weddings and marriages

Social media is increasingly becoming a promising source of manic reaction-inducing content. I look around me, at my ‘friends’, and I see high-resolution pictures, one after the other, of them getting hitched. Or hooked. Noose around the neck. Taking the plunge (…), or any of those wonderful euphemisms for it.

I am 22, so you can probably understand my consternation at this. When the opening act of the series happened, I figured it was societal pressure, commitments, etc. Then came another one, and then another one, till it became an all too common occurrence.

I would have loved to say that this was not restricted to any one geopolitical setting, but it unfortunately is. The beautiful land of the literate, the leftists, and the beef-eaters. Except for exactly one of those husband and wife pictures that had me hyperventilating, every other one belonged to a mallu. And figuring out their native root wasn’t a toughie, because of all the yellow. The girl is covered from head to a little below the waist in yellow. Blinding, heavy, expensive, yellow. The arrangement of hundreds of chains, in increasing order of their lengths, the waist band, the rings, the earrings, the armlets, the intricate network of yellow that connects your ear to your head to your hair, and everything else, so wonderfully done, exactly the way we see them in jewelry shop ads, on tv! Except instead of a board or banner that proclaims the name of the brand, it is her face.

So what, precisely, does one achieve from this display? Exactly when did this become classy?

Is display of wealth the intention? Then why don’t you just handover a huge block of gold to the groom, in the presence of the wedding guests? Yes, I am implying that what is done now is only as classy and cultured and civilized as this is. Oh by the way, this alternative saves you a whole lot of making charges!

Just some stats that I came across recently: in the financial year of 2011-2012, around 250000 kilos of gold was bought, in Kerala. And on an average, a new jewelry shop opened once every seven days. I am just going to let that sit there.

It is a common Indian practice to overshoot weddings. Each one’s has to always be a step above what they can actually afford. Everybody wants magnificent weddings, each wedding almost happens with a secondary intention of breaking some sort of a record.  All your life’s worth goes into investing in this. And you even measure your status and standing in your respective societies, on the basis of the spectacle that you arrange for. Is it any wonder that parents frown upon the concept of remarriages? Can you imagine the financial strain they will be put through? I am aware that I am belittling the situation. But we cant deny the fact that all this adds to the social pressure, or ‘obligation’ the girl would experience, when she tries breaking away from a relationship that doesn’t suit her, or even one that hurts her.

It is time that we stop focusing on making weddings the highlight of our lives. A marriage is enough pressure on its own. Creating a meaningful emotional, physical, and spiritual connection, developing the ability to compromise, knowing how to give in and how to respect, and preparing yourself for the onset of a whole lot of fun, is what you should be doing. Destination weddings, mounds of gold, excellent food, and the biggest guest list are all of no importance, and honestly, of no real significance. This is one of those cases when we can say that it is nothing but abject materialism, to consider otherwise. Though, yes, a lot of those instincts are society-instilled in us.

To all of my friends who still give me the jitters, here’s wishing you a wonderful married life, and here’s hoping that when it is your chance to organize the wedding, you make a difference.

let's censor 'em all.

Disclaimer for all those upholding the Indian morality and culture: this article has content that may be offensive to those who don’t get the concepts of free speech, satire, consenting adults, and entertainment.

I know we are back on the morality debate, but nothing seems to be left alone by the ones who consider themselves sanctimonious. I have a good idea of what the word after that should be.

AIB Knockout, a roast that made it to the headlines, and is now the talk of the country, for astoundingly insane reasons. 10 comedians, and one roast master, made fun of two established artists and each other, in front of 4000 people, and were watched by another 8 million or so, on YouTube. This is not a form of comedy they developed. They were all consenting adults who laughed at themselves, profanity or not, and were also watched by consenting adults.

It did surprise me that our country and the people who uphold the ‘moral values’ inherent to our country digested this, without comment. But after all how long does a bubble last? Complaints of desecration of the pious minds of the youth, inappropriate content for the women, being antichrist (!!!), and what not, sprouted immediately.

A good number of people think it is stupid to raise such a hue and cry over this, a lot of them think they need to perform some sort of cleanse for all and sundry who were associated with this in any manner, and then there are the wonderful politicians who are happily travelling on the middle ground, while still making their preferred course of action clear.

We’ll move on to the rant after bringing to notice yet another wonderful development regarding yet another phenomenon that involves consenting adults. The Hindu mahasabha will be marrying off any couple they find on Valentine’s Day. Whoever it is will be converted to Hinduism; they are going to work hard and overcome the patriarchal trait in their blood that dictates that the girl be converted to the guy’s religion. And while at it, they also say that it is okay to convert people because every Indian is a Hindu anyway.

So forget the journey downhill, we are looking at going back to the cavemen stage where the men protected the women while she was pregnant or menstruating, from wild animals. Except the women are permanently thought of being as ‘weak’, and the general public have taken the place of wild animals.

Inappropriate clothing, non asli-indian-naari behavior, unwillingness to call some creep bhaiyya, nightclubs, even Chinese food, and the like are blamed when a woman is raped. It is ultimately her fault. We shall sit here and negotiate with the man, and decide what is to be done while she fights for life. But here comes a show that makes fun of people who are happy to be made fun of. Let’s register complaints against them, and trample all over their creativity and effort, because we think Balika Vadhu and Kasauti Zindagi ki are what the Indian youth should be watching. Oh! Also the Big Boss. Oh! And Roadies. It is also alright to read the Times Of India, when they make ‘news’ out of female breasts. I don’t even have legitimate counter arguments for the people who were offended (after they either bought tickets for it, or watched it on YouTube), because there are no sensible arguments being made by them. Not a single one.

There genuinely isn’t one retort I can think of, with regards to the entirely sensible statement made by the hindu mahasabha. Though, I don’t know why no parents are offended by this, and are registering complaints against them because they are worried for their kids. What happened to the other religious organizations? Do they have nothing to say about their people being forcefully converted? Why? Because now it deals with the taboo of ‘couples’?

I’ve always thought that our priorities were skewed. But this is taking it to a whole new level.

onam.

Onam is one of those things every malayali takes time out of their lives to celebrate. Irrespective of where they are, what their lives otherwise look like, and how busy they are. This year’s onam just went by, I had exams in college, and I had lots of work to do, now that our professors have decided that we are way too grown up for them to cut us any sort of slack. 

I woke up on the day of onam, and grabbed all my things so that I could go and sit in the library, to study for a particularly tough exam. I felt something amiss. There was this hole, and it was making me uncomfortable.  I stopped everything I was doing, draped on a saree, put on some flowers, and went ahead to the library.  The stares and looks and faces I got were too many in number and variety for me to count. I’m pretty sure that if I were at home and had an exam the next day, I wouldn’t bother doing any of that, onam or not. But here, it made me feel like I was at home. That small act provided me with the comfort I was looking for. Whether or not I related to the festival, or understood its purpose or reason for such pomp and splendor, none of it mattered.

We all had an exam the next morning, and hence on the day after that, everybody decked up and went to class, malayali or non malayali. To us, who had roots in that culture, it was our way of hanging onto those bits of home that we miss even now, 4 years into the journey. To the rest, it was a matter of solidarity, and ofcourse the happy association they had made to it, having celebrated it thrice before.

It has been centuries since the advert of Onam. Things have changed so much, lifestyle, preferences, living conditions, even geographic setting. But this one festival has remained, as the ultimate mark of identity. Celebrating it is a matter of pride, and a matter of hanging onto those last bits of the umbilical cord. Where every sign of you ever having belonged to that land has been erased, there still will be those feelings that stir up, at the time of Onam.  As I have said before, having been brought up outside the overwhelming influence of an Indian culture and everything that come with it, I pretty much never understood how some things were just automatically supposed to be yours, how you were supposed to be feeling a sort of belonging towards it. But when I realized that if I had to be reading up Derrida and Foucault and Barthes on the day of Onam, I would rather do it with a saree and some flowers on, it surprised me. That was my first bout of ‘automatic’ enthusiasm.

When there are so many things I don’t like about the same people, when so many things sadden me, and infuriate me, when in other occasions their extreme sense of territory maddens me, this one time of the year, I look at every fellow malayali with a huge smile on my face. And it is as good as a hug that you desperately need, when somebody else gives you that happy smile. Does celebrating the festival do anything to fulfill some sort of an inner dilemma? Do I achieve anything morally satisfactory from it? Is it going to bring any good to somebody else? No, I don’t think so. But there is no reason for every action of mine to be an answer to one of those questions. Especially when it is about something that makes me happy, that brings my home to me, wherever I am. 

generation gap or some such.

Generation gap. It is probably the only phrase that has come to our rescue as many times as it has smothered us. In 1965, when 41% of the American population consisted of 17 – 25 year olds, and when a predominantly white cultural zeitgeist that shunned all convention came into place, the phrase generation gap was given birth to, as a means to explain the chaos. I think it is now, just an excuse. 

Lets see why. There are elders who don’t think it is appropriate to get married as many times as Elizabeth Taylor did. If anybody has gotten married more than twice, they call it the Hollywood syndrome. Now hypothetically, if I think it is okay to do so, as long as you know what you are doing, and this leads to a fight, then the last word on that would be – generation gap.

There are quite a few things that people my age dismiss as an outcome of this ‘generation gap’. There is respect lost, both ways, since nobody likes the output (s) of this essential fundamentalism.

While reading up on the origins of this unnecessary phenomenon, I noticed a few interesting things. There apparently have been programs designed to ‘bridge this gap’. These would include bringing people of different generations together, for a music based orientation session, getting people to interact with people of different age groups, etc. Effective methods have been sending the ‘bookend generations’ (senior citizens, and pre schoolers) to a day care, where one generation takes care of the other. So you mean to say, sitting down and talking face to face dispels this excuse that we have developed as a part of our ingrained fight or flight instincts?

Let’s try and redefine it now. This phrase was introduced as a means to express the inherent conservatism present in every ‘older’ generation, when the ‘newer’ generation backs off from what is the norm, and find easier, and arguably better ways, to get things done. This is what we call growth. It is a continuous process, and not a gap. Every society, every thought, and every human aims to go forward, to be more ideologically, and otherwise, advanced. How is the process that enables the advancement, any sort of gap?

Its not only the older generation that lends a helping hand in dismissing ideas. The new generation does that too. Anything old is a cliché, and rebellion is our motto. There are some things that are the norms for a reason, but how can we hold our heads high and claim to be youngsters if we don’t rebel, and constructively break the rules? The new roads then go on to being the norm, while the generation that formed them, hold it close to their hearts, and blame everybody else, when the positions are changed. This too, is a vicious circle. 

An equally interesting observation would be the rush to make any positivity in thought or action, be it an increase in rationale, technological advancements, progressive ideologies, the product of one’s own generation. Whoever claims it has a blanket opinion on the people of the older generation, forming a never ending cycle of stereotypes.

How many of us get exasperated by the number of times we have to teach our parents how to use their devices? How many times have we laughed at their attempts to try to get something done on an electronic device?  How many times have our parents told us about their childhood, how they climbed the trees, and played in the water, and how everything was simple and happy then, and how they take pity on us, because of the kind of world we live in? These emotions, occurrences are all also classified as generation gap. But think about it. They are merely trying to catch up to the material and physical advances that make their life difficult in just the same manner as it makes ours easy. We will soon be doing this too, and we will take pity on the next generation that 'has missed out' on so much that we had! 

couch potato.not.

I have been writing and talking a lot about growing up, facing changes, handling situations, multiple epiphanies, et al. It’s probably just a curve everybody goes through, either fussing over it, or pragmatically. Some say we are the dreamers, and we can afford to do so only because our parents were being rational, when they were our age. Another oft handled phrase “ when I was your age…”. It could be the prefix to any number of annoying/amusing phrases, like, “ … I used to wake up at 5, do x y z, and then go to school, come back, and help mom/dad, study, and sleep early” or “ … I never depended on the idiot box to give me life” or “ … I was already working two jobs and paying my way through university”.

We have been the generation that went through sort of a sluggish transition in cultural values, ideologies, and such. The one before us were all up in arms for revolutions, fighting for their voices, fighting for their rights, fighting for the right to control their thoughts. They defied authority, they overturned hierarchy, and they openly expressed disgust at anybody’s attempt to control what shouldn’t be controlled. There were some changes that came as a result of it. A lot of us have been brought up with respect and concern, rather than a mere sense of duty. We were taught to think for ourselves, and for the most part, choose what our basis of life would be. A lot of us, not all of us. The freedom to do that, is often underestimated, and neglected.

I was recently asked, what is it that I live, or hope to live, upto? Frankly, I didn’t even know what that question meant. There are two connotations to this question. Both arising from a personal level, but one that would affect and determine, very directly put, the world. Sweeping statement, yes. The first one would be, the direct, what is it that I live upto? Do I confirm to any school of thought? Do I identify myself with any particular religion? Is there atleast a general rule of thumb that I go by? Well, my answer to all of them are – no. While acknowledging the fact that that’s scary, I must ask, is there a need to adhere to a rationale? That doesn’t mean that I think it is okay to go around doing anything I want because I don’t think anybody is watching over me, or because I don’t believe in karma. Neither am I somebody who lives without principles. I draw a line at lots of things, though most of them are criminal offenses.

And the next, what do I want for the world? All of us will immediately sprout the quintessential beauty pageant answer – world peace. Apart from that, what? Liberation of human beings. Gender equality. Poverty eradication. To be able to live without the looming fear of a nuclear d-day. Trying not to drown inch by inch in the melting glaciers. Patching up ozone holes. Figuring out a practical alternate source of energy.  A form of regime more apt and adequate than ‘democracy’. There are more. And there are some that don’t want any of these. Are we the kind that has our blood boiling at the thought of it? Or are we more inclined to overthrow superpowers by very slowly but efficiently devastating their economy? I think I fall under the latter category.  Rioting and revolting and rampant resistance worked then, still work in some places now. But I think it’s old game, old tactics, and people have learnt how to get past them. Maybe, not jumping up and demanding a strike in compensation for a wrong doing, or immediately having a dharna in front of the offending place, does not mean that we have given up, or that we don’t care. Maybe, we just have found smarter means to both get to, and justify, the ends. Atleast that’s what I’m choosing to believe in, for right now.