Confronting Old Prejudice
There were several reasons why an Agarwal and Birla connection would not be considered acceptable by the extended family despite their ancient Marwari mutual ancestry, but this was the main one. Back in 1922 Rameshwar Das Birla had violated caste and shocked the nation. He'd been ostracized but went about his business totally uncaring, succeeding in the promotion of educational institutions and being noted as a rich philanthropist who couldn't be ignored despite this lapse of custom. However, some traditional Marwaris refused to be associated in marriage with the Birla's. Though that had not impacted Birla's continued prosperity and influence and it was becoming a non-issue for the younger generation.
Obviously, this woman could be a descendant of Birla and there was the added problem of her being of mixed race. Fortunately, Ravi was committed to taking over from his father eventually, so it looked like Rakesh had no fear of the woman enticing his son to England. But the extended family would not take kindly to having a descendent of Birla in their bloodline not to mention the English connection which would put her at odds with the cultural practices of the community.
Obviously, he'd have to confront his son now that he knew about the developing relationship but the reality of having to do that bought back memories of how traumatic it has been for him to insist on marrying Laxmi long ago and the trouble this had caused within the family for a long while. Hopefully this woman would be unwilling to give up her high-profile job to marry into a Marwari family and locate in India as Ravi's wife when the novelty wore off and realities of Indian culture became apparent. There were customs as to what that duty as a Marwari wife entailed, she'd not understand as a foreigner.
Elizabeth Birla and her siblings had been born to Manoj Birla and his wife Constance Parker Armstrong and the family had been respected educationalists in the UK for a generation. So, it was natural their children would be offered the highest educational opportunities at the best universities in England and now in their maturity the children were scattered around the world in education and other professions. Elizabeth had chosen to study administration, which was her father's teaching role at an advanced level and then later branched out into communications as she drifted into the media world. At a relatively young age she'd made it through the ranks and been noted as an upcoming expert by Deloitte's who'd enticed her to join their worldwide ranks. She was in her third year at Deloitte's when the Agarwal's approached them for help in assessing this UK hi tech multimedia company. Elizabeth was one year older than Ravi and this was another issue as it had been considered preferable for a chosen wife to be much younger than her husband.
Elizabeth's features were the finely chiseled expressions of her father's heritage, and her skin was the wheat color favored by those seeking a bride in India. One of her brothers who was now a professor in one of the ivy league universities of the US sported the same features and coloring and her other two siblings resembled more the aristocratic bearing and coloring of the Parker Armstrong family their maternal grandparents.
Naturally the Parker Armstrong family fought against the relationship between Manoj and their daughter in their student years but the two solved that problem by fleeing to Gretna Green in Scotland for a quick legal marriage. Constance was in awe of her husband's brilliance academically and clung to him for that and his outgoing personality which contrasted with her stiff upper lip upbringing. Manoj fell in love with his Constance because of her beauty and obvious need of his support with her introverted personality. But Constance did shower affection on her children, determining to make sure they got the kind of parental love she'd missed in her aristocratic upbringing.
Manoj and Constance had experienced prejudice from both the English and Indian communities now increasingly represented in England but their love for each other was sufficient and their competence in their chosen careers received grudging respect despite them not being included by both communities in private social events. Elizabeth had the outgoing personality of her father and adored him as her model in life, so she sailed through her school and employment years totally oblivious to any lingering prejudices in society. It had obviously served her well to not approach life at a young age with a chip on her shoulder over her mixed heritage. She accepted both as a norm and even the English grandparents had been pleased and proud of their grandchildren's career success privately.
Elizabeth received accolades for her work performance as something normal for a job well done. Her quest for knowledge was obvious and she learned quickly, seeking out mentors who were experts in things she'd not previously studied, and they gladly shared their knowledge seeing someone with like mindedness in this young woman. Most of her associates who were single were in awe of her and avoided seeking a relationship, feeling inadequate to share life with someone so brilliant. The young men's egos were not up to taking second place to a potential brilliant spouse. But there were some young men equally as brilliant who did make the attempt at enticing her into their orbit, but she was too interested in her work to make a commitment to the mindless pursuits of courtship in her thinking.
But things changed when Deloitte's assigned her as one of the team on the Agarwal client project. When she saw Ravi for the first time it reminded her of her father with his unique Marwari features and she had a deep love and respect for her father. She watched Ravi closely as the team interacted together following their assigned individual roles in research and inquiry and coming together each day in joint session to brainstorm in search of a proposal that made sense and was economically justifiable to put to shareholders of the target company for a takeover.
Elizabeth discerned in this representative of the client Agarwal an intelligent contributor highly educated who was well skilled in the tools of financial discovery and quick learner as he watched the Deloitte team at work. His comments in the daily joint summary received her nod of approval. But it was not only his knowledge and work ethic that impressed her. There was something about his bearing and a magnetism that formed a chemical response between them. She had feelings for this man that somewhat equated with her feelings for parents and siblings but perhaps even stronger. This intrigued her as she'd never experienced this before.
She invited him to a restaurant dinner for the so-called purpose of discussing their project and he accepted willingly as he'd felt the same chemistry as they worked together and was excited when she asked him to brainstorm over dinner. But the conversation that evening had nothing to do with the project. Instead, each explored their respective family histories including some of the intimate things one never shared outside of the family. By the end of that evening appointment a journey had commenced for each of them that they felt powerless to oppose.
They began working jointly, much to the surprise of the rest of the team who joked about it behind their backs. The evening restaurant meetings together became the norm and furtive looks in each other's direction during their daily team meetings produced inviting smiles in return. Each was now acknowledging there was something happening between them, and they were horrified at the thought that soon the assignment would be finalized, and he'd return to India while she went with another team somewhere in the world where duty called. Even before that happened each felt emptiness at this potential loss. The last evening of their meal together the sadness of separation was apparent as they ate silently.
Finally, Ravi could take it no longer and blurted out his feelings for her. She nodded unsurprised by the outburst and indicated she felt the same way. But what was the solution? They agreed to keep in touch daily to explore how their different lives could somehow be bought together in a way that they could share life together. She wouldn't fit the role of a Marwari woman of the household and Ravi recognized his responsibility to the Agarwal family as his father slowly relinquished his role for the extended family over time.
On his return to India Ravi shared with his father the dilemma he faced, and Rakesh realized this was now an extended family dilemma. He could not think of any of his aging brothers or cousins who had the respect of every important member of the extended family to have overall supervision of the expanding interests of the family joint investments through their holding company. It would be unthinkable to put the overall responsibility into the hands of experienced people outside the Agarwal clan. This would never be acceptable. Ravi had acceptance by the family now as the inheritor of a majority shareholding, so it had to be him, or a breakup of the holding company interests into separate family fiefdoms. If that happened the power of the Agarwal conglomerate would be severely weakened and made vulnerable to hostile takeovers of their individual stand-alone corporate interests. There was safety for the family having it all controlled at the center and intertwined.
Months went by and Rakesh became more alarmed as the daily contact between his eldest son and this woman from England continued. This was not going to end well he thought, as his son now openly shared parts of the general conversations between the two seemingly having put aside how this relationship could impact on the stability of their extended family business. Ravi casually mentioned Elizabeth was currently working with an Indian team on Deloitte business in New Delhi and Rakesh watched to see if his son would rush there to meet up with this woman, but Ravi continued to immerse himself in duties assigned by his father which Rakesh found to be mildly encouraging. Perhaps his son would put duty ahead of his feelings and maybe it was time for Rakesh to seek a suitable bride for his son from among his community to divert his son's attention.
The constant communication between the two was unhealthy so he determined to meet this woman and explain the situation and Ravi's responsibility to the extended family. He secretly contacted the New Delhi Deloitte office and was informed that indeed Elizabeth Birla would be there for a month as they had multiple projects in the pipeline, they needed her expertise on. Rakesh asked for her contact number and at first the one at the other end of the line was reluctant to offer this until Rakesh informed the administrator on the line the Agarwal's had used her for a project they wanted investigated in the UK. The administrator told Rakesh he'd phone him back and disconnected the line. After consulting with Elizabeth, she assured them all was well, and she'd contact Rakesh personally after noting the telephone number.
An hour later Rakesh received a call from a pleasant professional female voice English accented wondering who it was, and she introduced herself asking what service she could provide for him. He requested a meeting with her in New Delhi to which she readily agreed, and they set a date and time for the meeting. Rakesh requested this not be reported to his son and she laughed and indicated all meetings were strictly professionally handled and confidential.
To be continued.
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