"It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife" wrote Jane Austen in Pride And Prejudice more than two centuries ago. Yes, there have been tomes written on the institution on marriage, the exciting search for a suitable groom, the matchmaking games and, of course, the everlasting love sagas. Anita Jain in Marrying Anita, A Quest for Love In The New India has only added to it.
The books starts off in New York, where Jain's friend is trying to play the matchmaker introducing her to single, eligible, bachelors. Jain earnestly wants to get married or "settle down" in the language of a bachelor. Her supportive parents are also constantly involved in futile match making events — either Jain rejects them or the prospective groom rejects Jain for reasons justified by both parties.
When nothing works, she decides to find a groom the Indian way -- through an arranged marriage. And so she lands in India, lives with her friend and her husband for a while and moves out to a rented apartment in South Delhi. It seems as if she almost goes out of the way in justifying her decision to come to India. She logs on to the Indian matrimonial websites, hangs out with friends and goes pub hopping with a two-point agenda -- to discover India and bump into a prospective husband.
While the latter remains an unachievable target, her discover India expedition does fill up pages – say, at least 50 per cent of the 320 pages. To Jain's mind, India is still the snake charmer's paradise -- the clichéd view of India which is shown in most of the shows written by travel writers in the West. But once she lands here, she is overawed by what she sees, be it the evenings she spends at the pubs, the lifestyles of people whom she gets acquainted with, or even the fact that people prefer English music over Bollywood trash. And every time she experiences something outside her set image of Indian society, Jain goes on lecturing the readers about what liberalisation has meant to India and how globalisation has affected the masses here.
What Jain has successfully captured vividly in the book is the plight of an unmarried girl in India and the way society treats her. There are several experiences that Jain encounters, which not only reflect the pseudo boundaries society builds but also reveal the entrapment of an urban woman trying to battle between decisions made by her educated mind and obligations expected of her. Be it her hunt for an apartment, where landlords refuse to rent it out to single, Indian woman or meeting her cousins in their respective 'sasural', who tend to seek permission for every minor decisions, or even her encounters with 'broad-minded' men seeking conventional brides on matrimonial sites.
Another interesting bit about the book is that Jain knows exactly the dose of humour and sarcasm to be added at the right time. Being a journalist, she not only plays on words but also writes the book like a true journalist — with accuracy in details. With so much detailing about her adventures in Delhi and mingling with the crowd here with clichéd awe, Marrying Anita perhaps should have had the tagline 'A Quest For Love In New Delhi'. Because if she had even stepped into the hinterland or even towns outside Delhi, Jain would have known that India still has a long way to get to what Jain experienced in Delhi.
Marrying Anita is as interesting to an Indian as writing about the concept of speed dating to an NY audience. As a blog, this series of expeditions in her life may have worked well, but somehow, on printed paper people may be willing to accept as much reality as Jain jots down in her memoir -- but with a pinch of salt!
Book Reviews 
"It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife" wrote Jane Austen in Pride And Prejudice more than two centuries ago. Yes, there have been tomes written on the institution on marriage, the exciting search for a suitable groom, the matchmaking games and, of course, the everlasting love sagas. Anita Jain in Marrying Anita, A Quest for Love In The New India has only added to it. 
