There's a lesson to be learnt as Hyderabad's Sania Mirza readies to exchange vows with Karachi's Shoaib Malik.
After the media frenzy over the wedding of the poster girl of Indian tennis dies down, someone will figure out that the couple will be based in Dubai, where, presumably, they will be away from the pressures of blowhot, blow-cold India- Pakistan relations.
And perhaps, no one will ask Mirza which side she supports during an India-Pakistan cricket match - that is only a milder instrument of the pressure ordinary citizens who chose to marry across the border have to contend with.
Acclaimed author Amitava Kumar, who teaches English at Vassar College in the US, had to write a book about his experience of marrying Pakistani national, Mona Ahmad Ali.
The author of Evidence of Suspicion , which exposes the dark side of the war on terror, wrote Husband of a Fanatic in 2004, after he married Ali in 1999, when the Kargil War was raging. Kumar, who was born in Arrah, Bihar, was even blacklisted by a Hindutva group for positions he took on contentious issues in the Indian media. In an e-mail interview, he says, "The Hindutva man who had put me on the blacklist had a special anger against Muslim celebrities marrying Hindu women - he mentioned Aamir Khan and Shah Rukh Khan." Kumar and Ali continue to live in New York, away from the countries of their origin. "The border between the US and Mexico holds far more meaning here than the border that divides India from Pakistan," says Kumar. "We don't have to live with the day-to-day pressure of questions and mutual suspicion," he adds.
Delhi-based hotelier and restaurateur Saeed Sherwani, who married Farida in 1986 in Lahore, says the key to a happy cross- border marriage is to be immune to this pressure. "You'll see a great deal of Pakistanbashing in the Indian media and vice-versa. But you have to be thick- skinned and not let it affect you. Marriage is hard enough, anyway," he says.
Sherwani says the troubles begin when they have to get a visa for Farida to travel to Lahore to see her parents (Farida did not apply for an Indian passport because she has property in Lahore), yet he makes a case for north Indians marrying across the border.
"There is a great deal of cultural affinity between north Indians and Pakistanis. Culturally, I have more in common with a Pakistani Muslim than a south Indian Muslim," he says.
Artist Sumedh Rajendran, who married Masooma, a fellow artist from Lahore, in 2008, flitted from one art camp to another - in Sri Lanka, London and New York - to avoid diplomatic hurdles.
The two courted for five years after meeting at a residency programme organised by the Triangle Arts Trust in Delhi.
The couple is now based in Delhi. Rajendran points out that no cultural boundaries ostensibly exist for artists, "but in reality we still have to go through some painful processes. Lower officers in the government often behave harshly with us, though the intelligentsia and other artists are always very supportive."
He recalls the times his wife had to come to India via Dubai because no direct flights were available between the two nations. But the situation on the ground, he says, has changed for the better, especially for artists like him who cannot afford to shift their studios elsewhere.
"Sania and Shoaib are not bound to a place," he says.
"They can live in Dubai and continue to play for their countries." Unlike Rajendran, who could not shift his studio, graphic novelist Sarnath Banerjee was certain he did not want to stay away from the country. Banerjee, who married video artist Bani Abidi from Karachi, had an inter-continental romance. The two had met in Delhi in 2001 after which Abidi moved to Chicago and Banerjee went to England. The two came closer in Spain before getting married in 2006 in London.
It was when the two decided to come back home from Germany, that their life started getting complicated. "You have to eke out a life," says Banerjee of their existence, where Abidi has to shuttle between the two countries.
"The temptation to leave India is great, but our work is very central to our context," he adds.
Banerjee says the problem stems from the fact that most people on our side of the border have no exposure to the middle class in Pakistan. "We grew up with Nazia Hassan and everyone was in love with her," he says.
"Suddenly, the unifiers were gone and the relationship between the two nations turned hostile. Luckily, we haven't been affected by the tension, but then, who knows what will happen?" It is this dark shadow that keeps lurking in the background of cross-border romances, but the lovebirds don't let these shadowlines cross their emotions.
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