For Rakesh Das, there’s been a touch of clockwork to the way marriage has worked. Equally so for Sanju, who was 18 when she tied the knot with him. Yes, the classic age of reckoning—one that normally comes swaddled in a fair share of foreboding—but she transited painlessly. Joyously. They flit happily between Janakpur, in Nepal, Madhubani in Bihar, and their present nest, Delhi—the triangle on the map that ensures this is not a faceless, culture-neutered, city affair. Rakesh, a journalist with the Delhi edition of a national daily, is from Madhubani, where dowry negotiations and early marriage are as much a part of life as bantering over samosas and cups of tea. For his mates from town, he has made it: a good job, on the foundation of a good education. He even has, they might joke, a phoren wife—so what if her town Janakpur, across the border in Nepal, is only a two-hour bus-ride away from Madhubani? But they admire his boldness at choosing his own partner, they envy his luck at having got the opportunity to do so.