Two years ago Lauren was living in the south of England. She now lives in Nagpur in central India together with her Indian husband while she is trying to adjust to life as a traditional Indian wife. Here's her story.
Self-study activity:
Watch the video and answer the questions below.
1. What was Lauren's job?
2. What did Lauren find strange when she moved to India?
3. Where did she meet her husband?
4. What feeling did both Lauren and her husband have when they first started to chat online?
5. How long did they spend together the first time they saw each other face to face?
6. When did Lauren move to India?
7. When do Indian women wear a sari?
8. What have Lauren's in-laws learnt to give her?
9. What does Lauren say about destiny at the end?
My name is Lauren Mokasdar, and I grew up in the south of England. I found love online, so I gave up my career to become a pharmacist, and I moved to central India to get married to the love of my life. I now live in a small apartment with my husband and my in-laws.
When I first came here it was quite stressful, because everyone was staring at me, and I was so busy. There were stray dogs everywhere, even cows, and it was just quite strange, it’s definitely not anything like Sainsbury, what I’m used to, though very different, I’ve got used to it now.
I joined a vegetarian forum online, and within minutes, a stranger started talking to me, and I won’t usually reply to strangers, but on this occasion, I did.
I was working in New Jersey at that time, and then I joined a vegetarian forum, and then I saw that one day Lauren was online, and so I pinged her, and then we started chatting online.
And I started to think I must have known this person in a past life and just as this thought across my mind, the words came up on the screen, ‘I think we knew each other in past lives’.
About six days from that day, I told her that I loved her.
In two months, he had flown from the U.S., where he was studying his master,s to London to meet me.
And when we saw each other, we were like almost crying because it was just too ecstatic.
And we spent an amazing ten hours. We went on the London underground to central London. And I showed him Big Ben, and the Thames, and the London Eye. And it was so beautiful because it was night time and no one was there. It was just very romantic.
Lauren booked her tickets for Nagpur, and she came here in the month of June, and immediately when she came here, in a pair of few days, we went off to my hometown in Arabi and there we got married in a temple that I used to visit very often when I was a kid.
I’ve chosen to become a traditional Indian bride, so instead of wearing a wedding ring, I now wear a red pattern called sindoor in the parting of my hair, and a necklace called mangle sutra. I’ve also had to learn how to drape my own sari. In my family, it’s traditional for the women to wear sari during festivals, and in many of the festivals, I get a new sari.
One of the things I’ve had to learn is how to make roti. I’m not very good at it, but I’ve been trying my hardest, it’s a lot harder than it looks.
There was a communication gap between us, if I wanted to tell her something, there used to be some misunderstanding which created a lot of problems, but now we just giggle a lot. She comes from a different culture, and we’ve had to learn to give her space and privacy.
When I first came to India, I really wanted to visit a temple, because I saw them everywhere and they are so beautiful, but I was really nervous that I would offend someone and I didn’t know the etiquette of how you visit a temple. And since going to temple while my husband is at work, I’ve gained so much solace and it’s really given me strength, and put me in touch with my spirituality and really helped me cope with all the struggles since we moved to India.
I genuinely believe that if my husband and I hadn’t connected on that vegetarian forum that our paths would have crossed somewhere, somehow, some place. It was just a matter of time because I really believe that it’s destiny that we are together.
Key:
1. a pharmacist
2. (stray) dogs and cows everywhere
3. on a vegetarian forum
4. that they had known each other in past lives
5. ten hours
6. in June
7. in festivals
8. space and privacy
9. Lauren and her husband were destined to be together
