Practicality is the bane of many lives. And in so many ways the desire to conform. In earlier days, that meant spirituality and religion. In today’s world that means a certain sense of cynicism. If questioning the tenants of religion was sacrilege in those days, the absolute faith in Lord Almighty, God, Holy Son, a power greater than us or (heavens forbid!) science is deemed childish or archaic today.
How sad is it that the modern day man likes to think of himself as evolved and tolerant. Yet he is intolerant of someone who is little bit different to himself. In the Indian context – we say we are modern because we believe “love marriages” are better. They might be your truth but why ridicule if “arranged marriages” work for someone else? Being an atheist or a non-practising Hindu might work for you. What is wrong if someone else wants to go to temple or worship every single day? If you are based out of India, you look upon every “NRI” as a traitor. If you are on the other side of the equation, you see all the people left back in India as losing out of opportunities to grow and lead a “better” life.
Women take it to ridiculous proportions too. Every silly single thing – your choice of name for your kid, your decision to have a kid early, your decision to have a single kid, your choice to breastfeed, your choice to work or not work, your choice of clothes, downright to your physical relationship with your husband/partner – nothing is sacred, nothing is off limits, nothing is private.
Social networks and your ability to “reconnect” with old chums and long forgotten friends irrespective of the geographical and cultural distances has merely got more people in our lives to comment and pass judgement on every single choice that we make. Where is then the tolerance we have come to associate our “modernity” with?
3 comments:
Not sure, but the post sort of seems to be the effect of a tolerance test :).
:) Not very wrong Seema. This was in response to some of the comments that I saw on news articles reporting Sathya Sai Baba's demise. Now - I am NOT a devotee of his at all. But considering the fact that he did do a lot of social work and the other basic fact that everyone needs a bit of dignity in death, it was sad and appalling to note some of the comments. And last I checked India was still a secular country and people pretty much had a right to choose their "Gods" :)
Post a Comment