In the past, I was somewhat snarky when it came out that Aishwarya Rai, before her marriage to Abhishek Bachchan, agreed to marry a Peepul tree because of her “Manglik” status. 
The New York Times had a story recently (thanks, Jamie), which described how Aishwarya Bachchan recently dropped out of a Hollywood project with Will Smith in order to be home in Mumbai to celebrate Karva Chauth.
For those who don’t know, Karva Chauth is a traditional Hindu festival where wives fast for a whole day without food or water as a symbol of their devotion to their husbands. I have many women friends who object to the festival as regressive, though I also know one or two people who do observe it out of a sense of loyalty to tradition. (Perhaps not too surprisingly, the women I know who observe it are NRIs, not ABDs. Are there any ABDs out there who observe Karva Chauth?)
Here is the quote the NYT gives regarding Aish’s decision to return to Mumbai for Karva Chauth:
Ultimately Ms. Bachchan chose to return to Mumbai and starve with a smile. National television channels covered her first Karva Chauth as headline news. Two months later she shrugged off her loss in an interview. “You do what you have to do,†she said. “Feeling torn and thereby unhappy, confused or guilty is not something I want to feel. So you make your choices and go with it. You get some and some you don’t.†(link)
What to say. From what I can tell, everything Aish does outside of her acting seems to reflect a pretty sincere traditionalism. One has to presume she’s observing Karva Chauth because she really wants to, not because anyone put pressure on her to do so. So, if we accept that the festival of Karva Chauth isn’t inherently sexist (and the case can be made that it is), here I’m inclined to give props to Aish for putting tradition over her career. It certainly beats America’s celebrity culture — which has lately just been depressingly bad, what with Britney losing her mind, and Amy Winehouse smoking crack…
On the other hand, the Indian media loves this kind of thing, so it may be that sacrificing a romantic comedy with Will Smith might actually help her Bollywood career — and she can have both. Jodhaa Akbar, anyone?
How do you make rotis with a sieve? I thought you needed a rolling pin, which I also might add makes for a better weapon.(see #48).
46 · Rahul said
it’s true, if the bourgeoisie family is a natural building block of capitalism, shouldn’t the man (the capitalist) be feeding his wife (the proletariat) just enough to alienate the fruits of labor? karva chauth is just another excuse concocted by the labor union (old wives collective) to resist real work.
wimmen, get off your ass already, and polish the glass ceiling.
/jk 🙂
Rahul, I am throwing my sieve at you too 🙂
Yogi, I see that you are a man truly emancipated (from the kitchen). You need a sieve to remove impurities from the atta before you use it to make rotis.
49 · Rahul said
there’s only one place where a husband should be wooden, and it’s not called face 🙂
50 · Amardeep said
It’s written by the same person who conducted the TV interview. The NDTV should be available on youtube if you care to verify. No where in the TV interview did she make that statement about Karva Chauth. It was because of the grandmother being critically ill. The media as usual puts out their own spin.
37 · Chetna said
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I don’t agree with this reasoning, and I’m a woman. Maybe because my family traditionally doesn’t celebrate Karva Chauth and I highly doubt they’ll ever expect me to. But in general I find this reasoning troublesome. Let’s say there are some women who enjoy doing things that most women find degrading – does that mean they should not do it because some men may expect other women to do the same? While Ash is a public figure and may have more responsibility, Carol pointed out above that she never actually flaunted her practice of Karva Chauth. And similarly, regular people should take responsibility for their own choices (given that they are choices, even if there was a lot of pressure).
What makes you think I am a man?
um i was kidding rahul
is there a catalog? can one of these be ordered and then ordered around?
sign me up, vive la resistance!
Dude, Kush Tandon: I know BongBreaker ran away with my comment, but I hope you realize I was joking when I made that BJP reference. Though I think they might embrace (metaphorically only, please) Aish as an great face for the party since she’s apparently so devout with all this Karva Chauth business.
56 · Carol said
yes, celebrities are known to be entirely honest and transparent about their motives. carol, with your intimate knowledge of goings-on at jalsa, i’m beginning to think that you are actually amar singh.
Hmmm…Will Smith or Karva chauth?
No contest.
Also was her shaadi ki raat with the peepul tree consmumated?:)
61 · kusala said
I didn’t suggest Ash would join the BJP. I just agreed stars wade into politics. No running, just expanding.
Rahul you know about making roti? What a girl. I bet your wife doesn’t even fast. She’s probably running around with some tree behind your roti-preparing back.
49 · Rahul said
i won’t starve for you rahul, but my fast ways will do much for your longevity.
😛
Laughing so hard I cried.
I know. Maybe I should have added that disclaimer.
All you women frolicking around throwing your sieves, what do you think? That you are 60s Hindi heroines singing and playing tennicoit on the beach while Jeetendra gazes on?
SP@45, Maharshtrian women have their vays.
I didn’t bother to read the NYT article but I don’t see anything regressive about this tradition at all. Tradition, with all of its constraints, ultimately helps cope with adversity. If the ever so liberated Americans on this blog are incapable of doing without food and water for a day, who then are the real slaves and who deserves to be called more free? It’s so easy to just go for the superficial story and start rolling your eyes at what the backward, regressive Indians do. But all of these traditions have huge pay offs and you’d think that would be obvious, but of course such understanding is too much to expect from the ugly American.
Karva Chauth is a North Indian thing btw, in the south and in Maharashtra for example we don’t follow it. This past Karva Chauth was my first one after getting married and we were invited to this huge shin dig with my inlaws where all these ladies had starved themselves all day for the long life of their husbands like the husbands promptly reduced it by drinking loads of whiskey!
Before I could even say a word my MIL promptly said to me “you aren’t planning on following that mad rule are you because A. we don’t celebrate it and B. you have to work all day please eat!” Of course my husband looked at me like I had 12 heads when I joked with him that I might do it. He’s like “Yeah have a good time while I stuff myself, I’m starving, whats for breakfast!” Heheheh
Though let me tell you when I went to India this time around people partake in this husband worshipping bullshit like it was going out of business. Whatever. Doesn’t fly with me. If I starve he better starve with me and since that boy is never starving himself for anyone I’m not going to start!
Rahul, only you can make me wistful for something I have no clue about. That whole bit about frolicking and sieves and the beach…I feel so inspired. Anyone else?
Yooo hooo Le khoof, the people’s poet, what comes to mind when you hear the phrase “frolicking with sieves”?(and is that Bolero playing in the background)?
Valentines is very big in India so in addition to it being a tradition ..is karva Chauth done more as a romantic gesture?
This goes against the basic nature of woman…
M. Nam
8 · Amardeep said
Amardeep, not a diasporic twist in the literal sense. My dad started doing that when my parents lived in India because he felt badly that my mom was fasting all day (and she was insistent upon it) so he figured he would just join her. I have other friends whose parents did the same. We always saw it as romantic and sweet. Of course it’s certainly not the norm for husbands to fast on Karva Chauth, but I do think it is a nice way to invert what is otherwise a sexist tradition. (And, we do cheat a little by letter ourselves drink water and juice).
70 and #71
i’m laughing a lot and i agree with JOAT, why should we starve if hubby is stuffing his face…LOL
Amen to that. I’m one of those women. I’m so far away from religion, I won’t even say “oh god” in vain but I have learnt that when it comes to family respecting their wishes makes for an easier life. Sitting thru a puja to make the parental units happy isn’t going to kill anyone. My mother was a very devout woman and the sicker she got the more she believed in god and wanted me to partake in all kinds of rituals and if my mother had asked me to walk thru fire I would have. It’s not a big deal. Makes them happy. My MIL thank god a reasonable woman will always ask me first if I’d humor her about something.
Now having said all this let me tell you rituals like the Karva Chauth fasting is something perpetuated by the women in families. Men could care less and don’t notice these things but women put the pressure on women to conform to tradition even if they themselves hated it at some point. It’s a vicious cycle.
That’s some searing truth, Joat, I’ve witnessed it too.
What? Now, Karva Chauth is really a technique from survival boot-camp to prevent a rehash of the Donner party on the Western Ghats?
Wives fasting for the well being of their husbands is only one part of Karva Chauth. Once they break their fasts in the evening it’s their husbands who are supposed to cook/serve/feed them.
Once a Year?????? Bleh! Ask Iyengars from the South 😉 We fast twice a month for Ekadashi!
So, after reading the thread, I felt that I wanted to comment. I am an ABD and Punjabi, and I have seen my mother and her friends practicing Karva Chowth every year. When I got married in 2005, to a Gujurati man, I was informed that it was not something that they did, so technically, I was not obligated to fast. However, I decided that this was part of my traditioin that I wanted to follow. The reason that I wanted to do Karva Chowth is not because I am some addle-brained woman who is regressive. The reason that I do practice Karva Chowth every year is because I do view it as a symbol of my devotion to my husband. Why would I have recited my Sanskrit vows at our wedding if I was not devoted to him? If being in a committed and loving relationship and being devoted to one’s spouse is regressive, then lets just abolish marriage. Just as I show my devotion to my husband by fasting one day a year, he shows his devotion to me in a multitude of ways. Why must we assume that showing love is regressive and oppressive towards women? That kind of thinking to me is close-minded and selfish.
Just want to point out that Tom Cruise and Mel Gibson don’t get ‘vilified’ for being religious but rather for staunchly following a bizarro sect and spewing anti-semitic views respectively.
I thought they just have to bring water for the wife to break the fast with? (And wikipedia’s description says that wives sometimes drink the water that they’ve washed their husbands’ feet with. I assume this is an extreme orthodox version).
bess, my knowledge of Hindi movies is not encyclopedic enough to get you an original rendition, but here’s a segment from a spoof-anthology song in a movie from a few years ago. The relevant bit is at 04:23.
Seeing what happen’s to most Indian women when they get married, I think this holiday should be more then a once a year thing..
Ahhhhhh snap… Just joking
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J8gqpnU0Ahc from 2 min onwards. The Karva Chauth scene begins. When I asked my Gujarati friends they said they did not follow it and it was only added as a North Indian custom for the movie
84 · ShallowThinker said
OK, now that that barrier is broken… I was going to comment awhile back that cholis across the desh are taking exception to the assertion of all this “starvation” going on….
83 · Rahul said
He-he. That’s a good bit. If reference for “original” is really required then searching through Elvis movies might be more relevant.
81 · Nina said
Karva Chauth is not regressive per se. The reason why someone chooses to follow a particular tradition is more indicative whether their performing the activity is regressive or not. If you think it is a way of expressing your love for your husband, great. If somebody pressurizes their daughter-in-law to fast (say if it is not medically indicated or the d-i-l chooses not to for whatever reason) and actually believes that not keeping the fast will shorten the life-expectancy of their son, or invite comments from relatives, then yes, that practice is regressive and disrespectful of an autonomous individual. Moreover, if women fast for their husbands believing their husband to be more deserving of respect (since some ceremonial enactments which are sometimes performed during Karva Chauth explicitly underscore the authority of the man over the woman) than themselves, that is regressive. However, everyone is entitled to practice whatever rituals they choose to since all have a right to freedom of conscience. All I want to express is, AR is not worthy of a special gold star for doing what millions of Indian women do. For instance, many of my Punjabi school-teachers taught classes as normal and yelled at kids without sipping water or eating during the school day on KC. That was their choice, and more power to them for doing it out of their own volition. But does that mean they are better than Britney Spears or Amy Winehouse for that reason (Amardeep, sorry for belaboring that, but honestly, I just thought that was a bizarre statement)? Amy Winehouse, for instance, is a very talented singer who for a variety of psychological and personal reasons is addicted to drugs. That is her own business, and she does that in the private domain. I don’t condone the practice, or think that her status as a celebrity should let her escape legal consequences of what she does. But since I don’t know her circumstances, I will not morally denounce her. Similarly, I’m not aware of why AR chose to go back to India for KC (I’m apt to take her word on this with more than a grain of salt), but that’s her beeswax. But I’m not going to call her a pati-vrata or sati-savitri or a paragon of moral virtue for that. But marrying a peepul tree = regressive, and ain’t no one who’s gonna change my mind on that one.
anyone else here have problems with fasting in and of itself?
Hi Moor Nam, have you actually had any romantic relationships with women, or are you just extrapolating from your encounters with those organisms with brain-sizes that correspond to yours?
Mel gets villified because he’s an extreme Christian nut job, not just because he’s a Christian. Tom Cruise, I don’t understand – sure, we can mock him for his uninformed comments on psychiatry etc., but I don’t understand why Scientology is inherently different than any other religion.
69 · Divya said
Right, but physical austerity is not the only manifestation of a liberated mind (it’s neither necessary not sufficient IMO), and perhaps independent thinking and reasoning might be more indicative of that. Last time I checked , reasoned thought, open-mindedness, and autonomous actions were not casually connected with the nationality on one’s passport.
could only agree with you if the woman stayed with the peepul tree for life–or at least until the thrill was gone and the peepul tree became strangely uncommunicative and distant. Otherwise it doesn’t really seem to be a marriage at all.
Will Smith is an active recruiter for that afore mentioned bizarro sect:
Soon to jump the couch/shark on Oprah ?
in my university hostel in delhi, the girls used to observe karva Chauth for their boyfriends. this was in 2001-03.
Rahul: I don’t understand why Scientology is inherently different than any other religion.
Cos it’s a big bucket of jizz. Sure there are problems with most religions, but all the main ones I can think of have plenty of good lessons to teach. Scientology don’t teach sh*t. Well apart from what to do when you pass a road accident, clearly.
Some of the stories in major religion are just as nonsensical as scientology. I think we tend to ridicule scientology more because we cant comprehend how someone can fall for a “religion” that was created by a man who lived in the media age and it should be easier to not fall for such a religion based on blind faith. I can understand how some people can fall for the major religions because many have been indoctinatred since birth making blind faith very easy.
It is just more recent. Intelligent design? Bridge built by monkeys? Why not aliens then?
If Scientology impels its true believers to help people out when they are in an accident, that is far better than most devout religious folks I know.
Portmanteau – Seems like you missed the point completely. Where have you developed your ideas of liberation from? The United States and its culture, isn’t it? It could be that your narrow-minded conceptualization of liberation extends only as far as the freedom to wear the pants in the house for example, or drink and date at will. It could be that other cultures have a different idea of liberation. It could be that some cultures thought that none of this is liberating and that true freedom comes only through discipline. Cultures that revolve around such ideas may have worked towards developing conditions that would help fulfil their ideals. Perhaps rituals such as karva chauth grew out of this. Austerity is a very, very strong underlying theme in most indian traditions and manifests itself in a variety of ways. Now, if you or the NYT – i.e., “liberated” Americans, want to mock this, go right ahead. But don’t delude yourself about being more liberated. I see more greed and neediness here than in most other parts of the world. Your carbon footprint attests to that.
Of course there is misery and abuse in all traditions. But this misery is no different from the misery that comes out of the liberty to do drugs or have sex. Rather than jump to the conclusion that those women are backward, any decent person would make a good faith attempt to understand the culture first.
Hey, they don’t threaten to cut off people’s heads for publishing pictures of L. Ron Hubbard… and they do apparently help accident victions. Can’t be that bad.