Kellie Blizard
In Ekta and Ashish Sharma’s living room, their wedding portrait smiles warmly from the wall, the bride and groom bedecked in traditional Indian wedding garb, looking the very picture of smitten newlyweds – and they still appear just as happy after celebrating their fourth anniversary.
As their rambunctious one-year-old Ayaan playfully runs around their Auckland home, curiously eyeing the unfamiliar people and equipment of our Woman’s Day photo shoot, the Sharmas say they know exactly who to thank for their domestic bliss – their parents.
The couple, both 31, featured in the last season of the reality show Arranged, which follows Kiwi-Indian couples entering into traditional arranged marriages, where parents look for partners for their children through their friends, social networks or hired matchmakers.
With a new season of the docuseries now airing 4pm Saturdays on Three, Ekta – who grew up in the Indian state of Gujarat – explains, “Both of our parents are in arranged marriages. Pretty much everyone we know, this is how it happens, so it was something I was expecting. Ashish and I were always just friends.”
Son Ayaan can marry who he chooses, say his parents.
The future lovebirds met while studying at the Auckland University of Technology, at an orientation event for international students.
“He doesn’t remember me!” laughs Ekta. “There was a big group of about 25 of us who would all hang out together, but we didn’t speak to each other much until I ended up moving next-door to him.
Then we became close.”
While they enjoyed each other’s company, neither of them considered the other to be marriage material. Ekta recalls, “He had a girlfriend at the time – and let’s just say she did not like me!”
“We had cultural differences as well,” adds Ashish, who originally hails from Delhi.
Nodding, Ekta elaborates, “We’re both Hindus, but everything else – clothing, foods, language, etc – is different. My family was adamant about finding somebody who was from the same culture as ours.”
But when Ekta’s mother and father started trying to arrange a match for her, the graphic designer found herself underwhelmed by their suggestions.
“Even though your parents introduce you, you still get time to know each other before an engagement is set in stone,” Ekta explains. “So I was chatting with people they’d suggest, mostly via Skype or text, to figure out if we could get along.
The five-day wedding to Ekta was “crazy”, says groom Ashish.
“The first part of that process is where each person has a résumé and you exchange them with the other family.
My parents would send me the résumés, and Ashish and I started looking over them together.”
“I even chaperoned her on a date she went on with one of the guys!” chuckles Ashish, now a microbiologist who works at Middlemore Hospital.
“By the time I was 26, I hadn’t seen anyone I liked and my parents were freaking out,” Ekta continues. “They’d suggested people from Canada and the States, but I really wanted to stay in New Zealand.
“My mother had met Ashish when I graduated and she really liked him, so I think she had that in the back of her mind, but she never said anything. When finally she suggested him, my reaction was, ‘Yeah, it’s not a bad idea.’ I was cautious because I knew my father was set on getting somebody from the same culture, but he loves Ashish now.”
Ashish remembers, “Her uncle approached me and said, ‘We’re looking for a guy for Ekta. Would you consider it?’ I said, ‘I’m not sure. You’d have to talk to my parents.’ They thought it was a great idea!”
The couple got engaged in 2017, but after knowing each other for eight years, the shift from friends to fiancés had its awkward moments.
“We would usually go out together in our big group of friends,” recalls Ekta. “But when Ashish and I started dating, the first few times, it was like, ‘It’s just us two! What do we do now?’ But being friends,
in the end, it wasn’t really hard for us to transition.”
In January 2018, the couple tied the knot in Ekta’s home state of Gujarat. Ashish remembers, “It was a five-day wedding with 1500 people.It was crazy!”
“We didn’t even know everybody,” adds Ekta. “It was all our family, all our family’s friends, our doctors, our paediatricians… Everybody came to our wedding!”
Despite Ekta’s father’s earlier worries about the differences in culture, the in-laws get on very well, which is the main point, says Ekta.
“The best thing about an arranged marriage is knowing that our families get along with each other. In Indian culture, both the husband and the wife need to get along with each other’s families. It’s not optional.”
Ashish agrees, “We grew up knowing that you have to respect your in-laws – that eases things between the couple too.”
Although their love story didn’t start with romance in the typical Western sense, in their four years of marriage, the affection between Ekta and Ashish has blossomed.
“I love everything about her,” says Ashish shyly. “I’m so proud of what an amazing mother she’s been, as well as an amazing wife and daughter-in-law. We have a great dynamic. We complement each other in every way.”
“It’s not like we never fight – it’s not always rainbows and sunshine,” admits Ekta.
“But we always come back together. I love most just how understanding and supportive he is of every decision that I make.”
This meant a lot to Ekta when, as a new mum, she found herself itching to return to her design work. “Where we both come from, husbands don’t do anything around the house or for the baby – it’s all the mother’s job,” she tells.
“But after three months at home with a newborn, I was getting really restless. I love my job and I really wanted to go back to work, so Ashish took a few months off so I could do that.”
For Ashish, this made perfect sense. He explains, “It’s high time for men to start helping women with children – not just providing for the family, but being there for them as well – even if they come from a culture where there’s distinct roles for men and women.
“If you work together, it’s a much more beautiful life than just doing your own thing.
“Being a father has taught me a lot. I learned so much from Ayaan through being home with him until he was six months. It was amazing to get to experience the love that you feel from that.”
Though he and Ekta couldn’t be happier with how their family has turned out, Ashish says he wouldn’t insist on an arranged marriage for Ayaan when he’s older.
“It’s really important to get to know your potential partner, but it’s really important to honour your culture too,” he enthuses. “There’s good and bad in both kinds of marriages, and I’m sure when he grows up, he’ll know whether an arranged marriage is best for him.”
Smiling, Ashish adds, “It’s definitely worked out for us!”
The new six-part series of Arranged screens 4pm Saturdays on Three and streams on ThreeNow.
