Forbidden love
What began as a marriage led to a murder conspiracy on two continents --possibly involving the bride's own family
Courtesy Mithu Singh
Deb Devos: She said she saw him in the crowd, she said their eyes met and she fell in love and it was love at first sight.
That first glance was all it took. Jassi and Mithu were still just teenagers when they both gazed across that crowded room and came to the realization they were made for one another.
Devos: She just was drawn to him and wanted to be with him, but said that her family wouldn’t approve of it.
What began so innocently, became a battle of wills, pitting one generation against another—modern values against a centuries-old culture. Soon, it would be headline news on two continents and lead to one overriding question: is someone getting away with murder?
Belinda, Jassi's friend: She was very sweet. Her eyes, sparkle when she talked to you, almost like teary you know?
Her friends knew her as “Jassi,” a nickname reflecting her Indian heritage. Though she had been born and raised in Canada, Jassi’s family clung passionately to many of the customs and traditions of the Sikh religion practiced in their homeland. In many ways, Jassi grew up to be as naive as she was beautiful.
Devos: Maybe it was her innocence, maybe it was her romance, there was something about her that was wonderful. She was a vision, I mean you would see her and she would take your breath away.
Jassi was brought up in a thriving Sikh community just outside Vancouver, on Canada’s pacific coast. More Sikhs live there than anywhere else but India. And like so many other families, Jassi’s arrived with dreams of farming and making a comfortable living as owners of a large blueberry farm.
According to Jassi’s former teacher, Deb Devos, Jassi’s uncle Surgit Badesha was the family patriarch who ensured her upbringing was a strict one.
Devos: She did tell us that everybody was required to work, whether it be on the blueberry farm or outside the farm—that the uncle controlled the money, that if you got a pay check, it went to the uncle.
Though she was in her mid-20s, like many other single Sikh women, Jassi still lived at home. In her case, it was at a sprawling family compound. Her mother, father, siblings, aunts, uncles, different generations, everyone lived there together. And in this traditional Sikh family, it was expected that Jassi would continue to live there until the day she got married.
Vijay Singhera, Sikh woman living in Vancouver: I think it’s a bigger difference for women, for girls, because we are not allowed to date as much.
38-year-old Vijay Singhera was also raised in Vancouver. The older of two daughters, Vijay and her sister still sing many of the Sikh hymns so important to their faith. Though Vijay and Jassi never met, they shared the challenge of growing up in the west but living in a home tightly-bound by the age-old traditions of the east.
Singhera: There are more restrictions on girls, to be a “good Indian girl.” You know, if I wanted to stay out late, you have a curfew. “Good girls” don’t stay up past this time.
Bob McKeown, correspondent: Did you put up an argument? Did you say, “Well, the other kids are doing it?”
Singhera: You start asking questions and many a times, they don’t have the answers, and just say, “This is what happens. This is tradition.”
And in Sikh tradition, daughters are family treasures— prized and protected, and are expected to remain pure in both deed and thought.
Deb Devos met Jassi when she was 19 years old, and a new student at the beauty school Devos owns.
Jassi was finally discovering the world outside the sheltered Sikh community with new friends, a career beyond the boundaries of the family farm, and an education that encompassed more than styling hair and applying makeup.
McKeown: And literally you had to explain biology to her?
Devos: Uh… Pretty much. (Laughs) Yeah, she didn’t understand uh… what happened between a man and woman.
Both Jassi and Vijay grew up expecting they would have arranged marriages in which their families would play the role of matchmaker.
Singhera: In our families, it’s the parents who are the chiefs. And what they say you listen to, and if you don’t, then you’re disobeying them.
So Jassi’s mother and Uncle Surjit began the search for a suitable husband. Jassi shared her misgivings about that with her friends.
Nicole, Jassi's friend: I think it was probably hard for her, being Canadian, being in public schools, and things seeing a lot of girls falling in love, and having boyfriends, and being with someone for love versus being with someone because your family thinks this is the person you should be with.
But as close as Jassi was to her family — living all together in their compound in Canada — she kept a secret from them. One that she revealed only to those she trusted most: Jassi had already met someone, that young man with whom she’d fallen in love at first sight, and she wanted to marry him, no matter what her family thought.
Refrence =
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14606778
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