A Hopeless Romantic's Arranged Marriage: Author Sonali Dev

2:36AM Feb 15, 2022

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Hi, I'm Sarah Wendell.

And I'm Alisha Rai. Welcome to lovestruck daily where we deliver a love story every single day straight to your headphones. Our guest today made arranged marriage work for her and parlayed it into a fantastic relationship and a love story for the ages. I'm in love with that to say I'm in love with you. So today we're going to be talking to a guest. Sonia Lido is a best selling romance author who writes about arranged marriages has lived in arranged marriages who got so fed up trying to find love herself, she turned to her family for some assistance. Culturally, I

have very little experience with arranged marriage and don't have an opinion on it, because I trust people to make decisions that are good for themselves. Arranged

Marriage is a kind of a, you know, it can be a bit of a tricky topic. It really does run a huge gamut. There's a wide range, I think, from forced marriage, which is sort of the most negative extreme, to using your family as a matchmaker and, and picking amongst a variety of people that they bring to you. Sarah, what's your take?

I do know that when I was younger, and I would go to Barnes and Noble, remember when you would go to a bookstore and go in the store? And go be around other people? Mm hmm. Why would I know it's it was a different time age. It was. It was ages, it was a different time. And I would see Orthodox Jewish couples on their first dates at the bookstore, and they will be walking around getting to know each other because they were in arranged dates. And I used to think, wow, going to the bookstore is a really good idea.

Fantastic idea for writing, especially if you don't know someone yet, and you're trying to get to know them to go to go to a bookstore. What are they picking out? What are they reading? Is this going to be compatible with me? That's for any couple really, even if you just meet on an app, that's great. Let's welcome Sonali Dev, Sonali Dev is a best selling romance author. Her novels have been on library, general NPR, Washington Post and purposes best books of the year list. She's won the American Library Association's Award for Best romance the RT reviewer's Choice Award for Best contemporary romance. Multiple RT seals of excellence is a Rita finalist and has been listed for the Dublin Literary Award. That was a mouthful, and I don't even think that's the full list. I feel like this bio is very modest. She is also our very, very good friend. I consider her like a sister. We have been friends for a very long time, Sarah, I know you're friends with her. We used to see her quite a bit and I'm just so excited to talk to her today and to hear about her love story and how it influenced the entire trajectory of her life. Please welcome Sonali Dev.

Welcome, Sonali.

Yeah, welcome.

I'm so so excited about this. Thank you for having me. On Sara, I cannot wait.

It has been so long since we've seen you. I'm just so excited to chat with you. And our last

I think my last like signing or anything was with you. I we went on this wild road trip across America from New York Denver.

Yeah. So fun. I still think of that.

I know not to I still think of that. We had a we had chai and Denver.

Thinking exactly that the buck hockey try. And

we were so we were we felt like traitors because like this white lady made this Chai company. It was

good. We're doing good. And yes, we very ginger. It's nice. Yeah. And that's me. My chai is like half ginger half, you know, tea. So

yeah, that's exactly how it should be in my opinion. Yes. Well, let's, let's turn to the personal life. You had an arranged marriage. And I know you've talked about this a lot. And you write about this a lot in your books, which I think is so good. What What made you turn your romantic quest into an arranged quest?

Yes, so complicated history. My family considers itself very progressive and very non traditional in terms of marriage. My grandmother had this medical school romance with my grandfather. They were both doctors and they ran away from home and blahdy blahdy blah. So the last thing anyone in my family expected was for me to do this. I think it had to do with the fact that I sucked at dating. And I had a long, really long starting very young, very intense on again, off again relationship. But it was also where, you know, I knew exactly at 23, I thought I knew exactly what I wanted from life. And this kind of was a nice little tool my culture gave me and I had this whole very romantic and yet very pragmatic approach to it. When I when I went to my mom and said, You know, I think, you know, can you look for, for a husband for me, my mom had an intervention, my mom and my friends, so it was like, I was in drugs. And everyone sat me down and said, Listen, you don't understand, you know, what the whole arranged marriage scene is like, and you were not raised this way. This is not, you know, this, you're not built for this, you're not going to be able to do this, like, you know, things. I was like, Why do I have to do it, like everybody else did it? You know. And so that was extremely naive, because there is a scene. And there is a way that most people approach it. But it turned out that I was able to do it at least 50% to the beat of my own drum. But it was completely unexpected.

And I think what you said about how you did it your way, and I think people don't understand the idea of India's homogenous culture is extremely wrong. And every little thing is just done, the way your family does it, or the way that you do it, nothing is the same. And there's a huge gamut of arranged marriage, you know, it can, from the very worst examples of it to the very most permissive examples of it. And it is important to remember like it is it will be done your way. And it's nice that it can be done your way and that you had a family that allowed you to do it your way.

Yes. And it is not always that of course, there is you know, there's there's both sides to it, like everything traditional the way I think of it, and the way I thought of it, for sure, was that this was, you know, this was a dating website or a dating app, it was match.com. And the algorithm is people who've known you all your life. Yeah, it's your you know, it's your parents and your and your close circle,

something that you wrote, you wrote a piece about your marriage and your search. And the last lines really struck me is just really poignant. He said, you were searching for someone who never felt like a stranger. And who saw permanency as important a quest as romantic as it was pragmatic. And I just think that's so beautiful, because there is romance, like there was obviously for you at least room for romance in this search. And he was your lucky number. 13. Right. Yes, that was the 1313 Theatre to come into your hand. Yeah. Can you tell us about? What did he do right off the bat that you were like, Oh, this is, you know, maybe not romance as as considered, you know, in the traditional sense in, you know, what we've seen in rom coms, like the you bumped into each other, and you dropped your books or whatever, what convinced you about him that he didn't feel like a stranger?

I think that the whole, all of it was the fact that he never felt like a stranger. I believe that's right, we meet people every day, right. And there are just people who feel different. And I think it has to do again with those people see the part of us, you know, that not everyone sees, and whatever that you know, that that magic is, it was there to a point where I literally met him. And it was like, I'd known him all my life without taking away from that new, you know, sparkly feeling, which also was there, there was just because I had friends who were like, Oh my gosh, you're gonna sleep with a guy in seven days, you've just met him, but I'm like, He's not a stranger. Or, you know, how do you tell things to a stranger, but he's not a stranger. So it was just, that's the heart of it. That is the hard part. And I will also say, that has never changed. It wasn't like that happened. And then I suddenly one day thought, oh, my gosh, I don't know this guy at all. And we had to get to know each other. There was none of that there was just this auto comfort. And, you know, I mean, our first act of intimacy was him putting his head on my lap because we were exhausted. And that is not something you like, when you look back. Like that's an incredibly romantic thing. But it isn't something you dream of as a girl. But it is such a beautiful thing because putting your head in someone's lap is this act of you know, it's it's putting yourself in someone's hands for comfort, right and there was so there was just that kind of weird comfort that just he felt like family and he felt like a friend and he said he's also incredibly cute. So that was that was not

I love the story about when he fell asleep right before your wedding right at the barber. Oh

my gosh. Yeah, that's Oh my gosh, yes. So he goes to get a haircut. So first also the seven days where my parents are, and everybody around us is working, you know, like, like Dawn, you know, with salt tied to their back to get pull off this wedding. And so just before the wedding, his family, I think the day before our wedding we're not supposed to meet, and we've been sleep deprived, he's been jet lagged and waking up really early on this whole thing. And he goes to bed, you know, he goes to sleep while he's getting a head massage. Because in India, when you're getting your hair cut, they give you a nice oil massage, and it goes to sleep. And he wakes up and this guy has pretty much taken all his hair off. Yes. And so he calls me I'm at, you know, at at my Hana ceremony with my hands come, you know until a friend holding the phone to my ear. And he says, Are you sure you you know How sure are you that? No matter what I say immediately I'm like, oh, no, what did the barber do? I mean, he says, take a deep breath. But I might be bald. And sure enough, it was. And so um, the reactions were really funny because none of my friends had met him and had friends who are like, Oh my gosh, I'm adding an old man. He has no hair. You know? His his, his aunt cried. This is because she cried because she was like, you know, my handsome nephew. Are you crying?

I've heard the story. So many times, I could hear it 10 more times. It's such a great story. Such a great outcome, you know, such a positive, loving, representation of, you know, sort of the best parts of this culture.

And, and having so much trust in your family and friends, that they can find someone that will resonate on that same frequency with you, you know,

honestly, I don't think it's about trusting family and friends. It is no, no, because Because I mean, you know, family and friends can just put a whole line like, uh, you know, match.com, or whatever. Meeting people in the bar is like a whole bunch of options, right? In the end, I think the trust is yourself, like you being very true. And I think the problem comes when someone says Mary X, and you say, sure, that is the problem. But I think if you're going to do this, as you're going to do anything, you have to really know what you want. And then stay true to that. You know, and I think no matter how you find your spouse, that's that's we all do it right every day. This is my line. And how do I hold without it becoming a battle?

If you could go back to yourself coming out of this on again, off again, relationship that really didn't work if you could go back to heartbroken Sonali, what would you say to her?

You know, I mean, I would say to anyone, it works out. Can you go back and say that, you know, that would not have been a good thing. And that would not have worked out? No, you know, I mean, in the end, if you're the kind of person who makes things work out and really enjoys the process of that, then you have it all, you know, then you have nothing to worry about. And that's exactly and I knew nudists back then. And so, even though, you know, by the time I had made this decision, that heartbroken, Sonali was kind of done with the heartbreak too. So that place of pain had gone away. I was thinking in terms of story ideas the other day, and it's this whole concept that you could have, you know, there were, say, three men I could have ended up with, and my life would have been completely different down these three paths, right. And now, I do have days when I think I could have tried out another life. But I do also have an equal number of days when I'm like, you know, this was exactly the life I wanted. I also got to do, you know, build a whole life from scratch at 23. And it was the wildest, most fun adventure. It was, you know, he was the perfect guy to have it with. And so there was, there was a lot of serendipity. And there was a lot of knowing exactly. You know, what we were looking for and getting really, really lucky, right? Yep.

Thank you so much for this over the best time.

Yeah, this was such a treat. I mean, always a treat to talk to you and to see your face. So where can everyone find you?

Everything is on so gnarly. dave.com But I think I'm most active on Instagram now.

Thank you so much. This was so fun.

This was so fun. It was so good seeing your faces I almost don't want to say bye. Love you. Thanks. Good luck. Love you too. Bye.

Alicia, I loved catching up with Sonali so much. I just have the happiest friendship feelings right now. Before you go on with your day, what is your love to go? What's your takeaway from our conversation?

I loved what Sony said about trusting yourself. And I think that it is widely applicable to anybody who's dating anybody, or even in friendships or you know, any kind of relationship, to trust yourself. You can trust people to maybe bring you some options, but at the end of the day, it's your life. It's your partnership. And the only voices that matter in that are the people in that relationship and people in that partnership. So yeah, Trust yourself, trust your gut, listen to yourself. I think that's the best predictor of a successful relationship at the end of the day. We would love to hear your special story. Send an email to lovestruck daily at frolic dot media if you have a love story to share or any questions or thoughts or love letters for us, please follow us on Instagram or Twitter at lovestruck daily for extra content. And please please please leave a review subscribe, spread the word about the show. Thank you so much for joining us.

Our researcher is Jesse Epstein. Our editor is Jen Jacobs. Our producer is Abigail steckler and little Scorpion studios are behind the scenes Hatcher of plans is Gillian Davis and we are executive produced by frolic media and for goodness sakes just I'm in love with that I'm in love with you. I'm in love with you