Title : The Marriage Bureau for Rich People
Author : Farahad Zama
Pages : 291
Publisher : Amy Einhorn Books (G.P. Putnam’s Sons)
Rating : 3.5/5

Farahad Zama’s debut novel, “The Marriage Burueau for rich people” is a simple story, set in coastal Andhra Pradesh. I was drawn to it by comparisons of it to the “The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency” books, and Jane Austen’s works. Unfortunately while neither of those claims stand (very) tall, this is still an entertaining read.

The story, told with a minimum of fuss and lots of detail, is centered around a Marriage Bureau and the people who run it. Mr. Hyder Ali, a retired government clerk, decides to open up a Marriage Bureau. As the business thrives, Mr. Ali hires an assistant, Aruna, a poor but well-educated girl. As the two go about sorting through client’s wants and problems regarding potential matches, Aruna must resolve a problem of her own . . .

Zama creates sympathetic, well-etched characters in his book. Mr. Ali is retired, and now he’s at home, “disturbing his wife’s routine” (so says his wife). Both Mr. and Mrs. Ali are good, middle-class people, helpful and kind. While Mr. Ali goes about finding potential life-partners for the rest of the world, he frets about his own social worker son, who has devoted his life to advocating on behalf of the poor and repressed. Aruna is a mild-mannered, dutiful girl, very conscious of societal proprieties, and the author manages to give us a feel for what’s going on in her head, when she must step out of her self-prescribed bounds.

As for comparisons with Jane Austen’s works, there aren’t any, except for the fact that this book is about match-making, and Mrs. Bennett excelled at it. It is a little galling, from the feminist point of view, that modern day Indian films and books (Bride and Prejudice, A suitable boy, A marriage bureau for rich people), can still be inspired from a “historical” romance, wherein the only objective and occupation of people in above said dramas is matrimony. Not that it in itself is a bad thing, but the fixation of “marriage” as being the resounding (and only ?) answer to all female problems, is detrimental to the health of most girls.

Mr. and Mrs. Ali are older folk, who have seen the world and are wiser for it. Through the interactions between them, Mr. Ali’s clients, and Aruna and her family, we get to see different points of view, interspersed with home-spun morality and advice :

“What stories you tell,” said Mrs. Ali, laughing for the first time since the day before. “How can you compare human beings and animals? It doesn’t make sense.”


Mr. Ali shook his head and said, “It is true, though. Many men think that their daughters will only be happy if their son-in-law is a rich officer or a software engineer in California. That’s not necessarily true. You need a man with a good character who will respect his wife. If you have that, any woman will be happy, even if money is tight.”

The author also brings out the caste and class-ridden culture, and the plight of folks in difficult financial binds. I thoroughly enjoyed the variety of people in this story – rich, poor, beautiful, plain, boorish, sensible, haughty and greedy – the marriage bureau being the perfect place to meet all of them. Plus it was interesting getting a look-see into the marriage market :

Mr. Venkat’s demands for his son’s bride were not many, thought Mr. Ali ruefully. She had to be fair, slim, tall, educated but not a career-minded girl. Her family had to be wealthy, ideally landowners, and from the same caste as Mr. Venkat. If they were from the same city, that was even better. They had to be willing to pay a large dowry, commensurate with his own family’s wealth and son’s earning capacity. Mr. Ali wrote it all down.

Now, Mr. Zama is not a word-smith, and I say this kindly. His words are simple and to the point, which gives this book a modest beauty. While he describes events and actions in the book in great detail, this isn’t lush, lyrical prose which will sweep you off your feet. In fact, sometimes the details feel dry, because he is just chronicling steps, one by one. Here’s an example :

Aruna’s mother lit the second ring of the gas burner and put an aluminum pan on it. She poured a couple of tablespoons of oil into it. When the oil was hot enough, she took out an old, round wooden container. She slid the lid open on its hinges. Inside there were eight compartments, each holding a different spice. She took a pinch of mustard seeds and put them in the oil. When they started popping, Aruna’s mother dropped cloves, cardamom pods, and a cinnamon stick into the hot oil. She added a small plate of chopped onions to the pan. The lovely smell of frying onions filtered through the kitchen and the rest of the house.


Aruna finished cutting and joined her mother at the burner. When the onions were brown, she lifted the brinjals, letting the water drain out of her fingers, and added them to the pan; they sizzled loudly. Once, they had all been added, her mother stirred the vegetables around. Aruna got an old Horlicks bottle holding chili powder out of the cupboard. She took out a spoonful of the dark red powder and mixed it into the onions and brinjals.

For someone like me, familiar with the city and it’s locales, and much of the local customs (and cooking), it was at times exasperating to read in painstaking detail about “country liquor”, or of making “pulihora”, or brinjal (egg-plant). But it is a minor quibble.

Most of the language used by the author is simple and straightforward, pretty much what-you-see-is-what-you-get; there is not much scope for reading between the lines, or subjective interpretation. I will say that there are few books which can employ such a writing style and still work, as this one does. This book also works because it is strong on content and it’s characters are well thought out and exude “goodness” (and not in an annoying way).

There are a couple of oddities in the book – for one, why is an Andhra-ite bride wearing a red sari ? Don’t they wear cream (off-white) ones during the ceremony ? And also this :

On Friday, about a month later, Aruna arrived home and went into the kitchen as usual to help her mother. She started chopping up ladies’ fingers – okra – into little rings.

The lady’s finger (or is it lady finger ?) appears to have been pluralized to ladies’ fingers. If okra remains okra, then why does lady’s finger turn into ladies’ fingers ? Grisly humor (one can just imagine Aruna chopping them up on her cutting board), or just plain typo ?

All in all, a nice, light read – recommended.

P.S. : I can totally see this as a Hindi film, a la Katha.