Of weddings and such things...

The last month of the year and a few of the last year could be described, for a lot of people, as ‘marriage season’. Marriage season sees people of usually a particular range-of-age getting hitched. Some of those matches pending since a long time to be made, some highly anticipated, some surprising, yet none of them unwanted. Facebook has been filled with wedding pictures, few of them posted by enthusiastic friends who attended prior to the bride or groom doing so. All in all, a new course of life has set in for a lot of people. Well, isn’t that an integral part of life – changing course with someone by your side…

 

A wedding or marriage like we usually like calling in large swathes of our country involves plenty planning, exorbitant expenses, raucous relatives, mannequin make-ups, fatty food, vogue-less videos, and so on and so forth. Let’s visit or for many of you re-visit a few of them.

 

Firstly wedding is a happy occasion for you (exceptions exist but let’s not get there) but it certainly is not happy for your pocket. It only ceases to matter if you are a rich guy/girl whose parents have earmarked tens of lakhs to spend on your special day. For others it can burn a hole in your pocket. There are always sarees to be gifted to people, clothes to be bought for near and dear, that payment to the flower wala, or the tent wala or the car wala. The above holds true if you have a spine and are not a parasite on parents for your own wedding. Statutory warning: if you thought wedding was it; you are mistaken. ‘Real’ expenditure starts after the wedding gets over.

 

Secondly weddings are highly emotional affairs. Everyone is pretty much charged up. The occasionally sobbing mother or aunt or grandmother. The financially stressed out father. The demanding-for-great-treatment relatives. The superior-feeling ‘boys-side’. The let-nothing-go-wrong ‘girls-side’. And in this everyone staying-on-the-edge for the wedding state of affairs, feathers do get ruffled. There will be a few disgruntled people. Remember that even though you set on the course of keeping everyone happy in your wedding you seldom do so. Reconcile to that fact, do not pay get too emotional over them, and you will be fine.

 

Thirdly, weddings if men thought, would fetch them nice gifts could be (not in every case) in for disappointed. Usually these affairs are lopsided towards the fairer sex. Your wife might receive 20 new sarees in the end and you only 2 new shirts. Same applies to gold jewellery (not applicable in certain communities). Same applies to ‘cash’ envelopes. By the end of the wedding if you pile up things you can sense the distinct disparity.

 

Fourthly weddings involve a lot of shopping. This point should have featured at the beginning but then since it is a continuous process, it could come anywhere. There is no fixed point when this process called shopping begins; it could be half a year ahead or could be a fortnight or a month earlier. But the time frame has nothing to do with the volume of shopping. The end point of shopping is the day prior to the wedding day in many cases. Thought at many (most) instances you will question the logic of articles that are bought, but it is in your best interest to not question and just do it as has been told to you. The shopping post-wedding has to be dealt separately.

 

Fifthly, weddings are largely beyond your control. Neither you decide the ways in which it happens nor do you have a say (to a large extent) in the events and their magnitude. Parents have the blueprint of your wedding in their head and they don’t entertain changes. You may force your way in some things, but risk it at the chagrin you have to face. Sometimes it is advisable and good and prudent to leave it to their better wisdom. However parents are becoming accommodating and are entertaining changes but some odd relative or a neighbour sometimes is enough to create that disharmony by his/her suggestions about your wedding.

 

Sixthly and lastly (more points depending on the response) weddings are meant to be happy occasions and it should be kept at that. The new bride has to adjust amidst new people and everyone should acknowledge that. The two people who are new to each other (barring long courtship ending in marriage) must understand each other. Striking a balance between expectations, of various quarters, can be challenging at times. But rarely would there be anything more lovely than the bond that you share with your partner. If you really come to think of it, matches are indeed made in heaven (sometimes broken on earth). Live it. Well, you know, you actually have to.

 

PS: Wedding as they have always told are like Delhi ka laddoo; one who eats repents and one who doesn’t also repents. They could not have gotten it more right.

 

the article originally appeared on http://manipalblog.com/2013/02/13/of-weddings-and-such-things/

Stirred Consciences, Class Concerns and Gargantuan Systems

The body of a young girl succumbed to brutal injuries inflicted on her by men. The sexual assault cut short a life prematurely. She would have had a job, looked after her parents, had a family of her own; but now she will not. Her fault was her gender. While rapes and murders happen with an increasing frequency, this nameless girl has stirred the conscience of many like no other.

Mass protests, few of them turning violent, foot-in-mouth comments from political class, opportunism, and media monitoring has brought a gruesome incident to the living rooms of people. For a first time crowds in thousands have gathered to protest without being offered free lunches. Few in slumber have awakened. Suddenly ‘rape’ is discussed at average Indian households. The movement, if it can be called so, has given newer and since-long-muzzled voices to many women.

The stirred conscience of citizens, leading to protests, has succeeded to some extent in applying pressure leading to creation of commissions which will look into women safety measures. But will any commission be able to change the mindset of those who view females as unequal; will any inquiry report change the misogynist attitude, or will any protest change the patriarchal high handedness practiced in most villages across the country?

The middle class has risen in protest. The thousands of faces of students, working professionals, both young, middle aged and old; visibly bearing no party affiliations are the bulk of middle class. But the middle class has its own concerns. Their priority list contains managing budget to buy that flat ten years from now, plan a holiday trip next summer, worry about the education of children; all the while worrying about the safety of women in the family. Hence the protesters are seen on the streets maximally in the weekends.

The upper echelons of society also has risen, but they are unaffected by the daily struggle a less opportune female faces beginning from her home, on the streets, in her office and in the public transport.TV room debates, twitter updates, lamenting on the systems, discussions of a deteriorating India and thus the need to send their sons and daughters abroad for education are features that describes the disconnected upper class Indians.

The poor of the country are too deep embroiled in their daily war for mere survival. They might be genuinely concerned about the gender crimes, of which they face a major brunt, but in their capacity to bring about that ‘change’, their resources are limited. However therein lays the catch. The upper class and vast swathes of middle class India do not vote. Apathetic political leadership can at one point be blamed on those who chose them, which are we the people. And what corrupt and inefficient polity can do to a society is all out in the open for us.

The ‘change’ that is being sought after does not end at death penalty for the perpetrators; that is a misconstrued demand. Violence against women, of which rape is a severe example, can only reduce with change in certain gargantuan systems in place. The systems being that of Policing, which is crying for reforms; Criminal justice, which is overburdened; and above all the system of Mentality. While choosing right representatives, applying public pressure and reformists might change the Policing and Judiciary; the third is the most daunting system to change.

Only a heady mix of deterrent (read police and judiciary) and education (read mindset) can reduce crime against women. Patriarchy in its medieval form, objectifying women in movies, gender divisiveness at home and work, disappearance of moral science classes in schools, an overall rich poor divide in society mixed with disregard for law are some of the areas that needs to be addressed. The onus largely lies on men, to understand women or at least not to commit such crimes; on parents, to teach their kids equality of gender among other things; on government to bring about necessary reforms and laws. Let the life of one nameless girl create some awareness, stir some bastions, whip up some passions, and bring about some change that her ilk seeks for.

To Burst or Not to Burst

This Deepavali saw an increase in no-cracker celebration, or at least in the noise about it. And it split people into two groups. One that advocated no-cracker diwali for various reasons, and other that believed in with-cracker diwali to be the real way to celebrate the festival. All this led to some minor skirmishes on the social media, some debates on the t.v and otherwise, some love lost between friends and some introspections in the end.

  

So what are the various views in this debate? The pro cracker group believes that it is an integral part of the diwali festivity. The beauty of a ‘fuljhari’, the illumination of a pot, the trail of a ‘rocket’, the pattern of a ‘chakri’, the blast of a bomb, are all visual and auditory delights and it is only that time of the year when one can indulge in using these. Traditionally crackers have been burst and with newer and more visually appealing crackers being produced each year, it is not appropriate not to indulge in this activity. For them the sound pollution, the air pollution that crackers cause is a part of the festivity. May be they would argue that the industrial pollution could be reduced rather than reducing crackers in diwali.

The no-cracker group, and mind you they were always existent, has on the exterior of it (with no accurate statistical data corroborating it) increased over the years. This probably has to do with the incresing awareness regarding the environment. crackers cause a lot of smoke and hazardous ones at that along with sound pollution. This can be harmful to the environment, as every diwali causes an extreme strain on the air quality. Equally affected are children and older people, not to mention the ill, who find the sound very disturbing. No-cracker group also takes into account the child labour that cracker factories employ as an unethical practice. Thus indulging in no-cracker diwali is their bit to the society, the community and the world at large.

The arguements might all sound genuine at their own place but the larger questions that arise out of the debate are, is it worth ‘burning’ thousands of rupees of crackers or using that money, say, to feed the hungry? is it prudent to deprive oneself of the enjoyment, the pleasure that cracker bursting provides? does one persons not bursting cracker help the environment? should not using crackers act as a deterrent to the lack of regulations and precarious conditions in cracker factories?

India does not produce environment friendly crackers as in western countries, which could perhaps answer some questions of this debate. That technology would however raise the cost, at no point be totally ’green’, and make it unaffordable for the poor anyway. Thus pro crackers group in the name of tradition and for the sheer joy that it provides continue bursting and have their enjoyment and be content. The anti cracker group can raise awareness, motivate people to come to their side try to bring in pro environment technology, and do their bit and be content.

The article appeared on manipalblog.com on 14th Nov, 2012.