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Interfaith Marriage: Christian And Hindu Love Story Told In 'Saffron Cross'

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Dear Krish44,

Luck or geographic location has nothing to with it.

If you look at the comments in this forum in the year 2015, you can imagine how conservative the comments / opinions would have been in the mid 1970s. Though the TBs of Delhi were progressive in the 70s when it came to marriage they were quite conservative. Syrian Christians were equally conservative.

My wife and I worked at it to overcome every problem that is being discussed here. To our way of thinking it was no different than any other marriage. You have to make compromises to make it work.

I look at a lot of arranged marriages in my family and amongst friends, and they are no different. The successful ones have made compromises (though in most cases it is the woman who makes all the adjustments :))

It all depends on how you approach the problem and the steps you take to solve the problems. In our case we were both secure in our religious beliefs to be bold enough to respect the other one's beliefs. We faced the society as a united team and both the families accepted us for what we are. The rest was easy.

K. Kumar
dear kumarji
delhi is different. it is more cosmopolitan. It is my home.

even then , it is true that it requires a lot of adjustments more than a conventional marriage

recently when I attended a grahapravesam of one such couple-girl being syrian christian with TB

husband a relaative of mine, the rituals were with hindu pandits and the girl in traditional 9yar ds

saree with kumkum and thaali.

yet there was a photo of jesus christ in the glass almirah in the room where the rituals were to be

performed. the photo suddenly got removed at the start of the function and the girl was very

upset

the photo was discovered later in the couples

bedroom conveniently hung there by the husband to avoid embarrassment to his hindu relatives.

I do not know if the husband was beaten up by the girl later for this.lol

this is the kind of adjustment one has to make .

their child sports a christian middle name by which she is referred iby mothers relatives and by hindu name by

fathers relatives.

she ultimately went off to US as she could not put up with dual identity
 
My friend A hindu Doctor was married to this wonderful Christian for 42 years. She passed away last year. He has 2 adult children, and lot of grandkids. He spends his time with both of them.

What is the religion of 2 adult children and grand kids. Why have you not mentioned it?
 
......My wife and I worked at it to overcome every problem that is being discussed here. To our way of thinking it was no different than any other marriage. You have to make compromises to make it work. ............

We faced the society as a united team and both the families accepted us for what we are. The rest was easy.
Dear Sir,

You accept that you had to overcome every problem that is being discussed here, which means that there ARE problems.

These are the பூச்சாண்டி-s!

Your families have accepted and so your problems were less! God / Gods bless your family. :)
 
more than the intercaste or inter religion couple their children find it difficult to find matches in arranged marriage.

It took me more than three years to find a match for B-NB offspring -a boy with a PG foreign degree well employed.

most brahmins refuse such matches if father is NB while mother of th boy a TB preferred a TB match. ultimately I



could get a NB girl to marry the boy.

brahmins are very particular about caste. summarily reject NBs.in arranged matches.
 
It always amuses me to read the comments here by the members regarding this topic. Majority of them quote experiences of their friends, relatives. The posts are made as though they are the ultimate authority on the subject though nobody seems to be in an inter caste/ interfaith marriage. I have been married for more than 35 years to a Syrian Christian woman and I have not faced even one of the problems mentioned by these posts in my life.

I guess it is the fear of the unknown.

When I was little the elders in the family used an expression "பூச்சாண்டி பிடிச்சிண்டு போயிடும்". I am reminded of that reading all these "ஹேஷ்யம்"s.

LOL

K. Kumar

It also amuses me a lot when you wake up from the slumber and start to share your so called **"pearls of wisdom****" quite unnecessarily. Yours is post # 18 and not a SINGLE POST in the thread till then has contained anything against the IR marriages but you start off your post with your dismissive style of "it ALWAYS amuses".

About your experience of 35 years of marriage, is it not evident that you do not have any experience of same caste or arranged marriage and all that you hear or see is second hand opinion? So what gives you the right to get yourselves amused?

May be you have forgotten another tamizh proverb "ikkaRai Mattukku akkaRai pachchai", the grass is green on the otherside for the cow and this is what makes you guys to keep returning to this forum.
 
What is the generalization that is offending you? If the shoe does not fit, it is not for you. If it fits you wear it. I did not post with you in my mind. Then it does not right for you to lecture others. Don't go looking for a fight, when it was not there.

A few days before, you started off one of your posts with a grand-standing quotation of "Satyam bruyat priyam bruyat,...."

If this is the tone and tenor of your agreeable manner of speaking, I shudder to think what you disagreeable manner would be ? :)
 
As a diversion, here is a story:

Lauren is white, from England, studying pharmacy. Abhiram is from India who lived and worked in New Jersey for sometime.

In December 2012 they connected through a vegetarian forum online. As they chatted, something clicked, they fell in love, and within days of that first online conversation decided they wanted to be together. Just a few weeks later Lauren moved to India and they got married. They now live in Nagpur with Abhiram's family.

This video describes how Lauren is adjusting to life as a traditional Indian wife.


BBC News - 'My new life as an Indian wife'
 
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zebra16,

It is obvious that you seem to get all riled up whenever you see a post from me and make statements without either reading my post properly or not comprehending what is posted by me. You made a similar post when I posted about Australia and asked me why I don't comment on happenings in India.

In my post I did not make any comments about arranged marriages or same caste marriages. My post was targeted at posts by members who were talking about perceived problems in IR marriages without experiencing it themselves.

But then I am wasting my time explaining to you, who seems to have no ability to comprehend the written word.

K. Kumar
 
As a diversion, here is a story:

Lauren is white, from England, studying pharmacy. Abhiram is from India who lived and worked in New Jersey for sometime.

In December 2012 they connected through a vegetarian forum online. As they chatted, something clicked, they fell in love, and within days of that first online conversation decided they wanted to be together. Just a few weeks later Lauren moved to India and they got married. They now live in Nagpur with Abhiram's family.

This video describes how Lauren is adjusting to life as a traditional Indian wife.


BBC News - 'My new life as an Indian wife'
very nice naina marbusji.

thanks for a wonderful post.
 
zebra16,

It is obvious that you seem to get all riled up whenever you see a post from me and make statements without either reading my post properly or not comprehending what is posted by me. You made a similar post when I posted about Australia and asked me why I don't comment on happenings in India.

In my post I did not make any comments about arranged marriages or same caste marriages. My post was targeted at posts by members who were talking about perceived problems in IR marriages without experiencing it themselves.

But then I am wasting my time explaining to you, who seems to have no ability to comprehend the written word.

K. Kumar


Actually you are wasting other people's time. You started to get "amused" without any reason. I do understand your compulsion to present yourselves as "NAANUM IRRUKIREN" whenever the IC/IR marriages crop up and start to pontificate as if you are the only one in the world to have IR marriages,,, a sort of 'AAIYRUTHIL ORUVAN" SYNDROME lol
 
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As a diversion, here is a story:

Lauren is white, from England, studying pharmacy. Abhiram is from India who lived and worked in New Jersey for sometime.

In December 2012 they connected through a vegetarian forum online. As they chatted, something clicked, they fell in love, and within days of that first online conversation decided they wanted to be together. Just a few weeks later Lauren moved to India and they got married. They now live in Nagpur with Abhiram's family.

This video describes how Lauren is adjusting to life as a traditional Indian wife.


BBC News - 'My new life as an Indian wife'
hi

nice....i think abhiram is marathi brahmin boy...
 
Dear Sir,

You accept that you had to overcome every problem that is being discussed here, which means that there ARE problems.

These are the பூச்சாண்டி-s!

Your families have accepted and so your problems were less! God / Gods bless your family. :)

Ms Raji Ram,

I guess my statement was not worded right. I should have said that we anticipated the kind of problems being discussed here. We had discussed how we would handle each situation that we could foresee and stood together as a team. No external party was allowed to interfere in our decisions. We listened to both our families and accommodated their wishes as much as practical and possible. That is the reason why the conservative members in both families were able to accept us. As an example, we got married in a Church, got married the TB way and got married in the Registrar's office to keep the GOI happy. It is a question of how much you trust and love your partner and what you are willing to compromise for the partner. What I am trying to say is that if the couple understand and respect the other person's beliefs and religion it is not an insurmountable problem. It becomes a problem only if it turns into an ego issue.

I will stop here otherwise Mr. Zebra16 will get his knickers in a twist and start howling.

This will be my last post.

K. Kumar
 
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I R couples have no problems if they live far away from India! :peace:

If in India, they have to attend several religious functions in the family and extended families. Not all families will be happy to have

persons from other faith on such occasions. A chinese girl felt like fish out of water while attending a Homam in my friend' house, as

she unable to follow any of our customs and traditions! She also feared to come near the Homam, fearing the wrath of Indian Gods! :)
 
I R couples have no problems if they live far away from India! :peace:

If in India, they have to attend several religious functions in the family and extended families. Not all families will be happy to have

persons from other faith on such occasions. A chinese girl felt like fish out of water while attending a Homam in my friend' house, as

she unable to follow any of our customs and traditions! She also feared to come near the Homam, fearing the wrath of Indian Gods! :)


Hshhhhhhhh.... Please do not write such straight forward things. Mr K Kumar will get more amused :) The chinese bride and the TB groom should have sought the assistance of Mr KK and should have prepared, in advance, the itenerary of homams to attend and to skip. You will know about these things only if you have had personal IR marriage, otherwise you know a zilch about such thngs.
 
If it seems to be that IR marriages need compromise... so why dont just take the easy way out and have a same religion match to prevent the issue of compromise.

On a personal note I could never imagine myself getting married to a Non Hindu even though I am fairly broad minded ..the reason being ..I dont like to compromise and I love having freedom of thought..in IR marriages many fake being tolerant and I dont think I can accept a dual life style.

It takes tremendous amount of mental strain I feel to live thru a IR marriage something I know I can never handle. So why ask for trouble..just marry a person of the same religion and we can be our true selves..either be a Devi/Deva or a Devil!LOL

I enjoy being able to discuss Hinduism/Religion/Upanishads/Teachings of Lord Buddha with my spouse..I am sure I would never have got that opportunity if I had married outside of my religion.

So technically speaking marrying the same religion is much easier on the mind..its the mind which finally decides our well being.
 
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. As an example, we got married in a Church, got married the TB way and got married in the Registrar's office to keep the GOI happy.

I am using the above statement only as a means to illustrate a position and is not directed at kkumar29 personally. The point is:

Getting married with rituals have a significance, with trust (of the concerned) in a chosen God (whom they believe) along with associated promises and witnesses (religious, of course). To those families that participate in such a ceremony, a marriage conducted according to each party's religion is but a natural contradiction. For eg., mantras in the hindu religion have their own significance. So the actions of someone, who pledges by such mantras and then goes and abides by the codes of another religion for the same ritual, can only be seen as superficial. I cannot see how they (the family members of either party included) could reconcile themselves to accept this as a compromise if they were to believe in the sanctity of their religion.

In such cases a registered marriage would be the more practical / correct option as, at the least, it does not reflect a hypocritical stance.
 
The two wedding fundA is prevailing for quite some time! In my extended family, some weddings were conducted this way.

Church wedding followed by tambram wedding or vice-versa. Of course, these are followed by a registration - which is a must.

For a tambram girl, the tambram wedding took place first and Church wedding was in the SAME evening. The thirumAngalyam

was coolly removed by the bride, while wearing the white wedding gown, with matching stone choker! I felt really sad and

thought, 'When the
thirumAngalyam does not have any significance, what is the fun in conducting the tambram wedding with

all the rituals and the traditional dress - panchakachcham and madisAr?

For some people everything is FUN!! :sad:
 
Why is marriage a "religious" ritual?
It has no impact on the spiritual growth of an individual. Similarly organized religion is only a social event. individual evolves by their own effort.
When society wants a certain social norms, we just throw in the religion. It is to put guilt, and fear of the unknown to enforce certain behaviour.
Once they have the individual under yoke of "religion" that individual is a permanent slave. The organized "religions" do not want any individual to be free and spiritual, because that individual is of no use to society.

Marriage is at best a social contract generally between two people (not necessarily). To an extent the couple cohabiting have similar responsibilities as married couple. Even in gay couple the some legal systems give them similar privilege.

The whole concept of "your God" Vs "My God" is hilarious at best. If your God is so limited that IT is not all inclusive then may be you are chasing the false God, because by definition:
God is conceived as the Supreme Being and principal object of faith. The concept of God as described by theologians commonly includes the attributes of omniscience (infinite knowledge), omnipotence (unlimited power), omnipresence (present everywhere),omnibenevolence (perfect goodness), divine simplicity, and eternal and necessary existence.
The elaborate ceremony we call marriage is purely civil for the benefit of the society. We want people to live in community for preservation, so we tie them down for the benefit of the society. There is no divine sanction necessary. All other animals procreate without this "religious" ceremony called marriage.
 
For hindus marriage and subsequent developments are samskaras with sastric sanction. Infidels can do what they think is moot, and indulge in what is needed for fun and frolic.
 
Why is marriage a "religious" ritual?...........All other animals procreate without this "religious" ceremony called marriage.
Dear Prasad Sir,

You asked the question in the first line. And the answer is hidden in the last line!

Marriage should be a religious ritual because it is NOT meant for JUST procreating like animals. :)
 
there are some who hide behind sastras and samskaras and quote them at the drop of a hat for their own benefit.

they will quote them even to justify going to the shitpot every day .

marriage is nothing more than a binding a contract set down by law and society for living together.

religious mumbo jumbo is added to it by various religeous groups .,

some appoint themself as guardians of religion and think they are specially anointed by a super power to carry out

these functions . they are best ignored
 
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