Memories Gone are the days, fortunately in many cases, when the father of a teenage girl, used to carry his daughter’s horoscope, on a selected auspicious day and auspicious time, with the anxiety of a patient entering the surgical ward , to the entrance of the house of an eligible bachelor, clear his throat to draw the attention of the head of the family and place reverently, the yellow-cornered paper which he had brought, at his hands and wait for a favorable reply for weeks, worrying and praying all the Gods known to him . Gone or the days, fortunately in many cases, when the date of the wedding was announced, after discussion and agreement on dowry, the weight and size of the ornaments, the number and size of the brass, copper and silver vessels, clothes and other movable articles to be handed over to the bridegroom’s party, the father of the girl ran like a mad dog, to acquire the cash and materials required for the wedding.
Now we carry our son’s horoscope,door to door and our daughter selects her partner, make all arrangements and invite us for her wedding.
Those who are lamenting about the improvement in the educational and consequently the economic status of the present day girls are perhaps unaware of the mental and physical deprivation the parents of the girls had undergone, as recently as a couple of decades ago. How will they then be aware of the devastation of the young women of the earlier generations,who were forced to marry widowers of double or triple their age, became widows before reaching their puberty or a few years later , tonsured their head, broke their bangles, discarded all good things and lived like a condemned prisoner within the four walls of their husband’s house? The ‘athai’ of my Pitchumani story, no doubt is a fictional character but the comments received from the readers of that story was moving -yes, in every village if not in every house there were similar athais or patties, not long ago. Our society was responsible for the tsunami in their life, though we took refuge under the unseen fate’s cruelty or un -protesting God ‘s necessity to punish them for the deeds of their past life. And now, we boast about the glory of the gone golden era of our community! And now, when the present generation stand on their own legs and want to live their life according to their own light and direction, we fret and fume as if some one is roasting Guntur chillies in our kitchen! Our society has suffered enough of poverty and humiliation. Now rejoice when at least some of our families are prospering.
Our children are grown up, educated, exposed to the good and bad things of the world much earlier than us and much more than us. Leave the choice of their life partners to them. If your guidance is sought in the the selection, don’t start your priority list with the horoscope or the name of the Rishy written therein, who lived several centuries ago and presumably started your family in the Sindu or Brahmaputra valley or the sub groups formed as recently as a few centuries ago when we migrated to the present place. Start with the boy or girl, who form the core of the marriage. Then your daughter or son will be lucky to get married, mostly as per your and their choice, before they are 28 or 30. Otherwise, they will curse you through out their life, if they are not smart enough to find their own partners. And please, don’t tell your daughter-in-law, when she enters your house for the first time that the main purpose of bringing her there is to hold a few blades of dry grass standing behind your son to sweep the path of the ancestors when they ascended the celestial citadel. That is not the purpose of having a wife and your son knows that. And you also know that.
And when your children prepare architectural sketches to develop colonies in the Moon or Mars, don’t talk to them about Rahu or Gulikan. The journey to other planets, you will agree , is much more arduous and risky than your visiting the cloth shop or native village and Rahukalam is not definitely one of the items in their check list, before commencing the long journey.
I presume that our interest should be only in having a naughty and healthy grand child and I am sure that our children know how to make that gift to us. So, Leave it to them.
Baltimore,
May 29th, 2008
Your article is extremely nice and reveals the truth which many may not notice or accept for fear of evil coming into their life .
Now that man has started to send landing mission on Mars the Chovva Dosham willbe eradicated – Manushyan Nadndha Sthalathu Pullu Molkaarillallo?
So one day Man may set afoot on the Mars too, though the jurney is 10 months or more.
You are doing good work and keep it up.
Viswanath Natrajan
Canada
i have children live in USA. my son is to be married and daughter already married.
when i saw the heading i thought u were going to say” now we carry son’s horoscope”. I am actually doing it for my 1970 born USA citizen, VA living son.
thanks for nice article which is really happening now
regards
veeraswami
Good write up.
In Tamil there is a saying ‘ Vizhalukku iraitha neer’
As usual “Ananukku enna theriyum. Ethdho summa selran”
The curse of our community is each of us know everything and the other fellow is an idiot ! We fail to understand that if this statement is true , each one of us is an idiot ! !
When Paramacharya is ignored ( sub caste do not matter, do not take dowry, treat the DIL as Lakshmi coming to your house, do not compare horoscopes if the boy or girl is above 25 years ” ,at 30 he has already completed half shashtiabda poorthy” ) I am sorry to say that your position will be no better. But as he says” blow the conch ”
If more and more people talk like this , then , probably things will improve in a decade. God help us.
Thanks for being sensible.
regards
Mahalingam
very interesting!
the very purpose of seeing horoscope is to reject the alliance however best be based upon an uneducated astrologers prediction who has no knowledge about anything!
we are not bold enough to fix the alliance without horoscope match knowing fully well that its useless.
we are satisfying our elders and shifting blame on abstracts which is a true hindu practice.
at the end we escape saying its all fate!
why dont you accept fate in the beginning itself?
horoscope seeing is a stumbling block in marriages.
if you delete seeing horoscope 90 percent of marriages will be approved and divorce rates reduced.
GPS
Thanks for Good insight.But what if boy/girl choose anAmerican/Australian / newzelander /chinese ? Consequenses?
Pl. enlighten.btw ,is anyone close to you done this ?
Geetha Raman
Very interesting and so very true
nice post
keep writing
geetha
Geetha
Sir,
Your write up was excellent. Hope our brothers/sisters in the
community will realise & enjoy it & put it into practice. I would
like to add another statement in that ‘treat the daugher-in-law who
comes out your house as welcome addition & not as an intruder in your
household. She is godess lakshmi/saraswathi of the house and she be
given due to respect. She is also a child of her parents brought up
until marraige with love & affection & deserves to be treated with
love & affection to make her feel that she is a part & parcel of her
husband’s family.
with regards
radha,
A very well worded write up. Congratulations for speaking out the truth very openly. The society is going through a much needed mid course correction.
PRVijayaraghavan
Dear Siva,
Excellent depiction of the transition our age has witnessed.
Well, ur depiction is true not only for our “pattars” but also for several others throughout our country where even as u know” sati”,daughter- in -law’s voes etc. was practised.
But perhaps, u might agree that the unlimited freedom in all spheres of life,including selection of one’s own life partners,has brought with it some uninteresting practises in some cases, so far unknown earlier – such as, premarital dating and its fall outs.
rgds
Krishnan