Aishwarya Rai, who has been in the news lately because of her engagement to Abhishek Bachchan, has apparently been ritually married to not one but two trees before her real marriage (thanks, Antahkarana). The aim is to counter the astrological effects of being born a Manglik:
But Ash is reportedly blighted with what in astrological terms is described as “manglik dosh,” which means that the planet Mars (mangla) and possibly even the planet Saturn are in the seventh house. People with manglik dosh are prone to multiple marriages, according to San Francisco Bay Area Vedic astrologer Pandit Parashar. That means Ash’s marriage to Abhishek could either end in divorce or his death.
In Hindu tradition, in order to offset the evil influence of manglik dosh, a woman should marry a peepal or banana tree before she ties the knot with her fiancé. Or she could even marry a clay urn, which should be broken soon after the nuptial ceremonies, signifying that the bride has become a widow, and the manglik dosh problem has been solved.
ItÂ’s not known if Ash has married, or plans to marry, an urn, but she reportedly has married a peepal tree in the holy city of Varanasi, and a banana tree in the southern Indian city of Bangalore. (link)
The Indian media is reporting that a case has been filed against the Bachchan family by lawyer Shruti Singh to the effect that these types of practices promote untouchability. She has also suggested that it’s offensive to women.
There has been some discussion of this event on the blog Feministing, and one commenter there points out that the practice of marrying a tree can also be recommended for men, though I haven’t been able to confirm that. (If true, that would definitely weaken the case that this is a misogynistic ritual.) Other commenters have suggested that this is probably pretty harmless in the big scheme of things — especially since honor killings, dowry killings, child marriages, and forced marriages are still problems in Indian society.
What do readers think? Is this “backward” practice part of a slippery slope (only one step away from things that are much more problematic), or something basically harmless? What do you think of Shruti Singh’s claim that this practice promotes untouchability? I must admit I don’t know very much about Hindu astrology, and so can’t say what role caste plays in these practices in general.
This is total bakwaas. Caste is a big part of Indian society in a thousand pernicious ways. If you prefer to keep your head in the sand, there isn’t much I can do about it. FYI, I am not a progressive liberal or a card-carrying communist. I am an engineer and have no idea what the social science guys or whoever have to say about this. But I have seen the reality in India, and I know how much caste figures everywhere. And you are not helping anyone by pretending the problem does not exist.
If one leaves their hometown and travels to the big city to work and settle, how will anyone know their caste?
In small towns and villages where everyone knows everybody since birth, yeah, people will know your caste.
But when you travel? Settle elsewhere? How is it possible? Unless you tell them.
If one leaves their hometown and travels to the big city to work and settle, how will anyone know their caste?
Except in Tamil Nadu, I think most people’s surnames are technically caste identifiers (but feel free to tell me otherwise). People who know about that sort of thing would automatically know what caste you are, if that’s the case.
One newbie observation I’ve made is that every sociopolitical discussion at SM invariably morphs into a discussion of caste, and either its venality or banality. That in itself is a pretty good indicator of the place (good or bad) that caste occupies in the Indian psyche. (Probably the same place that race occupies in American discourse).
http://tools.monster.com/quizport/default.asp?quest=1&oldquest=1&file=india_culture_quiz&priv.x=53&priv.y=17
Are you ready to live/work in India? Take the quiz!
Sakshi, you’re an engineer! How cool. Just a general comment – the big difference in conceptual styles between social science guys (and girls) and engineer girls (and guys) arises because ‘reality’ in the ss perspective is extremely complicated, nuanced, and variegated. So one sometimes needs to hold both the thing itself and the thing exactly opposite to it as both to be true – appropriately hedged and nuanced and conditioned. Of course the political types have to come down somewhere, so they do. And then there are ideologues. Engineers on the other hand, don’t need to do this. But nobody need ever apologize for being an engineer with opinions on ss stuff.
Chachaji, the only reason I mentioned that I am an engineer is because Divya seemed to insinuate in #182 that casteism did not actually exist and was some kind of liberal conspiracy. As someone who won’t know liberal discourse if someone hit me on the head with it, and so cannot be considered a brainwashed liberal puppet in any way, I wanted to serve as an objective witness that casteism does exist.
Sorry about the threadjack. Lets forget abt this little aside and continue.
Not sure where Divya is getting her data from. Average English-speaking Hindu? How large does that sample have to be to make any such generalization?
Caste and religion are a huge part of Indian society- educated English speaking or otherwise. Each time I go back, I’m reminded of this. And as far as knowing what caste who is, the last name is generally a giveaway (this from experience across many parts of India).
BTW, thanks. This is certainly the first time I’ve heard that! 🙂
Interesting, Ennis. I am also very selfish, and because of that I would prefer to die after my husband – I simply cannot be at peace with the thought that I will escape the pain while he is suffering through it.
the last name is generally a giveaway (this from experience across many parts of India).
Sirji or Shrimati Madam,
My name is:
Hari Ram Ramdas Mohan Gurudev Singh Zubin Mehta Reema Malik Jagjit Arora Walter Topiwalla Arjun Singh Seema Zariwallah Mona Lisa* Vinod Valloppillil**
Can you please tell me my caste, I am little lost. I am not that smart.
Hint: Some of them (names above – they are very common names) might not be even Hindus pnly. Names listed above could be Sikhs, Parsees, Christians, Muslims with same names in addition to Hindu name. Like Malik – could be Hindu Jat, Sikh, Muslim.
Another Hint: Singh = Jat, or Rajput, or Sikh, or added later as a surname to make with one with no sepcific caste idenifier
*** Mona Lisa is a professor in seismology in Pakistan in real life, and is a Muslim
**** He is one of the bloggers of Sepia Mutiny
Kush Tandon – Khatri (upper caste, via Google)- am I right? Laloo Prasad Yadav– Yadav (lower caste) Eemani Sankara Sastri (Brahmin, upper caste)
Note the use of the word “generally”, Tandon sahib.
Also, just so it’s clear, I’m not a fan of the caste system, but each time someone makes a comment about how everything has changed and caste is not a problem any more, it worries me because it’s a huge problem for a very large percentage of India’s population.
Addendum:
somebody makes a comment that caste is not a problem among educated Indians….
Post 212:
If a group of Yadavs beat a Harijan up, the media speaks of the Yadavs as upper caste. On the other hand, the Yadavs are elgible for caste-based reservations, Yadavs are lower caste. So it is the context that decides who is upper and who lower caste.
Krishna (of the Mahabharata) belongs to the Yadav caste. But did the Mahabharata say that the Yadavs are lower caste? If any mutineer has read a major rendering of the Mahabharata, can they throw light?
By that logic every church, temple, mosque, synagogue, should be boarded up, razed, and turned into a parking lot. Science bless you.
Just because something does not have any redeeming value or in fact causes harm to the society, I dont believe we should destroy it.
By that logic, no country should ever have to reduce its nuclear weapons stockpile.
Krishna (of the Mahabharata) belongs to the Yadav caste. But did the Mahabharata say that the Yadavs are lower caste? If any mutineer has read a major rendering of the Mahabharata, can they throw light? It is not quite clear whether the Yadavs, a caste, of today have any relation to the Yadavas of the Mahabharata, which was more of a clan.
I wonder if you can instead, technically speaking, marry a glass of hops aqnd yeast mixed with barley malt since hops technically come under Kingdom Plantae.
Sakshi – Jatis exist in India by the thousands. And yes they eat together and marry within the community. But there is no system whatsoever. That is my point. So it is not some giant conspiracy that was hatched 5000 years ago and has been kept in place by cruel immoral Indians. Now, after independance because of secular policies that are being implemented based on caste, a system seems to be emerging. But according to this research study, which has been ongoing for the last 4 years in Karnataka: (1) there is no fixed hierarchy between jatis; (2) there are no fixed practices between same jatis that live in different areas; (3) it is not possible to link their lifestyle to any hegemonic ideology; (4) their lifestyle cannot be traced back to any sanskrit text (5) it is impossible to identify jatis based on any regional social structure let alone any all-India structure.
So the first thing we have to do if we are interested in reforming caste or abolishing caste, is to try and figure out what exactly it is. It is not an organization – (except for the affirmative action part of it). It is no use whatsoever repeating like parrots how horrific it all is. This is something that has survived 800 years of so-called caste free Buddhism for heavens sake. It has survived onslaughts from the Bhakti movement, the social reformers, the colonials, the liberals of today, the constituion of India and world opinion at large. Don’t you think we should at least open our minds to trying to figure out the phenomenon is in a more objective way? Caste survives because people like it. It is their security blanket perhaps. I don’t know either. But my own personal experience and that of anyone I have observed shows that it is absolutley not what it is made out to be. And bear in mind again, it is only the rich and comfortable and assorted Ph.D. holders who want to abolish caste. The people who identify themselves based on caste cling to their caste with affection and pride. And because secular policies are having a detrimental effect on caste instead of improving the situation, if we feel any sort of moral obligation at all, then we must be courageous enough to look at it in a different light.
Same here, Hema.
I fully don’t get it, and the one time I decided to talk about it I got random anti-Christian vibes from people who claimed I was lying about something which was actually true about my extended family’s caste history.
It wasn’t until I got to uni and made Indian – and Hindu – friends that I realised how important caste still is for some people. I always assumed it was as distant from Indians living outside India/in urban India as marrying trees or charming snakes or balancing pots on one’s head.
While it’s interesting to look at from an academic point of view for its intricacies and the role it played in social order in pre-colonial India, I’m glad I grew up with a sense of distance from it. It’s sad whem commenters use it as a shield to disguise other sentiments towards members of the (oh, how I hate the d word but I’ll use it anyway) diaspora.
I found Siddhartha’s discussion on mixed-race/bi-cultural members of the South Asian community much more relevant to how I see South Asians today, but I guess caste will always have its place along with gender and religion as one of our community’s dividing cleavages.
To SP @ #92 and to others who wanted to know:
(Sorry for being away from the board this long.) I have no idea what C/D means. The ad that I mentioned in #71 was meant as a spoof of matrimonial ads, which blew up in my face when I posted it at this e-matrimonial site. I had no idea that so many uncles and aunties would be interested in the supposed son of a banana baron. To clarify further: only Santosh @ #86 seems to have understood the equation monklik=macaca.
priya,
good post.
many of the marriage rituals require input from people from all sections of society — not only the priest, but also the maid of the house, from the mamaji to the maharanjan, the dhobi, the hijra.. I don\’t see any need to get after the priest specifically, unless we assume a protestant-catholic dynamic (with pope struggling against the secular king) operating within india. Of course, such an assumption would be ridiculous if not asinine.
It\’s sad to see every discussion predictably degenerate into a caste, cow, and curry whipping of hindus.
why most hindus never question sikhs about why they were the turban? after all, it is not something new or novel in our society..
why most muslims and christian feel the need to question everything about the other \”religions\”, after having lived here for centuries??
part animal: because of the social consequences of the practice of castism. not at all analagous to the sikh turban, but thanks for trying.
1) sikh turban is a practice. 2) it is nonsensical. 3) it is not questioned by hindus. infact, hindus are indifferent to it. 4) it is a source of endless intrigue to christians and muslims (and their secularized psec versions) 5) abandonment of this practice is seen as the breaking of a sacred tradition by other sikhs.
6) sikhs do not see abandonment of turban as a progressive act. \”dekho, kuldeep ne kesh kaat daale, he must have the brains of einstein, he must be a very sensitive dude\” 7) Radhaswamis, sahejdharis, etc, (who otherwise follow the teachings of the sikh gurus) get discriminated against for not following this practice.
sounds exactly like manglik ritual.
troll-a-rific.
Checking the “Mangal-dosha” (or, “Kuja-dosha”) in a birth-chart is perhaps one of the most misunderstood area while measuring the marital compatibility. One astrologer may find a chart having severe “Mangal-dosha” while another astrologer may declare the same chart clear of any “Mangal-dosha”. A lay man, having no knowledge of Vedic astrology, finds himself in a dilemma – as to whom he should believe.
Late Dr. B.V. Raman, world-renowned astrologer, author of more than 100 books on Vedic astrology and former editor of the famous “Astrological Magazine”, presented an unique formula to measure the exact intensity of “Mangal-dosha”, on a scale of 100 points for each of the concerned malefic planets causing the dosha, in his books “Jaatak-Nirnay” and “How to judge a horoscope (vol. II)”. Through this formula, maximum “Mangal-dosha” in a chart may reach up to 337.50 points.
Though, some of the astrologers (specially in Northern India) do not consider 2nd house while checking for “Mangal-dosha”, but learned Dr. B.V. Raman and many other Jyotish scholars has strongly advocated to consider the 2nd house too. While, the 2nd house represents family and wealth on the one hand, it is also the “Marak-bhava” of self on the other hand. Through the principle of “BhaavatBhavam”, it is also the 8th from 7th house and thus represents the age of the spouse. If Mars is posited in the 2nd house, it aspects the “Saubhaagya sthaan” or “Mangalya sthaan” of the wife through it’s 7th aspect. Through it’s 4th aspect, it afflicts the 5th house (house of progeny) and through it’s 8th aspect, it afflicts the 9th, the most important house representing the destiny and “Dharma” of a person.
Note: Theoretically, The “Mangali-dosha” (or, “Kuja-dosha”), should not only be measured in Rasi-chart (Lagna kundli) but also in Moon-chart and Venus chart too. But, in practice, it becomes too complicated to adopt these calculations. The Rasi-chart has got the maximum importance in all matters and thus most of the astrologers considers Rasi chart only.
The following article (in Hindi) illustrates the technique to measure the exact intensity of “Mangal-dosha”: http://howisyourdaytoday.com/ARTICLES/kujdosha/KujRGaur01.htm
I second Sakshi and Legionary Pullo, caste is still quite important in everyday life in India. The last of hundreds of examples I can remember is an OBC cook refusing to eat with a neo-Buddhist Dalit driver in my friend’s household…in super-liberal South Bombay. The discussion veered towards caste from jyotishes because I think Divya said something about English-speaking desis viewing Hinduism in terms of caste (she suggested I had raised that point, though I didn’t – I said pandits are still pretty relevant in many Indian Hindus’ lives, even if not in the life of a liberal Hindu living in the US).
I’m not sure what Divya is trying to suggest in her defence of it, first she said it isn’t really important any more, and serves only positive functions, and then she said caste conflicts are a liberal invention and liberals want to do away with caste – ? I don’t think anyone who knows anything about social science or simply, has lived in India, could imagine waving a magic wand and making it disappear, but the point I think is that caste is an important part of lived social reality for Indian Hindus. Whether you take the verse about different castes being formed out of different body parts of the ‘purush’ seriously or not, caste does get enforced and justified in terms of religious hierarchy in many parts of India still. And yes, we’ve all read about the localisation and decentralisation of jatis, it doesn’t mean there’s no hierarchy.
Enough caste chatter, back to tree-weddings!
A propos of the original topic, I found this very interesting article in my files, on the contemporary astrology business in India.
apologies for the thread-jack –
but seriously youareafineonetotalk and part-animal –
why all the grief about beards on sikh men ?!!!
as an equal-opportunity dater i have nothing but nice things to say about men with long hair and long beards . i grant you there are certain drawbacks like … errr … unforeseen tangling and major frizz attacks in humid weather that made me feel i was making out with Cousin It , but by and large , props to the bearded gents . always good when a man takes waaaaay longer than you to get ready to go anywhere . and when you have a forest of shampoos , hairoils , conditioners and serums to choose from . all free ( am desi , am cheap ) . and something we could talk about with equal passion – since football (gah!) and fashion didnt do it .
and nothing but appreciation for the resolve it takes to stick with something , regardless of the taunts and grief that get thrown your way . practices born out of strong beliefs that harm no-one else should engender nothing but strong respect .
now i will retreat back under my rock and continue lurking – see y’all in about a year or so …
yeah right.. how backward those “Hindus” in India and their counterparts in US are?. If only they took the “Jindal” way.. 🙂
This is very interesting Tash. Finally, an educated human being, with university going Hindu friends presumably from a similar social background who indicate that caste is important. Everyone on SM of course does not consider it important to themselves personally, but only believe that that their maids and drivers and the rest of the wretched of India are riddled with it and it must be abolished. These same individuals have probably never shared a sandwich with their maids at their dining table, yet in their case it is not casteism at all.
So what was it about your educated friends that made you believe caste is important? Remember, marriage, eating, and other other rituals are community driven events all over the world and do not count. It would be extremely helpful if you could illustrate this point. Also remember that I am not denying that horrible atrocities are commited in India on a daily basis against some or the other caste. I am challenging that something mysterious called caste is the reason that these atrocities are always committed as the caste is always mentioned and other factors such as economics and petty jealousies never investigated.
So true Divya! Finally, a proud hindu who says it like it is.
SP, Enough caste chatter, back to tree-weddings! Sure.
I suppose it is completely different when you are personally involved. What if you are asked : what would you do if your in-laws want to do a tree wedding for you? If you give testimony to “The Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster Version Me” as I do, then this is not a difficult matter. One of the answers to this difficult situation, of course, is to marry your beer FIRST. Such a marriage finds acceptance in the Word. I will spare you the details. In short, it is based on our belief in the existence of beer volcanoes in the Hereafter.
Those who argue that marrying tree is “just a tradition” and traditions are important atleast in marriage are being disingenuous. Marrying trees is not a common tradition like the fire and the “fera” (walking around the fire) etc. The marrying to a tree is done in this “special situation” thus giving credence to the BS of mangal. So cant sweep this one under the rug of “tradition”. I am all for tradition and the pomp involved in weddings, but this is pure superstition and continuing superstitious actions harms a society by making it superstitious and anti-scientific in general. Big difference between tradition and superstition.
RC – I think there’s a case to be made (as mentioned by someone above) that these traditions, whether religious rituals or otherwise, are all equally arbitrary, so who’s to say the pheras are “correct” and de-manglikification rituals are “superstition.”
It seems to me that if one regards caste as an endogamous grouping within a larger society – at minimum – with all the social, cultural, professional, financial and other aspects overlayed on it – and looking at religion as an extra layer on top of those – then endogamous groupings arise within all societies, and by this minimalist definition, white Americans are the most numerous caste in the world! Also, there would be nothing unique to Hinduism about caste when seen in this sense. The question then is, why is endogamy, a form of social regulation of individual sexual choice, so endemic, and dare I say, endogenous to all societies? Quite clearly, at least one motivation must be the fear of losing out in the mating game – a rather elemental fear, I would say! Caste is like an insurance policy if your dating strategy fails, to put it crudely.
Another thing about caste in India is that (since there are thousands of them) new ones are being formed and old ones are dropping off all the time – somewhat also like new cults and ‘religions’. As social and economic conditions change, new castes form – so, at one end, for example, Bangalore-based IT workers, or ‘new-economy’ workers more generally – preferring to marry each other, would probably meet the endogamy definition, and become a proto-caste.
Everyone on SM of course does not consider it important to themselves personally, but only believe that that their maids and drivers and the rest of the wretched of India are riddled with it and it must be abolished.
Paint with too broad a brush ever?
The point is that caste exists and occupies a fairly pervasive place in Indian society. You could argue that caste is simply a matter of personal identification with a group of peers of similar socioethnic background. That’s certainly true, and I just don’t see how it’s possible to abolish such a thing. You cannot legislate social behavior.
On the other hand, what is “illiberal” IMO is the discrimination against those not of one’s own caste. This becomes more difficult to understand the further you are from the Indian milieu where caste not only exists, but is widely acknowledged, accepted and sadly, often used for political gain. I’m not speaking of group- or family-associated rituals like meals, weddings, etc. I’m talking about political and legal power. As long as members of certain castes are able to wield such power, they will push whatever agenda they have to the detriment of whichever other caste group they have set themselves up against.
So the big question then becomes, what’s the fix?
Pheras, excanging of garlands, etc. are rituals to mark a special occasion. They are positive. Marking someone as a manglik has nothing positive about it. By the above reasoning (who’s to say, etc.) we will descend or have already descended into horrible moral relativism. The standard in any healthy tradition has always been to follow the wise. What would the wise do if they were in charge of this?
This is completely different from the woman who married a snake a few months ago. She was an unmarried woman (past her prime so to speak) who chose to dedicate her life to this snake and all the villagers showered her with respect. It’s wonderful that all this is permissible and acceptable in India. But all of these things cannot be lumped together. This kind of simplistic approach is what leads the French intellectuals for example to say that genital mutilation is okay because it is tradition, blah blah. I forgot to mention these are liberal idiots who say this not the conseratives who go ahead and do what they want nevertheless.
If I were Aish, I would have gone through the ceremonies anyway. The clock’s ticking, family considerations and all that. But superstitions must be challenged. The way to challenge them, as the sages have taught us, is to hone our viveka (or develop subtlety of intellect). If your intellect tells that you can trample all over your mom’s feelings and get married without a ceremony, fine. Does it also make you a happier person for that? Sorry to sound preachy, but I’m a generation above most people here and may therefore tend to sound a little overbearing.
how about those weird brides of christ (ie nuns). let’s ban that. marrying a corpse nailed to a cross- what can be more heinous than that!!!!!
divya, this is just plain religious hatred against those those “tree and snake worshipping hindus”.
“but this is pure superstition and continuing superstitious actions harms a society by making it superstitious and anti-scientific in general. Big difference between tradition and superstition.”
what’s the difference? how is “tradition” more scientific than “superstition”? where’s the scientific proof for all the extreme claims made by religions that prescribe certain sets of behaviors, beliefs, practices in order to achieve/avoid/prove certain spiritual aims, protections, security, levels of devotion etc. or make certain statements that people then just blindly accept as the truth and then proceed to let govern their lives?
tradition defined: 1. the handing down of statements, beliefs, legends, customs, information, etc., from generation to generation, esp. by word of mouth or by practice: a story that has come down to us by popular tradition. 2. something that is handed down: the traditions of the Eskimos. 3. a long-established or inherited way of thinking or acting: 4. a continuing pattern of culture beliefs or practices. 5. a customary or characteristic method or manner:
superstition: 1. a belief or notion, not based on reason or knowledge, in or of the ominous significance of a particular thing, circumstance, occurrence, proceeding, or the like. 2. a system or collection of such beliefs. 3. a custom or act based on such a belief. 4. irrational fear of what is unknown or mysterious, esp. in connection with religion. 5. any blindly accepted belief or notion.
re·li·gion:
1. a set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe, esp. when considered as the creation of a superhuman agency or agencies, usually involving devotional and ritual observances, and often containing a moral code governing the conduct of human affairs. 2. a specific fundamental set of beliefs and practices generally agreed upon by a number of persons or sects:
really, if you read these definitions, there’s no real difference between superstition, religion and tradition. however, the people who wrote the dictionary seem to have bought into the belief that a superstition, since not backed by reason or knowledge (proof, science), is “irrational.” yet the word irrational is missing from the definitions of religions and tradition, even though these are also custom-based practices based on something unknown, not always on reason or knowledge and usually blindly accepted. in fact, the word rational is also missing from the definition of religion and traditional. so why not mention that it is therefore irrational? why is only “superstition” accorded this scorn? a superstition is also a long-held belief and something one believes in and follows devotedly, just as a tradition and religion are. so i think we are conditioned by the english language (and the thinking of the culture behind this language) to also make some false distinctions between “tradition” and “religion” and “superstition”. they can all be good or bad (and as others have pointed out, being a manglik can cause problems for women mostly). however, if you find astrology (even harmless astrology) loopy because of no scientific reasoning, than how can you find any redemptive quality in religion or any ceremony rooted in religion?
one person’s superstition is another person’s tradition. some people think all hinduism, buddhism, ayurveda etc is pure superstition and the devil’s work (until science offers some little proof backing a long-held ayurvedic or bush medicine or shaman superstition). why is what we have determined to be “religion” given a free pass when it comes to making unknowable, unprovable, irrational claims, but what we have deemed to be outside this “respectable” boundary is all backwardness and superstition? or is tradition basically just good superstitions, or ones that we deem good, and superstition all the traditions we deem bad/embarassing?
if the solution to manglik was doing something more “conventional” like a quick puja or doing a quick blessing or having the pundit mutter a couple of words before or during the wedding to cover this eventuality (words that most wouldn’t even comprehend) – the way the pundit does all sorts of other pre- and during-wedding ceremonies to cover all the other bases, i wonder if there would be such a big fuss about this. after all, astrology was probably used to determine the date and time of the wedding, very unscientific, but no fuss about that. i wonder if it’s because it requires marriage to a tree, which for some arbitrary reason is considered backward, that this has become such a big deal. after all, most wedding ceremonies and customs contain elements that put women at a lower level than men (even the act of men and women having to formally enslave themselves to one another, as if they cannot be trusted to stay together without this extra layer of elaborate red tape and protection or to satisfy society’s moral (superstitious) code is demeaning), yet no one bothers about these “traditions” (basically now defined as superstitions, good or bad or harmless, that have achieved enough critical mass of societal approval so as to escape easy judgement meted out to other superstitions, good or bad or harmless, that the “mainstream” disapproves of).
i agree with divya that this seems like moral relativism ( i think i was being referred to). however, while i can see the negative aspects of this belief in manglik, non-manglik, i can see a whole host of negative aspects about religion (including the core beliefs) that get a free pass because they are someone’s “beliefs” even though they result in negative behaviour and discrimination. they are not called superstitions and saddled with a perjorative meaning (which the word superstition has, even if it’s a harmless superstition, whereas the word tradition /religion gets a pass when its deemed a “good” or “harmless” tradition/religion). objecting to manglik because it makes the manglik person feel bad or inferior or puts an extra burden on them to “correct” themselves is one thing and not a bad thing to do (but still not worth a PIL against a celebrity when there are other anti-women religious (not defined by the mainstream as superstitious) and cultural practices that are probably more deserving of PILs). but objecting to it because it is arbitrarily defined as a superstition, while kowtowing to religion, is another. harmless astrology is no more a superstition than harmless tradition or religion.
it’s humiliating for ash, kind of like lady diana’s virginity test before marriage. i don’t see this marriage lasting due to this sort of misbehvaior by the bacchans all in the name of tradition, and it’s not coz of the manglik. anyway luckily i am there for her. i may think twice as then she will be divorcee, na.
Um…actually, yes, it can make you a happier person if you finally do what you want and not what someone else wants. I married a Jew from a fairly traditional religious background, and in my opinion, Jewish weddings, like Hindu ones, have some aspects/related rituals that could be interpreted to have a bias against women. Specifically, we skipped the veil wearing from both ceremonies (I’m South Indian so wouldn’t have done it anyway for the Hindu wedding) and the part of the Jewish ceremony where the bride walks seven circles around the groom. My in-laws would have been thrilled if we had done the whole thing exactly according to tradition, but I had to skip the traditions that really felt wrong to me. I didn’t want to walk around my husband 7 times in a tradition that implies he is the center of my world when there is no equivalent tradition for men, and it meant a lot to me not to do that. It did make me a much happier person. I did, however, incorporate some traditions I wasn’t thrilled about for no particular reason–so bucking tradition doesn’t mean you have to hurt someone’s feelings–there’s always a zone of compromise. If Aishwarya was fine with marrying a tree, so be it. But if you have issues with it (as I would have if my mother in law had made me do it), life is too short to take part in rituals you feel are demeaning to you in order to make other people happy.
Nice post, desishiksa! If I might launch a tangent – given how male-centred the marriage rituals appear to be, do you know how it came to be that matrilineal descent is considered definitive in establishing Jewishness? Would seem a bit inconsistent.
desishiksa – the woman leads in the circle thing for the first few circles and then the man leads for the next few. The woman gets to go first.
I do not have issues with Aish and her ritual. Would you mess with your in-laws peace of mind for such a trivial thing? The less you believe it the easier it is to go along with it. The problem is that people actually take this manglik thing seriously. And I do have issues with superstition. For the short term there’s nothing that can be done about it. But if Aish’s kids also have to go through this shit then it’s quite pathetic.
Whose God, it doesn’t help to produce definitions as this can never resolve any issue but only lead to endless argument. Wisdom is what is needed and it cannot be found in a dictionary. You should be able to tell (and you probably can when it comes to your own issues) what is a worthwhile tradition and what is meaninless superstition.
Not in the traditional Jewish wedding. The woman is supposed to walk 7 times around the man. People have modified it so that each half of the couple walks around the other. Maybe you are confusing it with the mangal phera in the Hindu wedding, where both parties walk around the fire, first with the bride leading (for 3 circles) and then the groom (for one circle) (at least in an Arya Samaj wedding which is based on Vedic tradition). How far should I go for someone else’s peace of mind? Should I convert to Judaism? By your argument, if I don’t believe in it, it should be easy to go along with it!
Good question, and I don’t know the answer though I’ve often wondered about it myself. I don’t think it’s specified in the Torah, and people in the Old Testament were always intermarrying and converting, or not converting.
“Whose God, it doesn’t help to produce definitions as this can never resolve any issue but only lead to endless argument. Wisdom is what is needed and it cannot be found in a dictionary. You should be able to tell (and you probably can when it comes to your own issues) what is a worthwhile tradition and what is meaninless superstition.”
Divya, that’s my (ok, belabored :)) point, it’s all quite arbitrary, these definitions. but the reality is that language matters to us and conditions they way we think and have been conditioned to think, especially about others and practices that are foreign or strange to us. it’s worse when we allow another language to condition us to think in unnatural ways. aishwarya is able to tell what is meaningful and worthwhile to her and what is not, yet others have seen fit to tell her what should be “meaningful” to her and what shoud be “meaningless.” my belief is that religion/tradition (whether it be good/bad/ugly) is merely a euphemism for superstition (whether it be good, bad or ugly) to make people feel better about their irrational beliefs or to prove to themselves that their irrational beliefs/practices are somehow more “rational” than those of others. even qualifiers like “worthwhile” and “meaningless” are arbitrary and can easily be interchanged depending on one’s point of view.
do you know how it came to be that matrilineal descent is considered definitive in establishing Jewishness?
I have no proof of this, but I suspect it was mostly just practical. Paternity is never a sure thing, but maternity almost certainly is.
In the Old Testament, the men are often away from home for long periods of time, so maybe it just made sense to pass religion (and perhaps property) down on the mother’s side?
desishiksa – Sorry, I thought you were talking about hindu weddings. I had no idea jewish weddings also had the circle thing. As for doing things for someone else’s peace of mind, if you read what I wrote again you will note I specifically mentioned for trivial things. Conversion is not trivial for most people. If you honestly missed that, that’s fine. Otherwise, let’s not argue for the sake of argument.
Whose God – Okay, but there’s still the larger point that some things need to be fought against. Superstition is one of them. This is not so much about Aish as just an occasion to talk about these things. Even if Aish is doing as she thinks fit how must she be feeling about it? Why have a creepy doubt placed in your head that you’ll be the cause of someone’s death?
Before we go off into what looks like an enormous discussion on tradition versus religion versus superstition, let me note that the terms “Mangalik” as well as “Mangal(a) dosh(a)” arises from the belief in the existence of special “forces” associated with the planet Mars at the exact time of birth. This, incidentally, is also how the term “sevvai dosham” arises.
You can factor in the tides and the force of the moon all you want, but there is still the bare fact that the force of gravitation at the time of birth has never been shown to affect anything related to a child.
And even if that doesn’t convince you, consider that no matter the level of perturbation in the orbit of Mars, the differential Martian gravitational force experienced by a baby would be dominated by the gravitational force of other entities in the room at the time of birth, such as Carl Sagan (?)’s example of the heavier midwife. A quick back of the envelope calculation will easily confirm this for anyone. Note that the only type of force that the planet Mars could exert over such long distances is the gravitational force. I have been from one end of the Solar System to the other, and I’ve never seen any other kind of Force that could so act 🙂
I never claimed that “fera” are “correct”. They are a tradition. Now what is different in case of marrying a tree is that it is done ONLY IN SPECIAL situation. Thus giving credence to the claim that being mangalik is a “special situation”.
If you question all tradition than why not question the tradition to say “hello” and smile. That is also a tradition. So equating general traditions to special situation is not an accurate comparison
Comment #239 Whose God is it anyway, Do you think that killing young children as a sacrifice to “please the gods” so that we will have more rain (or some other thing like that) is OK? That is also a tradition/superstition/Religion as per your logic.