Bali Rai: (un)arranged marriage

Summary:

Bali Rai: (un)arranged marriage


Prologue

The Prologue is about Manny’s thoughts a short time before his wedding.

Manny is at the toilettes in the motorway service station at Leicaster Forest East. His family makes a stop here on their way to Manny’s wedding. Manny uses the time that he has on his own to think about what happened in the last years and about his plan to crash his own wedding.


Part one

The Novel “(un)arranged marriage” is written by Bali Rai and was published in 2007.
The first part introduces the main character of the book Manny and his life.

The part starts with a conflict between Manny and his older brother Ranjit. This conflict is caused by a different point of view concerning culture and traditions. Manny and his Family are Punjabis living in Britain but in contrast to his family Manny does not feel very Punjabi and behaves like a native British. This difference causes very much problems for Manny and he has no easy life in his family. In part one we also get to know Manny’s best friend Ady and a girl called Lisa. During part one Manny gets to know Lisa and they start a relationship. Ady and Lisa are very important to Manny because they give him the chance to escape from the problems at home for a while and to talk about these problems.
The part ends with Manny’s cousin Ekbal telling Manny about the problem of an arranged marriage that Manny has to face soon. Manny decides to avoid this marriage with all his might.


Part two

The second part of the novel is about Manny living out his rebellious side following his plan to make himself as unsuitable as possible.

Manny decided to make himself unsuitable for possible in-law-families by behaving bad.
The other effect of his rebellious and even criminal behaviour is that it causes many other problems. He gets in conflict with the police because of shoplifting, in school his grades become worse and his girlfriend is not happy about his behaviour as well.
Nevertheless they are still very happy in their relationship and even experience their first time.
The situation changes after Manny got expelled from school because of being drunk in school. After a long time of being arrested at home and not having any contact to Lisa she decided to quit their relationship. The final measure of Manny’s parents to lead him back on the right way is to let him experience India for a longer time. Of course Manny does not agree to this therapy but Ranjit’s girlfriend can convince him to go to India for an eight weeks relaxing holiday. What he does not know yet is that his parents have not planned to take him back to Britain after these eight weeks.


Part three

The second part is about Manny’s stay in India and the time after his family left him alone in India.

The arrival is a big shock for Manny. Till this time he could not imagine what the poverty in India is like and in which conditions the people live.
When he arrives in Adumpur, the village his family lives in, Manny meets the part of his family living in India and the lower caste family working for them for the first time. His 8 weeks stay in India he spends with helping at the farm work in the mornings and chilling with his cousin Inderjit the rest of the day.
One day his uncle Gurvinder decides to go on an outing with Manny and Inderjit.
It is the first time Manny does something outside of Adumpur.
When he arrives back he realizes that his family left him alone in India hoping he will change his rebellious behaviour here.
Fortunately he gets to know his uncle Jag who had the same problems as Manny when he was young and understand Manny’s situation very well.
With help of Mohan the father of the lower caste family living with Manny’s family they create a plan that Manny can escape and go back to Britain.
The plan works very well but when he arrived back at his family’s home in Britain he has to face new problems with his family.


Part four

Part four is about Manny’s plan to avoid his wedding and to escape from his family.

Back home from India Manny starts to work in a supermarket to earn some money and to spend his time away from his family. He also meets Ady and Lisa again.
Together with Ady Manny works on a plan to avoid his wedding and to take revenge on his family.
At home he acts like he had become a good Punjabi man and he follows all traditions that belong to an Indian wedding. In the meantime he already brings all his important things to Ady’s brother where he plans to stay after he had left his family.
Than, at the day of his wedding, he leaves the Punjabi temple, where the wedding should take place, and runs down the street where Ady picks him up with a car and he can escape.


Now (Epilogue)

The epilogue “Now” is about Manny’s and his friend’s life after he escaped from his family.

It is two years ago since the day he crashed his wedding and escaped from his family and he does not regret anything.
Manny lives now in Lisa’s room at her parents’ home but they are not together anymore. Lisa takes a year off and travels around the Far East.
He has a new girlfriend called Jenny. They are into a lot of the same things and Manny likes her very much.
Manny still works at the supermarket and waits to retake his GCSEs.
To his family he has no contact anymore. They ignore Manny and pretend that he has never existed but nevertheless he is a bit afraid of them trying to make him go back.
Ady still lives at his brother’s home with Sarah and Zac and still works with Manny at the supermarket while Sarah is studying to be a nurse.