We're well into the second decade of the twenty-first century, and to my dismay, the cultural fabric in the country of my birth finds itself deplorably stuck in the mind-set from the medieval times.
Enter the living rooms of middle-class urbanites and suburbanites. You see that everyone has achieved good educational, professional, vocational credentials. Appliances galore in the household, and have improved the general quality (or, is it quantity) of life immensely. Information from all over the world pours in through an unimaginable lineup of television channels. Mobile phones and automobiles play catch-up with the middle-class demographics. There is hardly a household without a significant number of their progeny settled overseas. Residential and office buildings rise high, and the roofs of slum dwellings sport satellite dishes. Consumerism has reached dizzying heights never seen before. You would think I have painted a picture that anyone would envy.
Look deeper into a typical drawing room (as a family room is called in that environment). You see a middle-aged couple. Say, they have a son and a daughter, both fairly well educated and with their feet in the bubbling software industry. Once again, you would think that the family has everything set. Dead wrong! There is only one small problem - the daughter has career aspirations, and is resisting to be married off. Perfect setting for high drama. Sleepless nights for everyone involved, threats of falling ill on the parts of parents and other blackmail tactics, the daughter on an irrecoverable guilt trip. Some daughters are strong enough to break the shackles and follow their own instinct - leaving the parents to go though the cycle of denial, and the inevitable acceptance with the standard fatalistic soother, "Everything happens for the best!" Most other daughters subordinate their aspirations with another soother "My parents know best" and fast-forwarding through the denial phase with an early acceptance of "Everything happens for the best!" The sons, in contrast, are supposed to know what they are doing! They are not under the same pressure to get hitched and to reproduce - their virility is not as short-lived as the daughters' fertility window!
What make matters worse are the selection criteria used by parents in the selection of the groom - (1) the micro-caste (a known evil better than an unknown evil?), (2) matching of horoscopes (stars and planets know best?), (3) the credentials of the groom's parents (it's an alliance between families, not just the bride and groom?), (4) physical characteristics, and other factors of the like. It is not that all such alliances are doomed to fail. However, when they do succeed, they do in spite of, and not because of, the criteria cited. They succeed because of the resilience of the bride, her willingness to subordinate her interests to everyone else's, and compassion shown by the groom as she goes through her recalibration of life. And then, there are marriages that fail - frequently, to a perceived disgrace by the bride's parents, and eventually blamed on an alleged insufficiency in adjustment on the part of the bride.
The country is stirred up about corruption in government, and gruesome violence on the streets. Laws will be passed, and perpetrators of such explicit crimes will be punished. There is no mechanism, though, to curb the silent killing that happens in millions of households to this day.
I do want to end this note on a bright note for the New Year - things can only get better!
Enter the living rooms of middle-class urbanites and suburbanites. You see that everyone has achieved good educational, professional, vocational credentials. Appliances galore in the household, and have improved the general quality (or, is it quantity) of life immensely. Information from all over the world pours in through an unimaginable lineup of television channels. Mobile phones and automobiles play catch-up with the middle-class demographics. There is hardly a household without a significant number of their progeny settled overseas. Residential and office buildings rise high, and the roofs of slum dwellings sport satellite dishes. Consumerism has reached dizzying heights never seen before. You would think I have painted a picture that anyone would envy.
Look deeper into a typical drawing room (as a family room is called in that environment). You see a middle-aged couple. Say, they have a son and a daughter, both fairly well educated and with their feet in the bubbling software industry. Once again, you would think that the family has everything set. Dead wrong! There is only one small problem - the daughter has career aspirations, and is resisting to be married off. Perfect setting for high drama. Sleepless nights for everyone involved, threats of falling ill on the parts of parents and other blackmail tactics, the daughter on an irrecoverable guilt trip. Some daughters are strong enough to break the shackles and follow their own instinct - leaving the parents to go though the cycle of denial, and the inevitable acceptance with the standard fatalistic soother, "Everything happens for the best!" Most other daughters subordinate their aspirations with another soother "My parents know best" and fast-forwarding through the denial phase with an early acceptance of "Everything happens for the best!" The sons, in contrast, are supposed to know what they are doing! They are not under the same pressure to get hitched and to reproduce - their virility is not as short-lived as the daughters' fertility window!
What make matters worse are the selection criteria used by parents in the selection of the groom - (1) the micro-caste (a known evil better than an unknown evil?), (2) matching of horoscopes (stars and planets know best?), (3) the credentials of the groom's parents (it's an alliance between families, not just the bride and groom?), (4) physical characteristics, and other factors of the like. It is not that all such alliances are doomed to fail. However, when they do succeed, they do in spite of, and not because of, the criteria cited. They succeed because of the resilience of the bride, her willingness to subordinate her interests to everyone else's, and compassion shown by the groom as she goes through her recalibration of life. And then, there are marriages that fail - frequently, to a perceived disgrace by the bride's parents, and eventually blamed on an alleged insufficiency in adjustment on the part of the bride.
The country is stirred up about corruption in government, and gruesome violence on the streets. Laws will be passed, and perpetrators of such explicit crimes will be punished. There is no mechanism, though, to curb the silent killing that happens in millions of households to this day.
I do want to end this note on a bright note for the New Year - things can only get better!
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