West weds east: Juna Polines from California at her Jind house. She met her kabbadi player husband, Raju Pehlwan, on Facebook

Culture Cocktail: Georgian Tamta Kuzanashvili married a Harayanavi five years ago and now has twin daughters

Kachhwa village in Haryana’s Karnal district is as far as you can get from the American city of Baltimore — both in terms of geography and social mores. While Haryana has the lowest sex ratio in the country — at 879 women per 1,000 men — Baltimore today has a black woman mayor.But none of this stopped Baltimore girl Chanita Dovilla Robeson, 33, from marrying Praveen Dhankhar, a 23-year-old computer engineer from Kachhwa. The American social worker and the Haryanvi boy fell in love on Facebook and tied the knot on Friday. In the process, they turned many traditional values on their heads. Not only is Chanita older to Praveen, she is also a black woman.Dhankar, son of a police head constable, says his father initially objected to the marriage, “but when I insisted, he agreed.” The wedding ceremony was conducted with full Hindu traditions, pheras included.Chanita is part of a small but growing breed of foreign brides (mostly Americans) who have found love in rural Haryana. In the process, they are testing the boundaries of one of India’s most conservative societies.“Nobody asks me to cover my face with a veil,” says Juna Polines, 35, from California, who is married to a national kabaddi player, Raju Pehlwan, from Chhattar village in Jind. All married women in Pehlwan’s family use the veil. “Even my 55-year-old mother uses a dupatta,” he says. “Par woh to dusari society se hai, wahan koi parda nahi karta (But my wife is from a different society where women don’t cover their face),” says Pehlwan, who is younger to his bride by five years.Juna performs pooja with her husband’s family at a local temple. “People are very nice here, I love this place,” she says. Facebook played matchmaker for them as well. The two haven’t let the language barrier come between them: they manage with some broken English and Hindi, and a lot of sign language.Juna left California on April 26 to marry her beau in Chandigarh a week later. “My parents had no objections,” she says. Pehlwan’s family, which has a small business of manufacturing utensils, is happy too and feels their son has made the village proud.Caste, gotra and age of the woman — all these can spark the worst controversies in conservative Haryana, including brutal honour killings. But foreign brides, it seems, are more easily accepted. It has been five years since Tamta Kuzanashvili, 28, from Georgia got married to Arun Khatri, 30, of Kundli village in Sonipat. A Delhi University graduate, Khatri is the son of a local INLD politician, Harichand. The couple had twin daughters — Ana and Mariya — three years back.“My husband is a Jat, a community known for being harsh to girls, but I have never felt discriminated,” says Tamta. “I like Haryanvi kadhi-pakoda and mango pickle apart from fruits like lychee. You don’t get them in Georgia.” The Khatri family has started exporting textiles to Georgia since Arun’s marriage.About khaps, Tamta says, “They are persons who think they are above the law but things are changing.”Adriana Peral, 41, was a nurse in California before she married her landlord husband Mukesh Ror, 27, in Karnal’s Popran village in 2013, following yet another Facebook affair. Peral has a daughter from a previous marriage. The couple now has another daughter, Enya. “My family is eagerly waiting for Peral and Enya who are in the US at present to complete Enya’s passport formalities,” says Mukesh. Wasn’t the 14-year age gap and Peral’s divorcee status a problem? “My family told me that they would support me no matter who I marry,” says Mukesh.