Sunday, May 18, 2008

An ethical question

Say there is a girl. Her parents and only brother love her a lot. They send her outside to study. It's for the first time the girl is ever away from home. She sees a new world. New guys in her class. By the time she finishes her 4 year engg study she develop an intimate relationship with a guy. The guy is from her college only. A good guy. Handsome and intelligent. So is the girl. A perfect couple you can say. Both are happy dating, mating, singing all *ing you can imagine. Both joined same company.
There her parents is totally unaware of this relationship her daughter has developed. Her dad has a very nice guy in his mind who hails from same cast who is equally or more smart and handsome as her daughter's BF. He asks daughter to marry him. But daughter love her college guy who is not even from her cast. Her parents and brother can't imagine her to marry anyone outside the cast. Lets without analysing assume that's how it is. Her family is adamant like Rock. And infact they are right in their own way. Now what should her daughter do? Should she disobey her parents her society and marry her BF. Or should she obey her parents and marry where they want?
She is thinking if I disobey my father then that's value of a father? He loves me a lot. He took so much hassle to bring me at this position. But if I obey my father then what about all those events I had with her BF. All those exchange of notes, practising together of Hindi dramatics, late night roaming in the college streets, they way he gave me a rose on v-day, watching casino royal together, and blah blah blah...you can add more you can think...
Should I disobey my family and marry him? That's what she is thhinking. Help her.

35 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi Shubh, as I thnk love is above any caste and community. Love is god and god never ask us to run behind caste and community.


About the girl, she has to think more than twice before going for marriage. Wo jisse bhi shadi kare, but she has to think before entering this lovely life. Parents agar caste ko dekhkar shadi ka decision lene kah rahe hein to main ise galat manti hun, lekin agar banda ko analyse kar apni daughter ki shadi apne pasnd ka banda(no matters he is from which caste) se karwana chahte hein to yeh sahi hai.


rgds
rewa

Shubh said...

Ok forget cast. Try to understand the deadlock here.

Girl doesn't want to marry the boy her parents selected for her. Her parents don't want her to marry the boy she selected for her. And both boys are different.

Assume above statements are valid in any case. So, what should she do? Or her parents do? Isn't it deadlock? It is.

Shubh said...

Love is above cast and community. That is true. But it needs huge amount of momentum to overcome the inertia of cast and community. Jesus had that momentum. We may not have. Secondly, love is not confined to one person. It's spreaded across all the humanity. Marriage is confined to one person. Not the love. Love knwos no boundaries.

Read my next post about love and marriage. That should give some insight.

Secondly, due to western effect marrying in the same cast now a days are considered as something unholy. There are some benefit in marrying in the same cast. For example when the girl goes to now house she doesn't have to learn the culture of the new family. Hailing from the same cast should would probably be knowing all those. If in intercast marriage girl has to learn the full culture of the new family. That's the advantage of marrying in the same cast.

Story doesn't stop here. If a girl from one community A marry a guy in the community B. That means community A lost 2-3 people. Assuming, she would have 1-2 kids. Now imagine a case if all the girls of community A marry guys of community B and none of the guy of community A is willing to do intercast. What will happen to community A. They wont have next gen kids. Community A will simply cease to exist on the earth. Therefore it is necessary that even boys of A should get the girls from other community. It's necessary for the existence of the community. When a girl marry another community that community grows. If a girl marry in her own community her community grows. The choice is her.

Love and marriage is not same. You are mixing love and marriage. You can still love other community people by marrying in your own community.

Anonymous said...

who is "she"?CEO sahiba kya? Emily bronte? Naina lal kidwai?

Shubh said...

No not her. The post talks about in general.

Anonymous said...

I do not understand the big problem here. The girl should marry the guy she loves and soon after some time her adamant father and brother will be reconcile. the girl is well educated, an engineer and quite mature enough to think that the guy she has selected is worthy and she would rather want to be with him than with the guy selected by her father. How are we sure that the guy her father has selected would really be good? (Smart, rich.of course..are just synonymous with it)..I guess the more important would be the convergence of thought aspect, which the girl thinks she has with her BF. We of course assume that they both if live together would be able to sustain themselves without depending monetarily on the parents'money. It is a simple case, if economically independent girl would not show us the way.who would? We need more and more marriages of this kind. her father would have forgotten what it is to love and marry your BF/GF. There is no value erosion by following your head and heart.

Anonymous said...

And I do not understand why her father would be so confident of their choice and would not trust their daughter's choice. The girl's BF is well educated, would have a good standing in the society, and the girl likes him, what more is there to think?...Of course her father is more worried about the possible berating/taunting/isolation of his friends and relatives, but then life can not be made a hostage to such crappy tauntings of some irrelevant relatives and friends whose only job has been to commenting n everything!!! my suggestion: UNEQUIVOCAL SUPPORT TO LOVE MARRIAGE.

Shubh said...

@Anonymous

This what happend in USA what you are saying. Look at their condition. So many divorces. Pathetic.

Then what's the role of parents? Just grow your children and when they will be fully grown they wont listen you?

Anonymous said...

Your theory of "Community preservation" borders on unnecessary xenophobic and morbid fears. The likely situation is not only fictional, it is rather misleading. First, to think that one commnity has turned so progressive that it is always marrying in another caste and the other community is so stagnant that it refuses to even surge forward, is quite ridiculous to begin with. Secondly, what is meant by the community here, does it represent some caste? some particular cutlure? And even if it does how is there a perceptible or imperceptible decline when the girl also finally is an equally , if not more, capable carrier of such cultural traditions. There seems to be an unnecessary sensitivitization on your part to some issue which simply does not exist. I would suggest to have a class of cold water and for a moment forget this warped logic of yours which is based on ridiculous assumptions.

Anonymous said...

But sir, this is a part of the change that is bound to happen. The increasing number of divorce is not because of the inter caste marriages but because of economic independence of the girls. When the girl is economic dependent, she just can not think of divorce and so divorce does nt happen. And if I am not completely wrong, we can see the progressive increase in the number of divorce in our country. With time, it will increase. And I think, may be we should rather learn to live with it than to go back to forced economic dependent state.

Shubh said...

You can still help other cast people by marrying in your cast. No one gonna stop you.

I hate all these fundamentalist who apply fundamental concepts in practical life.

You will understand it better when all the girls of your community marrry into other community. Your whatsoever community will simply cease to exist.

By community I mean people from similar customs and tradition. To preserve the custom and tradition it's imporatant that girl marry in the same community where she belog. However, this is fundamentally no required. Fundamentally, nothing is requierd.

Anonymous said...

And sir, do you think the role of the parents is to keep looking for the bride for you. They were generous enough to give you right upbringing so that you can learn to make choices and supported you when you could not support yourself. Actually, personally, if I confess, I have many selfish motivations for supporting this kind of marriages. first, the dowry system is very likely to go down with this, Secondly, the caste barriers will be broken. Thirdly, it is really too restrictive in India to be expected to live like a saint and wasting your time only dreaming/fantasizing about girls/guys. Life would be more fun if this parental microscope is removed for a while.

Anonymous said...

There is no application of any fundamental concept here. I would rather argue from the common sense than to quote some authoritative sources to buttress my claims if any. I do not understand your worries about girls from my community marrying guys from other other community. It will also be that the guys from my community would be marrying girls from other community. Why do you think, the guys would be waiting for this process to stop and then start looking for the girls, in their own caste. And if the girls in my community are the best on this planet that everyone is queuing for them, I learn a lesson for celebrating when I have a daughter!!!

Shubh said...

Transcendentally, I do not believe in cast. I do not believe in religion. If I were lord of the universe, first thing I would do is to remove all the religions and holy books. Castism root cause is Religion. Only thing I believe is in the existence which is everywhere.

Pratically, I believe in cast and community because it is there. There is no harm is respecting own cast and other cast.

That you think the role of parents is not to look for bride. They don't think. If they think so, very fine.

The point I was trying to make was very simple. But we have lost our ability to understand simple matter. We can understand big big matter but not simple matter.

Madam/Sir, I was saying that don't marry by hurting your parents. If your parents are happy with you intercast then go ahead na.

Anonymous said...

Mishra jee, do not worry about the Brahmin caste getting extinct sooner or later, the community has strange ways of sustaining itself and even if one particular identity say 'caste' of some people is diluted, on a larger scale, there will not be a big problem of the extinction of the family traditions as a whole. Do not worry sir, the girl would equally carry all the brahminical traits, if any of them exist, and quite frankly, we should not unnecessarily put spokes in this change that is bound to happen. Let this transition phase go as smoothly as possible.

Shubh said...

My worry is in preservance. If i go and marry a girl in Africa then my kid won't speak Maithili/Angika. The language will be lost. There are many other custom - madhushravani, etc. Even I also forgot. Lol.

Preserve your coulture.

Anonymous said...

And sir, what I am saying is the decision of marriage should not be based on parents'wishes alone, rather there should be open hearted discussion on the whole issue, and the girl's choice should be respected as well. Frankly speaking, let us say, if my daughter has studied engineering and is going to marry some guy from another caste and the guy is say a porter in a railway office. And I have seen a prosective guy who is well educated and I am convinced that he is good. Now, in this situation, of course I am going to put all my weight to dissuade my daughter from marrying her choice. But if there is a tie like my choice and her choice both are almost equal, say in many matters, like family background, education, financially well off, then I would not insist on the community fator as a weightage to derail her decision.

Shubh said...

Why can't the girl have trust on her parents that her parents will do good for her?

What's problem in this?

Anonymous said...

Many traditions of Mithila/angika would be lost in any way ,sir, your children living in Bangalore would not speak Maithali, probably not even Hindi, the old system of Bhoj (feast) is almost being replaced by Buffet Dinner or has it been completely replaced?), the old ways of going to school without slippers and sitting in a school without benches is already almost out of fashion, many festivales would be lost in the process. I do not see how the parents wishes would be any more helpful in the preservation of these things which we are going to lose. My humble opinion would be make peace with some changes and if possible try to reconcile with them.

Shubh said...

Stop commenting Anonymously. You are trying to be too smart.

Anonymous said...

You are putting too much responsibility on the parents. They are old and probably need to have a relaxed state of mind!!!

Shubh said...

I know it will be lost. It has already lost a lot and it will be lost more. But time eat them up all. But my duty is to preserve it as far as I can. Because, I am stronger than time.

Shubh said...

Then for that reason they would had not braught me into this world. I was happy there only. Lol.

Anonymous said...

Well sir, at least you could have respected my civil language and would have used rather more amenable statement if you want me to be silent. Why would I be both anynonymous and 'try to act as smart'? Hopefully, I never breached the codes of civility and is it too much to expect the same standards from the esteemed author?

Shubh said...

I am still respecting that's why you are able to comment.

Anonymous said...

Hey at least you should be happy, someone is commenting upon your posts. is it not nice to see readers being so interested that keep posting messages!!! Can you by the way make any guesses who could it be? We have exchanged thoughts/opinions though not directly to each other.

Shubh said...

You might be this

http://mylifewithmyself.wordpress.com/

Why such nonesense dude?

Although I am not 100% sure.

Anonymous said...

Not really, it is simply Budhi, if you remember!!!

Shubh said...

O yes! I remember you. Why dont you get a life?

Anonymous said...

It wasnt me Mr.Shubh! Bemused i m what made u to think like that.Anyway Enjoy!

Shubh said...

Hey! Sorry for that.

That was a gmail problem or a mistake on my part. Gmail groups emails. So all comments were grouped to the email of you comment. So, I thot it's you.

Sorry once again!

Ye Budhi tha. He has a bad habit of commenting cowardly.

Shubh said...

Beta Budhi bahot pitega tu. Nahi to sudhar ja.

Anonymous said...

Interesting topic Shubh, but I don't know why are you so much stick with caste system! I still say true love never run behind castism. Never. Anyway, I will put some more thoughts on this. But goen through to your post as well as comments. Anonymous bhai sahab se kah den ki hamsabse dare nahi aur samne aakar likhe aur to get inspired ask him to remember the poem "khub ladi wo to jhansi wali rani thee." just kidding :-)

rgds

Anonymous said...

One more thing, Love doesn't mean Marriage! But, if they both have committed to each other then they should marry with each other, whatever the cases. And if they both are not committed then they can move according to their parents.

Lekin jab girls or guys ko pata rahta hai ki their parents wont accept such kind of thing then why to take such steps? One shouldn't hurt the parents. They have to convince them, kyunki maa papa ka ashirvad ke bina ham kuch nahi pa sakte hein, Never!

Shubh said...

By cast I mean culture associated with cast. Some custom some tradition associated with cast. Some positive thing associated with cast.

For example - In mithila there is a tradition of Madhushravani. In which newly married bride worship lord shiva - parvati. Such tradition I want to maintian. There were more tradition they all got lost :((

Funamentally I don't even believe in religion. What to speak of caste system.

My single hunch is to preserve the culture of caste system. Othewise, it will be lost in the modernization. It has already lost a lot. Little bit is left. In the next 2-3 gen it will be fully lost.