Multicultural matrimony

June 28, 2010 No Comments

Couple’s union represents a growing trend across the country

by Angela Lindsay Hilst

photos by

On May 16, 2009, a wedding reception took place at the Mint Museum of Craft + Design. An unusual idea? No. A unique event? Definitely.

Raised in Chandigarh, India, Vatsla Kohli Watkins, 31, and her husband, Curtis, 32, a Charlotte native, celebrated their union with a mix of Indian and American cultures. The wedding was a conservative Christian church ceremony. Afterward, however, the couple decided to “spice it up a little” and make it more memorable.

The reception took on an Indian flair, from the food to the favors. They traded in their traditional wedding attire for Indian garb, including a dress that Vatsla flew all the way to India to pick out. Her hands were also painted with an Indian henna design. Guests enjoyed a buffet of chicken tikka masala, rice pulao, saag paneer and naan bread; DJs played a mix of Indian and popular songs; and the couple performed moves from a Bhangra dance. The result was an event every bit as interesting as how they met.
Love at first click
Tired of meeting the wrong men, Vatsla, a software engineer at IBM turned to the dating Web site Match.com. She was encouraged to try the site after one of her friends remarked that the chances of Vatsla finding the kind of guy she was looking for in Charlotte were “one in a billion.”

“At one point, I think I just got frustrated, and I said if I have to go on 100 dates, I will!” she recalls.

Luckily, she didn’t have to. She found her match. In Charlotte. On just her eighth date.

Curtis, a senior project manager in Duke Energy’s Global Technology Group, says he chose Match.com after growing weary of the uptown club scene. After going on a few “weird,” “odd” and interesting” dates, he says he had memories of Vatsla from the moment he saw her sitting in the restaurant. It led to an intercultural marriage filled with everyday celebrations and revelations. According to the Census Bureau, 310,000 interracial marriages were registered by 1970. By 2000, that number had ballooned to more than 3 million.
Guess who’s coming to dinner
Vatsla says she “(doesn’t) believe in the word race.”

“I never see people as white or black,” she remarks. “I just see them as human.”

Says Curtis, “I always find it kind of odd because I never really considered the race aspect of it. I always just looked at Vatsla, and’ it “didn’t even really strike us until maybe a year into our relationship that we were in an interracial relationship.”

Fortunately for them, their families felt the same way.

Vatsla says her parents were “exceedingly” happy that she had finally found someone since women in her culture tend marry very early. To them, it didn’t matter that he was not Indian, and Curtis’ family was already familiar with interracial marriage.

“Being that my grandparents were a mixed culture marriage — my grandmother being Spanish and my grandfather being from America — they were OK with that,” he shares.

However, He began to notice questionable reactions from strangers as well.

“In situations where, frankly, a white male is usually not given a hard time about something, I started getting hard times with these things. I was like, ‘What’s wrong with these people?’” Curtis says.

The couple recalls an incident where they went to a local luxury car dealership to have Vatsla’s car serviced. Unlike the past, this time the couple went to the dealership together and, whereas there was no issue getting a loaner previously, Vatsla says they were denied and given a rental car instead.

“The lady got really ugly and called her manager who was also very rude. When asked why we were being denied a loaner, I was told that I had “bad loaner history”, which was not true, and that struck us as very odd,” explains Vatsla.

She says she was also questioned her ability to drive when she, in fact, had a valid NC license and had been getting loaners for the last few years. She further divulges that the manager eventually asked her and Curtis to leave the dealership.

The two soon concluded that reactions such as this were probably due to them being an interracial couple. Such behavior was “shocking” and “hurtful” at first, according to Vatsla.

“I think the fact that we don’t see each other as really different really helps because it doesn’t matter to us. We’re just human,” she states.

A spiritual connection

Another bond that is beyond skin deep has also provided the glue to their relationship.

Curtis, a product of Catholic schooling and “a very strong Christian mother,” admits there was a point in his life when he had gotten away from the church. Conversely, Vatsla was raised in a Hindu household. She has, however, been a Christian for two years, and they both now attend Grace Covenant, a nondenominational, Bible-based church.

“It wasn’t something we decided together, or it wasn’t something we did because we were getting married,” Vatsla explains about their spiritual paths. “We both had our own journey . . .”

Though they “danced around” the topic at first, the couple still discussed spirituality relatively early in their relationship.

“I had no idea, and I had assumed that maybe she was Hindu or something. I didn’t really know. I never asked and she didn’t say. At some point, we decided we needed to have this conversation if our relationship was going to go further . . .” says Curtis.

They decided to start exploring their spiritual beliefs at the same time, knowing that they might end up in different places — a “scary” prospect for them. A year later, both had found their way to Christianity.

“I actually became a stronger Christian by meeting a woman who was not a Christian at all,” Curtis acknowledges.

“I think for us, it’s really important to have the same faith because I don’t know how we would raise kids if I was Muslim or Hindu and he was Christian and we both strongly believed in our religions. I think it would be a big conflict,” Vatsla adds.

The Watkinses say they will teach their children what they believe as far as religion and expose them to Vatsla’s Indian culture as well.

“The food, the festivals, the clothes, the music, the movies, all that stuff, they’re definitely going to be multicultural,” she confirms.

Vatsla and Curtis say they have learned to appreciate even the simple things in each other. For Curtis, it was greater exposure to Indian food, which he now loves but was something he says he likely would not have eaten regularly. As sports are not a big deal in India, Vatsla has gained an appreciation for football and basketball. She has also absorbed an important American tenet: patriotism.

Curtis’ grandfather fought in World War II, and Vatsla says she notices that Curtis gets very upset when people make anti-American comments. She credits his loyalty to the country as her influence.

“I have (American patriotism) more now than I’ve ever had before!” she says.

Referring to their circle of friends as “The United Nations,” the Watkinses feel they are a “microcosm of the entire population to some extent.”

“We don’t see the borders between race, and we don’t ever look at anybody and look down upon them because they are a certain race, or a certain class or a certain background,” Curtis says.

While she feels that people tend to marry those of the same culture, Vatsla thinks that intercultural unions provide “twice as many things to celebrate.” And she offers another possible outcome:

“If people keep intermarrying, there will be no such thing as a race.”

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