0:00

Hey, it's our last season of Rough Translation

0:03

on NPR, and fittingly,

0:05

it is the season that we've been reporting

0:07

for the longest amount of time. About

0:10

five years ago, I started talking with NPR

0:12

correspondent Lauren Freyer about couples

0:14

she was meeting in India, couples

0:16

who had taken a brave and surprising step.

0:20

We assembled an international team to

0:22

make the series, including my guest

0:24

co host, Moncy Chokesy, a writer

0:26

and journalist whose personal journeys

0:28

also part of our story. In fact, it

0:31

is where we're going to begin, because see,

0:34

Monsey always knew growing up in India

0:36

that when it came to love, her

0:39

generation was going to do things

0:41

differently. So growing up in

0:43

the nineties in India, there were essentially

0:45

two messages that we were getting. One

0:48

was that we were going to be the ones that

0:50

get all the opportunities that our parents

0:52

and our grandparents generation did not get. The

0:55

second message was that along with the new jobs,

0:57

the new malls, and the new multiplex theaters,

1:00

you was the promise of more choice in

1:02

her personal life. Hindi cinema

1:04

Anima revolved

1:07

around like the hopeless romantic ba

1:12

Okay Wait go to Bollywood

1:17

romances of that era featured

1:19

lovers who cross boundaries of class,

1:22

but also cast and even faith star

1:29

cross lovers that crossed these bridges and

1:31

divides to be together. I love you, I

1:33

love you, I love you, I love you, the idea

1:36

that love is something worth fighting for.

1:43

We were the young people that we're going to change the

1:45

way the world works and thinks, and we

1:47

could do anything. And

1:52

then in reality, the truth is that when

1:54

you do cross that boundary of tradition,

1:57

you're knocked down and told that actually, you cannot

1:59

do this one thing. And that thing is

2:01

getting married without your parents blessing. Exactly,

2:04

it is the act of disobedience that is yeah, that's

2:06

absolutely it. The royal boundary is

2:09

crossing your parents will. The real

2:11

boundary is disappointing

2:14

them. As a journalist,

2:17

Mancy would see up close the potential

2:19

consequences of this act of disobedience.

2:21

Not many years ago, I actually visited

2:24

a village in Haryana where I stood

2:26

inside a bedroom where a young

2:29

woman and her husband were killed by

2:31

the girl's family. They were from two different

2:33

casts, her family had never accepted them,

2:35

and you know, the woman was pregnant, had

2:38

been shot to dead in their sleep for running away

2:40

five years earlier. The

2:42

walls still carried Mark's bullet

2:44

marks. But to her shock

2:47

and her shame, Mancy didn't

2:49

feel about this couple the same way she felt

2:51

for the love stories on screen. You know what

2:54

it really felt like, to be honest, it felt like

2:56

a case of really bad

2:58

luck. It was a victim

3:00

blaming moment that you did. Yeah,

3:02

yeah, yeah, I wish, I wish it wasn't that,

3:04

but that is how it was. You know that this

3:07

is a red line, and if you're going to cross the

3:09

red line, don't

3:12

get caught. Monsey's

3:15

reaction surprised her and

3:17

led her on a journey to write a book called

3:19

The Newlyweds, Rearranging Marriage

3:21

in modern India, exploring what really

3:24

happens when love goes off the Bollywood

3:26

script. I kept going back to this

3:28

moment. Why was it just so ordinary?

3:31

The deaths of these people? Yeah? Why

3:33

did it feel so unsurprising? This

3:41

is Rough Translation. I'm Gregory Warner

3:49

on this season of Rough Translation. We

3:51

are doing something we've never quite done before.

3:54

One story over five episodes,

3:56

Monsey and I will guide you through an investigation

3:59

by correspondent Lauren Freyer it's kind

4:01

of late at night. We're driving in the dark

4:03

and Kerala after reporting. While violence

4:05

against love couples can feel unsurprising

4:08

in a country where arranged marriage is the norm,

4:10

We're going to spend time with a group that offers

4:12

protection to those couples, helps

4:15

them get married without their parents' blessing.

4:17

And he says he's in trouble.

4:20

Our reporting will take us on raids and rescue

4:23

missions. We have very little information.

4:26

Yeah, these people don't want to be found. As

4:28

we follow the couples trying to stay one

4:30

step ahead of threats from their own families,

4:35

is this deception build? I'm just

4:38

nervous for them. I'm also scared

4:41

of what happens when these couples find themselves

4:43

tangled up in a different kind

4:45

of arrangement. Where does the stop one

4:47

that forces them to ask who can they

4:50

trust and how much are they willing to

4:52

sacrifice for love? Love?

4:58

Commandos from Rough Translation back

5:00

after this break. Hey,

5:10

it's Gregory and this is the last, the

5:12

very last season of Rough Translation on

5:14

NPR, and you don't want to miss what comes

5:16

next, So stay tuned for the end of this episode

5:19

to find out how to sign up for my substack and

5:21

stay with me on this journey. Now,

5:25

the story we told you at the top of the episode

5:27

about honor killing, that is only

5:29

the most extreme consequence that can befall

5:31

love couples In India today, people

5:34

who marry without their parents' permission

5:36

can be ostracized or disowned,

5:39

forced into hiding, kidnapped or

5:41

arrested. The police can get involved.

5:44

Monsey chokes. He wondered what it would take for love

5:46

couples to find protection in this context.

5:48

And then one day in twenty

5:50

twelve, she turned on the TV and saw

5:53

that question answered, there's a

5:55

show called Sais. It

5:59

was a huge deal. Sunday,

6:08

eleven am, it would come. The streets would

6:11

go empty, everybody was at home. It

6:13

was like a cricket match. It was like an India Pakistan

6:15

cricket match. Everybody felt it was

6:17

a duty to watch the show because

6:20

it was bitched as a show that awoke your

6:22

moral conscience. The show was

6:24

known for its host, I'm Your Khan, a

6:28

Bollywood megastar who now had launched

6:30

this very social activist talk show

6:32

for a country that has always been accused

6:35

of being in political slumber. It was the

6:37

one mainstream show that was supposed

6:39

to shake you out of your political apathy. With

6:41

an audience in India that rivaled Oprah

6:43

Winfrey's US audience, the

6:46

show took on topics like cast discrimination,

6:49

domestic violence, male chauvinism,

6:51

or in this episode from twenty twelve, intolerance

6:54

to love Luke Yaquil.

7:00

Throughout the episode, we see these young

7:02

people who have chosen lovegnmari

7:07

or. They

7:09

are looking devastated. They're broken.

7:12

All they want is the acceptance of their families.

7:14

Lincoln, They'll make Mamma

7:20

well come how all

7:28

three or four couples that feature here, that's

7:30

what we see. What she saw on the TV

7:32

seemed like more of the same stories that Mancy

7:34

and the country had become a nerd too.

7:37

But then the host, I'm your Khan. He

7:39

gives the camera a kind of mischievous look. What

7:42

were his words again, Joe

7:47

in this kind of situation, who will help young

7:49

couples. The guest who comes on stage

7:51

next is a gray haired man in his fifties

7:54

with striking bottle green eyes. Bracaso

7:58

bring me, bring me Calm. His

8:01

name Sunjoy, such death,

8:03

and he's offering a shelter. Such

8:05

shelter and a free Food,

8:07

frees Day, Protection House

8:11

and Protect Love Couples Voluntary Initiative

8:13

gig. This

8:17

was a radical thing. I definitely hadn't

8:19

hold that before somebody

8:22

saying, Hey, if you're running

8:24

away, don't worry, I've got your back. That

8:27

was definitely it was not a thing. Everything

8:30

about this guy takes Monthy by surprise, including

8:32

the name of his group, Love Commandos.

8:35

They call the Love Commandos, the Love Commanders.

8:39

Yeah, seemed badass Love Commandos.

8:42

He starts with this like slogan like

8:45

this rallying cry

8:48

love is no sin and we

8:51

want fathered by the men who hated love or

8:53

wida, I'm

8:56

praying tire

9:00

Love Commando. Everybody

9:02

in the audience is suddenly like melting

9:05

away into laughter. What's funny

9:07

about it? Can you translate what's funny about

9:09

it? Because it feels like it feels like

9:12

a political slogan, feels like something

9:14

that you would hear on the streets when

9:16

you're picketing, kind of like inspires

9:19

you know, you want to put you want to raise your fists in the end

9:21

and be like, yeah, appropriate pop play,

9:24

you know, that's that's what That's what it made me feel.

9:28

He wears like a Cardie

9:32

Nehruvian hand spun jacket.

9:36

It also makes you think about like Indian independence

9:38

freedom fighters. He's like leading

9:40

a civil disobedience movement. I'm

9:43

curious, just saying,

9:45

hey, we need shelters for these people, is

9:49

it also an act of saying that what is

9:51

being done to these people is wrong. Yeah,

9:53

it's finally an acknowledgement that some some

9:56

wrongdoing is happening to these

9:58

people. And the whole time he's

10:00

speaking, when is drawn to his eyes, not

10:04

only because they're striking green color,

10:07

but also this curious quality of

10:09

never breaking eye contact. You

10:12

said, he has the eyes of an infant,

10:15

free of shame or self doubt.

10:18

The thing that I find striking about him

10:20

is that he's a guy that belongs

10:22

to the generation of people that are opposing

10:24

love marriage,

10:34

but he's advocating for something that the younger

10:36

people want. So automatically,

10:38

I'm feeling like, Okay, here's someone from

10:41

your generation telling me that I'm

10:43

doing the right thing. That itself is making

10:45

me feel good about him. Love shall conquered

10:47

the word, love shall rule the world.

10:59

Months he couldn't believe what she had just

11:01

seen. Had other people heard

11:03

the call that she had, and

11:06

in the days and weeks after this episode airs,

11:08

she obsessively would refresh the Love

11:10

Commander's Facebook page. They have a

11:12

Facebook page as well as the website with lots of phone

11:14

numbers. The demand was insane around that

11:16

time, and she started reading comments and

11:19

I was just struck by the amount

11:21

of people that wanted their help.

11:23

We asked some friends to read these comments and we edited

11:25

them for clarity. Dealso hello,

11:28

please, So I saw the certain image show

11:30

I need your help immediately. So I've

11:33

spent hours and hours going

11:35

down this rabbit hole. I'm from Khota,

11:38

not just time from hydrobad from Zaffat

11:40

would be hard every corner of the country.

11:42

I fell in love with the guy. We both love

11:44

each other so much, and we both some variation

11:47

of the exact same message. The only problem

11:49

is I'm a guy from a Muslim community and

11:51

love a girl from the Hindu religion. That my girlfriend

11:54

is another cast. But my parents came

11:56

to know about our love. Our parents don't

11:58

want to listen. They're ready to kill but not

12:00

ready to accept us. We want to be like

12:02

other couples. We've even decided

12:04

our children's names. So I

12:06

have mailed you and I'm waiting for your

12:09

reply. Will you please communicate

12:11

with our families. I need your immediate assistance.

12:13

I can't stand it any longer. Please help

12:15

us, Please would reply that, Please help us

12:17

in any way you can please. Do

12:26

you want me to talk to you a little bit about why arranged

12:29

marriage is such a thing of importance

12:31

in Indian culture? Yeah, and

12:33

the corollary of why I love marriage is such

12:35

a problem. Yeah. The

12:38

reason there is such a huge emphasis

12:40

on a arranged marriage in India is

12:42

because this is a tool that helps

12:45

cement boundaries and

12:47

helps cement hierarchies that

12:49

have been in place for several centuries. When

12:52

a young person chooses to marry outside

12:54

of these social structures, they're threatening to

12:56

upend this power structure. Arranged

12:59

marriage. Who was more than just pleasing your parents?

13:02

It helps secure the status quo of cast

13:04

hierarchies and political fault lines and inherited

13:06

wealth. So being a revolutionary

13:08

for love and love couples, it

13:11

really was a kind of revolutionary stance in

13:13

a larger sense. Who was this guy?

13:16

So right after sati major idea, you would

13:18

see him everywhere. Hello and

13:20

welcome to another interesting episode of Walk the

13:22

Talk. India Mess and was profiled in every

13:24

major newspaper in India. Magazine

13:26

Please Welcome sanjays As Dewa

13:29

from Love Commandos. Meet the

13:31

Love Commandos TV features

13:34

a BBC podcast episode an eponymous

13:37

documentary on Amazon Prime Video. The

13:39

Love Commandos have a network of secret shelters

13:42

hidden throughout Denny andrewn

13:44

a helpline answering hundreds of calls

13:46

twenty four seven. Part of their popularity

13:49

is probably their name, right. They sound

13:51

like Ninja's right, Like they're

13:53

actually more like social

13:55

workers. I'm

13:58

Lauren Freyer. I'm NPO our India

14:00

correspondent. Lauren just

14:03

left the India Post. But when she started telling

14:05

me this story in twenty eighteen, she

14:07

just arrived to India. It was a time

14:09

of increased nationalism, when voices of

14:11

tradition were emboldened. Something like

14:13

ninety five percent of marriages

14:16

in India are arranged marriages, and they're

14:18

arranged by the bride and grooms families,

14:20

and of those, the vast majority are

14:23

within the same caste or community

14:25

or religious group. She wanted to know

14:28

were the Love Commandos able to offer the protection

14:30

they promised. You're running

14:32

away with the love of your life that's where you went

14:35

and you are you couples here?

14:37

One? Two, three? Yeah, So

14:40

she visited the shelter spoke with couples there.

14:42

How did you fall in love? See,

14:45

we actually omitted the working place. I mean,

14:47

every couple has dramatic stories and they say

14:49

so much about modern India

14:52

and we introduce ourselves

14:54

to each other's patterings. But

14:56

they didn't agree with that, so we had to

14:58

run away from the house and then you have to marry

15:00

here. With the help of Love Commandos. Six

15:04

years after their appearance on India's biggest

15:06

talk show, the Love Commandos were going strong.

15:08

They even told Lauren they were thinking of expanding to

15:10

neighboring Bangladesh.

15:13

But then a few months into this reporting, Lauren

15:15

emailed me and was like, Hey, get

15:17

a load of the news breaking all over India. Oh,

15:20

No of Angio Love Commandos

15:22

has been arrested for allegedly harassing

15:25

and blackmailing inter faith

15:27

couples who sought help at his shelter

15:29

home in Delhi. Sandra Sachdev

15:32

was arrested. These couples were allegedly

15:34

kept an inhuman conditions and

15:36

a huge amount of money was also extarted

15:39

from them and accused of exploiting the

15:41

very couple's heat vowed to protect so

15:43

like taking advantage of these couples in some of

15:45

their most vulnerable moments, And Lauren

15:48

wondered what had happened in that shelter that

15:50

she might have missed the first time around. Hello,

16:02

Hello, is that mister sceptive? Yeah

16:05

speaking? This is Lauren Freyer from

16:07

NPR this

16:14

season on rough translation The

16:17

Rise and Fall of the Love Commandos.

16:20

No, it was through

16:23

the eyes of the couples who saw it firsthand.

16:25

Some of the things I don't even remember, and I don't want to

16:27

remember, and even now I don't

16:30

know how to feel about it. Some of them say,

16:32

he definitely abused us so many

16:34

things. They made us. Look, he's working

16:37

us like dogs. I was getting fun a gottection.

16:39

They're like, so what is it that we're being for? It breaks

16:42

you mentally? Why did we come

16:44

here? Some of them

16:46

think he's a hero, a savior and think these

16:48

charges are just it doesn't

16:50

match the person they know. Don't

16:53

you looking with

16:56

this cofa? So she was like, Wow,

16:58

here's somebody who actually helps people

17:00

who fall in love. I think they were hot

17:02

that he had to go through that. They felt

17:04

sad and they felt pity. Sanjoy

17:09

is a threat to the establishment

17:11

families and religions and the way

17:13

things have always happened India

17:15

is my learned, my mother learned.

17:21

Even if I'm killed for it, I

17:26

have no idea whether anything he tells

17:28

me is ever true. This

17:30

is the thing about him, is

17:32

that he is

17:35

either the most earnest person

17:37

in the world or a pathological

17:39

liar. Did you feel like he tricked

17:41

you? I think he tricked the entire

17:43

world. Is

17:46

he really who he's promising

17:49

to be? And what are the

17:51

repercussions when you try to go against

17:54

the norms of a society of one

17:56

point four billion people? Do

17:58

you feel that they have hurt your feelings?

18:00

After all you were trying to

18:02

help them? Is that all

18:05

thought of the

18:07

phone is cutting out? Can you hear

18:09

me? Can

18:12

you hear me? Oh?

18:15

That would have been a good answer. If

18:22

you want to hear the next episode of Love Commandos

18:24

right now and before anyone else go

18:27

sign up for Embedded Plus. Embedded

18:29

is the home for ambitious storytelling at NPR,

18:32

and subscribing to Embedded Plus is

18:34

a great way to support that work. Embedded

18:36

Plus listeners will get to hear each episode

18:39

of Love Commandos from Rough Translation a

18:41

week early and they'll get to listen sponsor

18:43

free. So go to plus dot NPR

18:46

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18:48

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18:50

out more. And a big thanks to everyone who's

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already signed up. Speaking of

18:54

sign ups, if you've loved all the places

18:56

that Rough Translation is taking you over the years

18:58

and all the people that we've met to other around

19:00

the world, from an American surgate in Seattle

19:02

to a flirt coach in Germany to this story

19:04

about love and India, you

19:07

can continue to enjoy this kind of global storytelling

19:09

in your life and in your inbox. I

19:12

have an email newsletter. It's a substack.

19:14

It's called Rough Transition. Rough

19:16

Transition totally free to sign up, and every

19:19

week you get more stories, more countries,

19:21

more tools to understand the world and ourselves,

19:24

and you'll be the very first to know where this podcast

19:26

and I go next. Go to substack

19:29

dot com or the substack app search

19:31

for Rough Transition. I cannot wait

19:33

to see you there. Love

19:39

Commandos from Rough Translation is a

19:41

collaboration with NPRS International

19:43

Desk. It was reported by Lauren Freyer.

19:45

Our guest co host is Moncy Chokesi.

19:48

The series was written and edited by me Gregory

19:50

Warner, and our senior producer is Adeline

19:53

Lancines. Our senior editor

19:55

is Luis Treius, and our consulting

19:57

editors are Miranda Kennedy and Sona

19:59

Crass. The Love Commando's team

20:02

includes Arian Ali part Shaw, Elena

20:04

Tarek, Justine Yan, Dan Gurma, Kimberly

20:06

Eiazar Bascar Chowdery and Jess Jang.

20:09

Our producers in India include Raksha Kumar

20:11

and Sushmitta Patak. Fact Checking

20:14

by Nikolait Khan. Mary Glendinning

20:16

is Director of Research at and PR's rad Department.

20:19

Legal support from Mikah Ratner and Johannes

20:21

Derghi and Pierre. Standards and Practices

20:23

editor is Tony Kavan. Mastering by Josh

20:25

Newell. The Lovecommando's theme song

20:27

is by Vassu and Amira Gill, and it's

20:29

inspired by rough Translation's original theme

20:31

song by John Ellis. Additional music

20:34

in this episode by John ellis ram Tina or Blue,

20:36

Nick Duprey, Blue Dot Sessions, and First com

20:38

Music. To see original illustrations

20:41

for this series by Vartika Sharma. Visit

20:43

NPR dot org slash rough translation.

20:45

They're really beautiful. Check them out. Our

20:48

visuals editor is Emily Bokel. Special

20:50

thanks to our friends who lent their voices to this episode

20:52

a Purva, Hari, Divya, Suhail,

20:55

Suhit and Sumita, with additional

20:57

thanks to Aisha Khan in Dubai.

21:00

Rien Nagucci is the executive producer of the Enterprise

21:02

Storytelling unit Our Home at NPR. Leonna

21:04

Simstroums our supervising producer, Ded

21:07

Skankey's chief editor, and Nishan

21:09

Dahia is Deputy Supervising Senior

21:11

editor of NPR's International desk Anya

21:14

Grunman is npr Senior Vice President

21:16

of Programming in Audience Development. I'm

21:22

Gregory Warner back next week

21:24

with the second chapter of Love Commandos

21:27

from rough translation.