Finding love in arranged marriages | Omar Durrani | TEDxFIU

With his family’s counsel, modern, business-savvy Omar Durrani embarked on a journey to find his soulmate through the arranged marriage process. His story will open your heart and mind to a traditional way of finding love in modern day society.

Omar Durrani has an MBA and works as a financial analyst Monday through Friday. On weekends, he runs his own business, Mister Omar’s Chess Academy in Pembroke Pines, Florida.

This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at http://ted.com/tedx

It all started on a Tuesday.

I'm at work, working away,
and I get a call from my mom.

I had declined.

I get another call from my mom.

I had declined.

I get yet another call from my mom,

and I pick up, "Mom, I'm busy at work,
can I call you back?"

"No, Son, I need to talk to you
about something important."

"Yes, Mom, I'm busy."

"You need to go to New York
City this weekend."

"What?"

"You need to go to New York
City this weekend;

there's a proposal for you,
and it's my best friend's daughter."

"Mom! I'm not going to go
just to New York City

just like that to meet a random girl.

This is not how love works.

You're not going to get me
arranged marriage."

"Just check your email, and when you
buy your ticket, let me know."

(Laughter)

My mother, if nothing,
is a determined woman.

She decided that, at age 30,
I needed to get married,

and at age 32, I was already
two years too late.

My mother, being from Hyderabad, India,

a royal city in India,

believes in the custom
of arranged marriages.

She believes that first
comes the right person,

then the love comes afterwards.

But I'm an American,

I'm an entrepreneur,

I'm a millenial.

I'm also a curious guy,
so I checked the email.

(Laughter)

and when I do, I look,

and ...

Well, next thing you know,

I buy a ticket,

and I'm off to New York City,
later that weekend.

(Laughter)

So as I'm flying to NYC,
I'm prepping myself,

"OK, Omar, remember
you have to be a gentleman,

you have to do all the right things
you know you have to do:

pull chairs, pay the bill,
do everything, be sincere, be funny.

Just be you."

I meet her at a restaurant,
and I do all of those things.

We have what looks to be a great time.

So at the end of the night,
after dropping her off, I text her,

"Hey, it was great meeting you.

I'm here one more day.
I'd like to see you tomorrow for coffee."

Send.

I don't get a response
till Sunday morning.

When I get a response,

I'm so excited, I go outside by myself.

There's a body of water.

I want to read it by myself. I look ...

"It was great meeting you Omar.

I don't see you that way.

You're just a friend."

(Laughter)

I was devastated.

I called my mom, "Mom,
I can't believe you made me do this.

I told you arranged marriages
were not for me.

This is not how love works.

You know, that's it. I'm done.

She said 'No,' Mom. She just said, 'No.'"

Click.

And now I'm off -
back to Miami, back to work,

and I don't talk to any girl
for months on end.

I feel like a hamster on a hamster wheel:

running, seven days a week.

Monday through Friday,
I work as financial building analyst;

Saturdays, I'm doing my MBA at FIU;

and on Sundays, I run
Mr.Omar's Chess Academy.

I teach my students
how to make the smart move.

And I had no time for love anyways.

My mother calls again,

"Son, marriage is essential in life."

(Laughter)

"Mom!"

"Think of your life with a wife.

Think of your future generations.

Think of your mother's
and your grandmother's happiness."

(Laughter)

My mother's a smart woman -

she knows that by invoking
my grandmother that she'll get to me.

Born in America, raised in India
by my grandmother,

my upbringing was not that
of the average American.

Raised by my grandmother for the first
five formative years of my life,

my grandmother was my mother,
my father, my everything.

She taught me to speak Urdu,
our cultural language.

She taught me to honor
our religion, and our customs,

and to have love for humanity,

and I loved and adored my grandmother.

And she wanted me to get married,

and she even joked that she
wanted to be a grand-grandmother.

After months of denial and deliberation,

I give in to another arranged meeting,

and this is all my mother needed.

My mother is a persistent woman.

What did she do this time?

She gets a matchmaker.

She finds a family -

a distant family member
who does matchmaking as a hobby,

(Laughter)

and Mrs. Fatima was a fun,
lighthearted, bubbly woman,

and she tells me,

"Matches are made in heaven;
I just bring the right people together.

(Laughter)

(Applause)

That sounded OK to me.

(Laughter)

So now, I'm set for the first process,

which is to create a biodata.

A marriage biodata.

What is that, you ask?

Well, basically like what a CV
is for an employment base,

this is what you call a "marriage resume."

(Laughter)

So you enter your age, your education,

your employment, your family background,

your ambitions, desires,
what you look for in a woman,

and you include pictures.

Easy enough, right?

The matchmaker gives me a format
and says, "Follow this,"

which is very bullet-pointed.

I'm like, "No, no, no" ...

OK, I'm going to be creative.

If this is going to work,

I'm going to write the story
as from the heart.

And what I do, I intel all those things,

I make it funny, and just
let my personality shine,

and after a week long,

I sent it to Mrs. Fatima, the matchmaker,

and my biodata becomes a hit.

Girls from all across the country
are calling my matchmaker;

I even got proposals
from England and Canada.

(Laughter)

My matchmaker's an agent
calling me, telling me,

"What about this girl?"

"I don't know.

She'll move to Miami?"

"No she"s not."

"OK, no."

(Laughter)

After months of this process,

I still am a skeptic,

I don't find the one,

and I don't think arranged
marriages do actually work.

But, like my grandmother had taught me,

I kept faith in God,

and I just was just optimistic
that somewhere out there,

my true love was out there.

June 21st, 2015.

The summer solstice,
the longest day of the year,

and the third day of Ramadan,
just last year,

my mother calls me and says,

"We got the perfect proposal."

There is a "we" again.

(Laughter)

Quickly check,

and I find out that her name's Areeba,

and she's beautiful.

As nervous as I was that first time,

I call her.

And there was natural chemistry.

OK!

We talk and talk and text for 30 days.

We go on and ...

everything seems to be going really well.

We decide to meet 30 days later,

but prior to that, I find out, I learned
that she's a pediatric neurologist,

and she loved kids, just as much as I did,

and she loved that,
along with my career in finance,

that I ran a chess academy
for kids on the weekends.

So ...

we were set to meet.

Everything up until this point
was going very smooth,

up until the day of travel.

Starting off with my first morning flight.

I get to the counter,

everything is set,

and I'm there - 60 seconds -

I'm late, I missed that flight.

OK!

I have to get to Chicago.

I look, second flight.

I get, I find out this airline,

I get through the line,
everything, I get there,

I'm set to pay.

The gentleman's like,
"All right that'll be 1,175 dollars."

(Laughter)

"Oh my God, OK!"

I know she's worth it,
of course she's worth it.

OK, I'll do it,

I have to get to Chicago.

I take my license, credit card,

I'm set to pay, and immediately
I think, "Southwest,"

and I run, grab my everything and run,

(Laughter)

run to terminal three.

(Breathes hard)

I get there, I see a line,

and I get through it,

I'm set to pay,

"I need a flight to Chicago ASAP."

Lady says, "All right,
that will be 375 dollars."

"Yes, I'll take it."

Give the credit card.

"OK sir, your license?"

Yes, my license ...

Um, um ...

Where's my license? Oh my God.

I know I have my license,
I should have my license.

and immediately I think,

"Oh, terminal two!"

So quickly, I grab my bags,
and I run, I run,

get back, the gentleman
leaves this license out,

I grab the license, run back.

Now the line is a mile long -

I'm thinking there's no way

I make the line to make this flight,

and I have to get to Chicago today.

So as I'm searching and looking,
at the corner of my eye,

I see a woman clocking in,
getting in to work.

I run to her ...

(Breathing hard)

"I need to get to Chicago
on your next flight.

Tonight I'm meeting the woman
I may marry tonight.

(Laughter)

Please help me, in the name of love."

(Laughter)

The lady says, "I don't hear
that one very often,"

(Laughter)

and quickly my bad luck
turns to good luck.

She prints the ticket, gets it to me,
I skip the mile-long line,

and I'm set,

and I'm thinking everything is set
on this last flight to Chicago.

Now even that, Mother Nature
plays its hand and "thunderstorm."

Another delay.

And quickly, I text her, let her know
I'm on my way, everything is fine.

I get there seven hours later.

Seven hours later, I'm in Chicago,

and I'm thinking there's no way
she's going to say yes.

I'm late. This is not going to work.

But love was in the air,

she was just happy that I made it,

and she just wanted to see me,
just as much as I wanted to see her.

As soon as I walk
in that door and I see her,

my first glimpse of her,

and I felt a deep affection,

a feeling of gratitude,

and, if you look in the dictionary,

I felt the definition of love.

I felt it, she felt it,
and my hopes soared.

Later that evening, we talked more,
we get to know each other.

My sister was there, my mother was there,
her mother was there -

we sat all together.

(Laughter)

Later, Areeba and I do take a walk,
and we talk by ourselves,

and so ...

(Laughter)

Towards the end of that night,

I'm instructed to sit here,
Areeba sits across from me,

my mother and then
Areeba's mother sit across.

My mother begins and asks Areeba,
"Do you like Omar enough to marry him?"

(Laughter)

She says, "Yes."

Then she asks Areeba's mother,

"Do you like Omar enough to be your son?"

She says, "Yes."

Now Areeba's mother does the same,
and Areeba's mother asks my mother,

"Do you like Areeba
enough to be your daughter?"

My mom says, "Yes, I do."

Before she can say, "Omar do you like "

"Yes!"

(Laughter)

and then both mothers
ask us together in unison,

"Omar, Areeba do you ... "

"Yes!"

Both of us nod.

That Saturday night, I went home,
and I knew that she was the one for me.

That Sunday morning, I wake up,
take my mother and sister,

go out, buy the ring.

Sunday evening, I'm set to meet her.

Sunday evening, I see her,

and I propose that next
day after meeting her.

We were set to get married
a year after that,

which we did in July,

just a few months ago.

(Audience) Aah!

(Audience) Woo!

(Applause)

After our wedding, we went for an 11-day
honeymoon to Andalusia, Spain,

where we just had a romantic getaway,

and we came back.

And so, I used arranged marriages,

and I found the love,
the woman of my dreams.

I listened to the wisdom
of my mother and my grandmother.

Arranged marriages
have been practiced for centuries

from civilizations, from dynasties
in Europe, Asia, and Africa.

In my research, I found an article
in the Chicago Tribune:

"A surprising new look shows
arranged marriages in the United States

lead to love, satisfaction,
and commitment."

Arranged marriages
are not forced marriages.

Arranged marriages, rather,
are a chance to meet someone,

an arranged meeting.

I found love behind arranged marriages,

and so can you.

Thank you.

(Applause)