Admin: Indeed. The interesting fact in all this is the rise in the number of men seeking help at specialist units set up for just such problems. Approximately 65% more calls were made to the FMU (Forced Marriage Unit) this year than the previous. The young men are often forced into marriage because their family suspect or know that they are homosexual.

Doyle: That means the family’s honour is at stake which is an extremely important aspect of many South Asian societies. So much so, that many would prefer their children to be killed than reveal a secret that we in the West would barely bat an eyelid to.

Dijkstra: I guess this is a big issue and rallying point amongst British lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people?

Admin: No.

Read more: Specialist unit reports more male forced marriages. (BBC)

Jhumki sighed as her mother read out these details of a prospective husband from a matrimonial advertisement. Ever since she had finished her graduation or rather even before that, her entire extended family had only one thing on their mind. A groom for Jhumki!

It was only her parents to start with then bit by bit her grandparents joined in followed by her uncles and aunts, then came the neighbours and now it seemed the whole of India was actively looking for a prospective groom!!

In her mind she could see a vivid picture of the news channels, billboards and radio broadcasting that “Jhumki was eligible for marriage”

Her reverie was broken with her mum asking her what she thought of the aforementioned boy. She replied “uh-huh” and went off to the garden to have sometime to herself. Sitting in the garden she blamed the British for all her current problems. She wished she was born in an India of pre-British era. Thinking of this she dozed off in the garden chair.

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Birds silhouetted against a setting sun, and two lovers underneath the peepal tree!! On a closer look it is Jhumki!! She looks quite different dressed seductively in a saree.

Jhumki, ” My dear let’s get married soon. I can’t bear to spend much time away from you”

Boy,“I wish, but, my parents won’t accept you. My parents are up-righteous and wouldn’t accept a girl from out of our caste.”

Jhumki, “but but…we still can, of course not the prajapati vivah (marriage) but the gandharva vivah (a live-in relationship not requiring consent of parents and considered legally the same as marriage). we can do the gandharva vivah!”

A loud boom woke her up from her day-dreams. A cat had jumped on a flower pot upsetting it and shattering her dreams.

“Yeah! blame the Brits!! they had to come n conquer us, put restrictions on our dressing, our cultures and then go back to their nation. yeah you got your live-in relationships and you leave us stuck here with not even a love marriage but arranged marriages!! Sheesh!”

Then and there Jhumki made a promise to herself I will have a love marriage and to a guy I want to marry not a arranged marriage. “And Oh!! If I find a Brit, I shall give him a piece of my mind”

This is a guest post by Shailee.