Save Our Culture

[ekaputra]

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In my own case, my mother is a doctor and from the beginning she mocked and had mostly contempt for Tamil Brahmin society and culture. Not without good reasons, because her mother (my grandmother) was a widow and in the 50s and 60s in India tamil brahmin widows were treated very poorly. So it is no wonder that my mother grew to have an inherent dislike of our culture.

My mother was also widowed (in the 70s) before she completed 50 and some of the people in our community including close relatives asked her to visit their house within the 10(?) day period (I don't remember the exact number) as she would otherwise have to avoid their houses for a whole year. There were many others (also from our community including close relatives) who said that they were not asking her to visit their house within the statutory period as she was free to visit them any time she wanted and that she was always welcome in their homes. My mother did not visit any of the houses of the people who spoke about visiting them during this statutory period and in fact we (father's immediate family) hardly ever called on them after that and our relations with them were extremely formal but polite.

My mother's experience was first hand but did she have to hate our (Iyer) community for the people who felt that as a widow she had lost her social status OR think of many others (also belonging to our community) who invited her to social functions including weddings (during this period) and asked the couple to do namaskaram and take her blessings. My mother is no more but she did not hate the community or the culture because culture is what the people practise.

And also, while the parents (mother in particular) are a very great influence on a growing child, it is important later when they grow up, for every mature person to ask himself/ herself whether everything imbibed from the parents is desirable.

 

[prasad1]

You can ridicule and hate a practice. You can hate a community, society, and culture for the wrongs it does or did.
The treatment of women particularly widows in the majority of Indian culture is abhorrent. We all should hate it and fight to change it.

It is mostly due to ignorance, superstitions, and greed.

Widows are exploited because ancestral property can not be willed. and writing a will to protect wife is not common among Indians. So widows were at the mercy of the husband's family.

Tb community too followed some of these abhorrent practices. I am with eXe on that.

There are some cultural practices that we must change. They are not unique to TB practice, but all the same, they are still practiced. It is superstition and ignorance.

 

[eXe]

Culture this and culture that, what a vague and opaque term. Are parts of our culture codified? If yes, in what and where? Who is the custodian of this culture?

Someone should audit hard facts and points that are worth preserving. Categorize it into reasonable, traditional, backwards, ugly etc. and ruthlessly eliminate those parts of the culture that no longer serve us. Terrence McKenna said it best; "Culture is not your friend."

 

[prasad1]

Culture this and culture that, what a vague and opaque term. Are parts of our culture codified? If yes, in what and where? Who is the custodian of this culture?

Someone should audit hard facts and points that are worth preserving. Categorize it into reasonable, traditional, backwards, ugly etc. and ruthlessly eliminate those parts of the culture that no longer serve us. Terrence McKenna said it best; "Culture is not your friend."

Who can you trust and entrust such a task? Then again it is a moving target.

There is a famous saying "Jiski Lathi uski Bhise" or he rule4s sho has the biggest stick.

Kanchi Sankaracharya (about 50 years ago) refused to give water to a widow in his congregation but was more than willing to serve Indira Gandhi ( A widow too).

 

[eXe]

Who can you trust and entrust such a task? Then again it is a moving target.

There is a famous saying "Jiski Lathi uski Bhise" or he rule4s sho has the biggest stick.

Kanchi Sankaracharya (about 50 years ago) refused to give water to a widow in his congregation but was more than willing to serve Indira Gandhi ( A widow too).

It's hopeless without the establishment of a new progressive community (nation?) who all subscribe to a set of core values including reason and aesthetics. You will not change the minds of the old guard in the various mathas and kovils. They are set in their ways, have no incentive to listen or change and will remain set in their ideas to the very end- when their corpses with rigor mortis are finally cremated on crackling sandalwood pyres greased with the purest vanaspati (or desi?) ghee- in the open air of course so that the rest of the population may inhale the fumes from their holy shit.

 

[arun.s.iyer]

Namaskaram, I am not against any caste or religion..We as Tamil Brahmin must understand one thing very clear that even though Western culture is taking over the nation, the Veda's, Mantras, our culture, tradition must not be forgotten, please educate your children's that we must respect and follow the rules which our ancestors taught us to follow. Now a days this is getting vanished year by year..Parents of those who are giving so much freedom to Girl child in younger stage and without any boundaries they are getting out of control. I sometimes feel very sad that once they are well educated and get good salary the ego gets too much and the demands are very high during a search for marriage proposal or mostly the girl gets married to different religion and gets converted which is high now a days, its very sad to see this for me, you can see many young brahmin boys are loosing age to find a bride now a days. Mostly the girls side they want boy to be settled abroad or should be staying alone and must have own house etc... I understand, but please understand, in our culture we are appreciated that we stay with our parents. We need to bring the community together and stick to each others help which I will be always there. Please Respect your parents and you can love within our community as well.. not sure whats the problm ? thanks!!

Do we have a standalone book, which has documentented all the rituals for all the samskararas, in one English book, so that we can pass this legacy.

As the new generations is getting relocated to new parts of the world we should have a standarding English-Sanskrit-Tamil book with meaning to pass it on to the future generations.

Kindly connect on whatsapp +91-8939555241 to collaborate.

Regards,
Arun