying pan with four inches of sand underneath on a steel sheet would be used to light the sacred fire. The latter sanctifies the marriage in Hindu traditions. The couple goes round the fire seven times to complete the marriage vows. Four posters under which the couple would exchange the vows (in Sanskrit) were to be made from building lumber procured from the local lumberyard.  The local Lumber Yardmaster helped by cutting the lumber to the right length and drilled holes so that assembly at site was easy.  Everything else including decorations, food, inviting guests etc. was the Union President's responsibility. He took all these tasks very responsibly.

Now the wait for the young bride to arrive began. Although Amit Shah was getting married yet the whole university town was excited. The word had spread that a Hindu wedding would be held after the Church services on Sunday in November. Excitement was apparent when the "The Rolla Daily News" the local newspaper got the wind of it and they spread the word of the upcoming event. At times it appeared that the whole town of 8,000 would show up for the wedding. The author's rooming facilities landlady would not miss that event for anything. The local Kroger store's clerk wanted to be invited to the event. The Rolla Bank manager got himself invited or he would not transfer money. The net result was that with 100 guests and double that number of onlookers required much bigger arrangements.  The food, which was to be cooked, was insufficient for such a large crowd. Hence the quantities had to be tripled. The Foreign Student Advisor came up with the help. He arranged for a Seventh Day Adventist Church parishioner to come and help cook. He had been to India twenty years back hence knew the basics of larger volume cooking. The Student Union from its own funds would provide enough monies to buy groceries etc. Luckily the Church had large capacity gas stoves hence food part was well taken care off.

Now, it was for the young bride to arrive. Arrangements for her arrivals were such that on Wednesday, when the would be bride's flight from Chicago to St Louis would arrive, Amit Shah would drive up eighty miles and pick her up at the airport. The student reception committee would wait at Rolla to welcome the young lady to US. With so much of excitement, everybody forgot the "Murphy's Law". Something was going to go wrong and it did go wrong, but not in Rolla but in Chicago where PANAM flight from Bombay (Mumbai) arrived.

 Scene 3 - Chicago O' Hara Airport

Miss Subhadra Patel, the bride, boarded the PANAM flight in Bombay with a great fanfare from his & her family. She was on way to the United States of America, the dreamland. It was a long flight with stops in Tehran, Paris. It would land at Chicago's O'Hara airport at 10.00 AM. From there a connecting United Airlines flight, three hours later, would take her to St Louis International Airport. As per schedule, her documents would be processed at O' Hara international terminal and from there she would switch to domestic terminal and catch the flight to St Louis. Well it took longer at the O' Hara international to switch to the domestic terminal.

One additional problem had cropped up. At Bombay airport, everybody spoke her language and she communicated well with them. It was easy at Tehran and Paris stopovers as PANAM personnel were at hand to guide passengers from one plane to the other. As soon as she landed at O' Hara, she was of her own. That is where the problems began. She could not understand much of the spoken American English and they could not understand her accent.  The lady at the "Enquiries" told her to give the baggage to the Sky Cap (Light Blue cap bearing airport personnel) and they would help her to the domestic departure terminal. She wondered around the terminal trying to figure out what the Sky Cap (s) were. She went back to the Enquiries Desk and asked again. That is when the help was provided. It took a while to locate her baggage and proceed to the departure terminal. By then the United flight departed without her. They had made announcements over the PA system a few times, but the young Subhadra never understood those. Hence she missed the flight. At the departure terminal they told her that the next flight four hours later would take her to St. Louis, hence she should wait. Back at St. Louis, Amit Shah waited in vain for his would be bride to arrive. The flight had arrived but there was no Subhadra on the flight. That made Amit nervous. Now he did not know what to do. He called Balwinder Singh to tell him that Subhadra had not arrived on the scheduled flight hence he was proceeding to Chicago (300 miles away) to find her. He was certain that she had missed the connecting flight, hence may be waiting at O' Hara terminal. The whole campus got the word from Balwinder Singh that Amit has gone to Chicago. It was a worrying moment for all his friends at Rolla.

Scene 4 - St Louis Airport

Miss Subhadra did board the next flight from Chicago to St Louis four hours later. As she was arriving at St. Louis, Amit was on way to Chicago. They probably crossed each other.

At St Louis Airport, she managed to tell the Airport personnel that she was on way to Rolla, and that her would be groom had not arrived. She had no idea that Amit had waited there and not finding her on the previous flight proceeded to Chicago. The airport immediately tried to get in touch with Amit Shah's home phone number but there was no answer. They later phoned the Foreign Student Advisor, who knew about her arrival but was not aware of crisscrossing that was happening between her and Amit. The Foreign Student Advisor immediately called Balwinder Singh and informed him that Subhadra was waiting at St. Louis airport.  Now there was no way to recall Amit from proceeding to Chicago. In the mean time the young lady had to be picked up from St Louis airport. That became Union President's job.

Soon a caravan of two cars was organized to drive to St Louis airport to pick her up. It was Balwinder, the author, Sikka and Chaudhury who left for St Louis by late afternoon. It is an hour and half drive and this caravan expected to be there by 6.00 PM.

Unexpectedly none in this caravan spoke Gujarati (Sikka was from Delhi, the author and Balwinder from Punjab and Chaudhury from Bengal). 

As this bunch arrived at the Airport, with ease Subhadra was located at the traveller's lounge. She was the only Indian girl at the lounge hence not hard to spot. We introduced ourselves as friends of Amit Shah and told her that Amit, not finding her at the Airport, had proceeded to Chicago. It would take 5 hours for him to reach there and if he turns back it would take another five to six hours to return. It would be midnight when Amit arrives.

At the Chicago O' Hara, they told Amit that Subhadra boarded 3.00 PM flight to St Louis, hence he turned back.

At St Louis, we offered to take her to Rolla for a rousing reception. She refused. Communications after that became terse. She had no trust in us guys, completely unknown to her. Moreover she would go to Rolla only with her "would be husband". Since he was not there then she would stay put at the airport. She would listen to none of our arguments. We the non-Gujarati speaking gents scarred the hell out of her. One of us, six foot tall turbaned Sikh, and other three well groomed guys looked intimidating to her. She would not talk to us any further. In her mind we could be thugs, wanting to kidnap her. She scanned around the airport looking for uniformed airport security staff. As soon as she saw one, she in her broken English complained to him that we were trying to kidnap her. The matter seemed to get out of hand when the officer in his commanding voice asked us to leave the lady alone. It took a huge amount of explaining to the Officer to settle the matter.

There was nothing left for us to do but wait for Amit Shah to arrive back. 

We maintained our distance from her lest we end up in jail for the night. Luckily for us, Amit at Chicago had called his friends at Rolla and they had told him that Subhadra had arrived at St Louis and we four had gone to pick her up. That piece of information worried Amit more. He also did not wish Subhadra to accompany us to Rolla in the middle of the night.

Minutes turned into hours and the wait continued. We dared not ask her at the airport Lounge for coffee or sandwich or anything. We only waited for Amit Shah to arrive. He arrived at about 11.30 PM. He knew that we were at the airport but he had no idea that Subhadra had very smartly outwitted us by calling the airport security. Amit saw us and immediately proceeded towards where Subhadra was seated. He spoke in Gujarati and called her by name. He was expecting a smile and a blush. That did not happen. She immediately grabbed her purse and took Amit's photo out. She matched the photo to him and then replied in Gujarati that those four guys were bothering her. Expecting a terse response from Amit, instead he began to laugh and said that these were his friends. He explained that all this happened because she missed the flight.

She would have none of it and began to question Amit in Gujarati. She did not wish to be tricked by another Gujarati speaking thug, hence asked Amit about his parents name and wished to know whether he had enough information about her. She asked him about her photo. He immediately produced one from his purse. It was the same one she had given to his parents and who had sent it to him in USA.

With preliminaries over and identity of each of them verified then Amit introduced her to us. We were delighted to make her acquaintance. She apologised a hundred times for calling the airport security.

It was midnight and we started for Rolla. In an hour we were there. She was lodged for next three days at one of our married friend's apartment. In the meantime preparations for the wedding accelerated. A reporter from The Rolla Daily News snapped her picture while she was on a shopping spree. Next day the headline in the newspaper Read:

 

"Mail Order Bride Arrives; Wedding on Sunday"

 

Now the whole town knew.

Preparations at the venue were completed a day in advance. The four-poster canopy - "Vedi" was erected without any hitch. It was decorated with whatever we had at hand. All the groceries were procured and preparation for cooking started as soon as the Church deacon gave us the key to the basement hall. Crates of soft drinks were brought to offer drinks to all the guests and the onlookers. The invited guest had a feast laid out for them. The onlookers also joined. There was plenty of food.

The "Bride" in her finest clothing, all deep red in colour, arrived with the friends she was staying with. She was quickly led to the wedding's four-poster canopy and seated. The groom in his everyday clothes was already seated there. The chanting in Sanskrit hymns began. All the onlookers began to whisper, as they understood nothing of the spoken hymns. The student priest explained everybody gathered, the various steps of the ceremony.  Now at least they began to understand what was going on. The fire in the pan was lit. It was kept under control lest the fire alarm goes off. Finally the bride & groom stood up and began to circle seven times around the fire. In two minutes the final ceremony of the marriage was complete. The priest blessed the bride & the groom. Then it was turn of everybody to do the same. All the churchgoers came to bless the newly wed couple. Newspaper guys were snapping pictures like no tomorrow. They were having a gala time.

As agreed with the Church, all ceremonies were completed by 4.00 PM and we vacated the hall. It was cleaned before we handed the key back.

Next day's headlines read:

 

Mail Order Bride Married in a Hindu Ceremony

 

 It was a unique event of a unique kind, probably first of its kind in twentieth century America in 1971.

 

 

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