Freedom to marry

Tuk and I went to register our marriage with the Thai government. This involved a number of forms and waiting and photocopying and blue and red stamps. On the whole, however, it was a surprisingly pleasant experience dealing with the Thai bureaucracy. In an air-conditioned room, we waitied along with about a dozen others. Then a woman officer checked our papers, prepared our forms and told us what to do. Then she directed us to her superior who did an “interview” asking us how long we had known each other, when did we first meet, etc. Then she signed and stamped the various forms. We had to wait a few hours while the first woman officer checked with the Thai foreign ministry about my papers. Her superior explained that recently they had been “getting a lot of Indians who had fake papers trying to get registered".

The process for me had began a month earlier with getting a marriage affidavit from the Indian consul in Chiang Mai. The consul affidavit states that I am legally single and hence eligible to get married. This affidavit has then to be translated into Thai and then "legalised" by a stamp from the Thai foreign ministry. The Indian consul affidavit is titled “Freedom to Marry”. Of all the freedoms that I have enjoyed as an Indian citizen (and often sometimes taken for granted) this is one freedom that I have now come to relish the most.

We finally got the Thai official certificate – a rectangular piece of paper with our names in Thai stating we were now legally husband and wife. The text was surrounded by an inner border of red roses. A nice little touch that despite the waiting made us smile.