surya,
thank you for opening up this topic. this is among my pet ones.
i have often referred to the need of TBs to augment their numbers, in many a posts, often in the context of the pathetic state of many of our boys bereft of a spouse of their choice.
my solution suggestions have been consistent: look outside the caste.
if you do not feel radical to venture too far from familiarity, look for brides among the pillais and mudaliars. barring the non veg branches of mudaliars, these groups have identical values to us and are saivites.
on a personal level, there is a lot of goodwill and bring the bride to familiarization of our unique practices - the only one that is distinct, that i can think of is tharpanams and its elaboration in a shraddham.
another alternate is to seek brahmin brides from other states. there need not be more affinity here, though it might assuage our prejudicial heritage.
i would go for the bride from within other tamil tribes.
surya, this i say without meaning offense to anyone ..
there is this mystical 'respect' bandied about here for 'elders', by which i understand, folks above a certain age...let us put an arbitray number 75.
it might behoove well of us to remember, the 75s of today, were the youths of the 1950s, my parents and their generation, who broke from the long standing tradition of raising large families.
i can remember standing outside the family planning booth in the congress exhibitions of 1950s, in the company of the greeter, while my folks went inside, and came back discussing stuff in whispers.
i was not allowed any questions, and neither did i know, that decisios of great consequences to the community were being made, in the interest of not only my own quality of upbringing, but incidentally also probably disastrous to our community in terms of numbers.
so surya, it is those today's elders who are the cause of our predicament. not today's youths.
today's youths are the victims, and i am often surprised, at the indignation of some of these elders, at the scarcity of eligible girls, or even more the perceived arrogance and 'demands' of our fair maidens.
there is an old adage, that you reap what you sow. or in this case, you cannot reap what you did not sow?
personally, i think, we have passed the point of no return of replenishing our stock, to the levels of yore. this, i attribute, mainly to the mindset of having/not having children, and this attitude has now seeped through atleast 3 or 4 generations.
the good news, is that while we may be among the first such communities in india with this trend, there are others who are also experiencing the same trend. in fact, tamil nadu, right across socio religious lines, is the leader in india for population mamangement.
i do not think it is a profitable exercise to view the future with alarm. we are viewing future through the current eyes. it might take a different set of parameters to come up with a realistic prediction of what lays in store for our community.
please remember, barring wars and revolutions, changes in society happens gradually, so that it is spared the shock of divisive changes.
today, for example, 'love marriage' is accepted as an alternate form of choosing a mate. 100 years ago it was unknown. so, while snapshots of our society might cause us shockattacks, a movie played over the ages, might give us a warm appreciation of the process of change and how we have adapted.
probably good things will come out of our current situation. let us not waste any angst or anxieties.
thank you.
.
