Dear all...during olden days the relatives of all at home were same...so they were limited in number.
Today every one has far tooo many friends and they are close to them than their relatives. In a family the relatives of each member are different. So, in case of a marriage father will invite about 200, mother about 50, brothers, sisters etc invite each 100. This leads to a big crowd and even a simple marriage costs their life time earning!!
The person who invites also travels a lot crying and invites. The person who visits also travels a lot crying and attends. In the marriage hall every one looks at their watches, and moment the thavil starts beating fast they runnnnnnnnnn to the dining hall. In a recent marriage the signal from the stage was given wrongly and thavil guy did a early job and every one rushed to the dining hall, after 'throwing' the yellow rice, before the muhurtham took place!! So, they had to return back to their chairs cursing, embarrassed, and laughing!! After two minutes moment the thavil did that fast beating every one again ran. I was feeling sad for the father of the girl as he has earnt all this money in a hard way. Do we need to invite such people who come for name sake, throw the rice, eat and run away?...what happened to the blessing of couple mentioned in the invitation?...the menu and special dishes etc are not mentioned in the invitation but we do that eating part with high quality....in another marriage, morning function, the husband tells wife 'come, let us go to the dais and bless the couple!'...the wife replies 'i have already given the 'cover' in the night function itself!'...did she come to handover the 'cover'?...I am sure she must have checked up how much they earlier got and must have put only the same or little more money inside!!
In another funeral i heard someone asking 'ponathha yeppa yeduppaanga?' ('when will they take the dead body to the crematorium?') looking at his watch!...because every one feels after that they can go home...
we can not blame any of them in above examples because they also have their schedules and life to look after!!
so, only rituals are performed and the real reason, purpose,value and meaning of rituals are forgotten!!...so, only waste of time, efforts, energy and money of all!!
We have to understand and accept the changes. Accordingly we need to introduce changes in the way marriages or functions and rituals are conducted.
some methods could be...
1. invitations only through sms, phone calls, emails and using other social media methods. No visiting in person. Only the handful of first circle of maternal and paternal relatives only to be invited in person, provided they stay nearby.
2. Give an option of attending in person or blessings on net. We can get a feed back if they will attend and how many will attend.
3. Alternately invite only hand full of close relatives known to the parents, finish the marriage at a temple or a small place. For remaining people, information and blessings only in virtual mode or small parties can be conducted with limited close people of boy and girl as per their choice attended only by the youngsters.
4. As a whole, lots of changes are required to be done in all the social/ritual processes before marriage, during marriage and after marriage, because the social systems like marriage, family, society etc have undergone phenomenal change e.g combined family changed to nuclear family and now to single person family!!
otherwise we will only land up wasting hard earned life time money, energy, living and life!!
rams
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