MovieChat Forums > Monsoon Wedding (2002) Discussion > How old were Aditi, Ria and Ayesha suppo...

How old were Aditi, Ria and Ayesha supposed to be?


I saw Monsoon Wedding about a week ago and found it thoroughly enjoyable: the characters are engaging, the music simply makes you want to get up and dance.
My main question is how old were the 3 most prominent (IMO) female characters; Aditi the bride to be and cousins Ria and Ayesha?
I'm thinking Aditi was probably 20/21, Ria was 24/25 (probably 'old' by traditional Indian standards) whilst Ayesha was about 19.
What do you guys think?

I never said I was a golden god... or did I?

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hmm...seeing as it's an upper-class, modern indian family, the girls are probably a little older than what you think. your estimations would be spot-on in a rural indian setting, but this is an educated family where the girls are sent to college and work for at least a few years before thinking of marriage. i'd put aditi's age at about 24-25 (that's the age when parents usually try to get their daughters married, and she had been working at the tv station where she met vikram, so it's not like she got married right after college); ria should be hitting 30 (that's around the age when the unmarried-girl line starts being hurled), and you could be right about ayesha...she looks like she was meant to be either finishing up or just out of high school (she mentions exams, so she's either in high school or college) so i'd say anywhere between 17-19 is a good estimate. other thoughts? there may be something i missed...

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Thanks for replying sheetz, I was beginning to think I was the only one interested in the age topic in the film.
Yes you make a good point about the Verma's being a well to do family, who would think about their daughter's education before pairing them off, so they may have been older than the ages I mentioned.
However, I have since rewatched the film and one thing struck me as significant, it might even be a clue as to Aditi's age. When Pimmi (the mother of the bride) lingers over the saris her daughter will take to America she says to Lalit : "...You know I bought this one in Madras 22 years ago? I've been collecting these since the day Aditi was born."
It maybe be possible that Aditi is 22, of course that would mean that she may have started working and the tv station when she was just out of high-school. It would seem a bit contrived in this situation.
I stand by my suggestion that Ayesha's is 19; I believe she had only just started university( as had Rahul the gorgeous Australian idiot ).
Ria is a bit more of a mistery.
I would tend to agree with you that she was hitting 30. However, I think that she may have been 25/26 at the most. Remember how she wanted to go to college?
I have this idea that had she been hitting 30, the Verma's (mainly Lalit and Pimmi) may have found her too old to want to further her education.
True, they seemed a fairly open-minded family but I think that when it came to marriage they held deeply traditional values: college education was to be completed before the age of 30 and one should get married before said age.
I may be wrong.
Of course it is also possible that Ria was hitting 30 and given her tragic situation (the death of her parents), the family wasjust being delicate and giving her time to recover (of course they were completely unaware of the real reason behind Ria's resistances to marriage or relationships).
Sorry for this long post, any other suggestions are heartily welcome.


I never said I was a golden god... or did I?

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