Forbidden love

Life is not easy in northern India. Sukwinder Singh, known by his nickname "Mithu," spent his whole life there. And it was in northern India, in 1995, that he first met Jassi who was visiting with her family. It was a chance meeting that would alter the course of both their lives.

Mithu Singh: I liked her very much and I was certain right then that I wouldn’t be able to live without her.

For Mithu, just 18 at the time, the dream of marriage to 19-year-old Jassi and a life together in north America would have been like winning-the-lottery. In their hearts, it may have been a match made-in-heaven. But in the minds of Jassi’s family it was a union that defied everything they believed in.

Mithu: I had no idea that her family would be so opposed to our being together, I had absolutely no idea that all this would happen to us.

But in a traditional Sikh family, that opposition was completely understandable. Jassi was well-educated from an affluent home in Canada and Mithu made a meager living, as a rickshaw driver in India.

Vijay Singhera, Sikh living in Vancouver: They would look upon it as, “Why would you wanna do that?”

Bob McKeown, correspondent: He was really “Mister Wrong” in a number of ways, wasn’t he? He was below her economically.

Singhera: Uh huh…

McKeown: He was not someone her mother and uncle had even met, let alone, approved of.

Singhera: If he had a good job, the parents would look at it and say, “Okay, she’s in love with somebody who in the future will give something to my daughter.”

McKeown: Uh… hmm…

Singhera: He didn’t have much to offer.

When Jassi returned to Canada after they first met, letters from Mithu followed. Not to her home, but to Deb Devos’ beauty school.

McKeown: She made it clear that she couldn’t keep these letters at home?

Deb Devos, Jassi's former teacher: No, she couldn’t because they would find out the relationship between her and this young man… the consequences would be too great.

That relationship, like those letters, would continue for the next few years, until Mithu and Jassi were in their mid-20s. Despite the 7,000 miles between them, though they came from two separate worlds, those differences only seemed to draw them closer together.

In 1999, they made plans to marry, though Jassi surely knew it was not the arranged marriage her family had in mind.

Devos: They had brought her several different prospects. I guess the uncle was getting quite impatient because, of course, she was saying, “No” to all of them. And then finally he made an arrangement for this man that was in his 60s that was going to marry Jassi. And Jassi was adamant that she wouldn’t marry him.

Torn between the pressure from her family to marry and the desire to lead a life of her own, Jassi came up with a plan.  She convinced her mother to bring her to India, in fact, to the state called the Punjab where her mom had grown up. She explained it might help her in choosing a husband, but there’s something else she didn’t tell her mother.

McKeown: So was that just a scheme on her part.

Nicole, friend: Kind of scheme on her part to get… 

McKeown: To delay the arranged marriage here, and to get back to India to see him?

Nicole: To see him, to be with him and then I guess to decide to be married.

McKeown: And that’s when they were actually married in secret.

Nicole: Right.

In March 2000, Jassi and Mithu managed to slip away and secretly marry in local a Sikh temple. The only witnesses were two friends.

Their honeymoon was a few days together in the Punjabi countryside, before she had to return to Canada. For the time being, at least, the clandestine marriage had to remain a secret.

And with good reason. She was now on a collision course with hundreds of years of tradition—modern versus ancient; young versus old, east versus west. In a community where tradition is so important, her family was more conservative than most. By marrying Mithu, she had dishonored them.

Singhera: The women are the honor, because she is the one who goes to the other family... So, you’re always carrying somebody’s honor.

And Vijay Singherra should know. When she was Jassi’s age, she married the man her parents chose for her. They divorced two years later.

McKeown: What would have happened in the family if you had met and fallen in love with somebody, your parents didn’t approve of for whatever reason?

Singhera: What they worry about is what people are gonna say about you. And they’re gonna say, “Well, she wasn’t under her parent’s control.” And that puts dishonor on the parent’s role.

Back in Canada, Jassi told her friends that’s exactly why she had to keep her family from finding out about her marriage to Mithu.

Nicole: They’d write letters to each other and secret phone calls and things and nobody was allowed to know; her family couldn’t find out because she knew it was wrong. She knew it was very wrong.

But her letters to Mithu reveal that the girl who’d never had a date, let alone a boyfriend ... wasn’t about to give up the first man she’d ever loved.

“...I can’t wait till we’re together ... I miss you very much. I keep on thinking about the days I spent with you ... I cannot take you out of my mind for even a second.”

Jassi began making arrangements for Mithu to join her in Canada. She was also sending him money. That is, until relatives back in India discovered their secret, and told Jassi’s family.

A secret discovered
When word reached the compound that Jassi had been married, her family was furious. Their response was sudden and severe. They put her under house arrest. Unable to see or even talk to her friends, she was effectively cut off from the rest of the world, while her mother and uncle decided what they’d do next.

For Jassi, life inside the family compound went from bad to worse.

Belinda, friend: Her whole family was in the living room and they were all yelling at her, pointing their finger at her, telling her why she shouldn’t do this and she’s ruining her life.

McKeown:  And what did they want her to do?

Belinda: They offered her money, they just said, “Divorce him, leave him, just forget about him.”

But Jassi refused to give in. Though she knew how strongly her family felt, somehow she convinced herself her that marriage to Mithu could still have a happy ending, if only she could find a way to get him to Canada.

Tamara, friend: I said that they could stay at my place until they get a little apartment somewhere.

McKeown: Yeah, they were gonna live happily ever after?

Tamara: They were gonna just live happily ever after and they would be in Canada and everything would be fine. And yes, Jassi knew that her family would disown her, but in time they would come to see the light and eventually accept the two of them.

So could love conquer all? It seemed like a naive notion, but in fact, Jassi’s uncle did seem to undergo a dramatic change-of-heart. According to her friends, he indicated he would help Mithu emigrate to Canada.

He had her sign papers— a notarized statement written in Punjabi, a language she couldn’t read or write, and with that document in hand, her uncle Surgit left for India, promising, friends say, everything would be fine.

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