Farahad Zama: The Marriage Bureau For Rich People

[Bjorn]

Mr Ali, a retired Indian civil servant, quickly becomes bored with not having anything to do and not being able to convince his son to give up his political rabble-rousing. So he decides to set up a marriage bureau to help both muslims, hindus and christians arrange their marriages. Since he's very good at what he does (apparently, all you really need to do is advertise), he soon has more business than he can handle on his own and hires Aruna, a young unwed hindu woman, to be his assistant. Aruna's family is too poor to be able to marry her off, which seems to doom her to eternal spinsterhood, but then a rich young doctor walks in looking for a wife, and...

...You know where this is heading. Really, you do. The Marriage Bureau For Rich People is a quick, easy, sympathetic read, but also painfully predictable and clichéd. Its main selling point seems to be exotism; Zama spends pages at a time describing how someone ties a sari, how to cook binyari, excursions to picturesque temples, etc etc etc, all seemingly aimed at a reader who's never set foot in India.

Which is a pity, because there's some interesting stuff in here. The conflicts between traditional arranged marriage and encroaching Western values, between religions and castes, between globalisation and the good of the people, between men and women, between generations... it's all in the book somewhere, and at times I start suspecting that Zama is really going to sneak in some harsh questions under all the fluff. But time and again, it's all resolved by having Ali or Aruna or any of all the other oh-so-very-nice-and-wise characters say "compromise" a few more times. None of the alleged compromises really require anyone to give anything up or do anything except, well, say the word "compromise". Everything's resolved by all the characters realising that any perceived conflict really doesn't exist at all and that problems are all immediately solved by seeing the other person's side. Which is an admirable position, but he makes it far too easy for himself, especially when all that's left once the problems have all been proven to not exist in the first place is 260 pages of equal parts Visit India! and detailed descriptions of office work.

The Marriage Bureau For Rich People is desperately, unblinkingly feel-good. You'll breeze through it in a couple of hours, you'll think the characters are nice, India sounds nice, a curry would be nice, and all is well with the world, which is nice. Then you'll forget it.