The Marriage Reception

Indian marriages are solemnized as per the ‘Lagna’(Muhuratham) and the time is fixed by priests or the astrologer. This time is strictly followed and adhered to whereas the reception which follows once the marriage is over is left at the mercy of photographers, hair dresser and the beautician attending on the bride. I can say this more authentically as far as the marriages in South are concerned.

If the time of reception is printed as 6.30 pm in the invitation card, rest assured it will never commence before 7.30 or 8 pm. Those who make the mistake of being punctual are made to sit in front of a flower decorated podium with two ornamental reception chairs like those used in olden times by Kings and queens.  The invited guests helplessly wait and watch the photographers clicking the bride & groom in their best attires from different angles, first singly, than jointly and thereafter with family members. The younger family members in their glittering designer dress keep going round the marriage hall quite often like walking on a fashion show ramp. The reception is often delayed either because the bride is not ready having gone to a beauty parlor or else the photographer is not allowing them to go un-clicked to their heart content.

As soon as the married couple is ready to sit on their reception chair to receive the guests, there would be a mad rush to go ahead on the dais to hand shake, handover the gift and smile to be photographed as a token of attendance in the reception. Some restless souls who do not want to go through the ordeals of waiting in the queue first go for the buffet, fill their belly and later come to wish the young couple once the crowed gets thinner.

Once the buffet over and ‘tambulam’ (A pack of tender coconut, beetle leaf & beetle nut) handed over the reception comes to an end for the invited guest.  How nice it would be if the timings of the reception is mentioned as 7.30 or 8 pm on the invitation card so that all the rituals of make up and photography is finished before that time so that the invited guests do not have to wait and watch all the ‘happenings’ live cursing about the wastage of their time instead of blessing the newly wed!

Is a 'loveless marriage' worth its while?

Guest Post by-Arunima Srivastava

Marriages may be made in heaven, but their fate is decided right here. Is a loveless marriage worth its while or is divorce the better way out? 
While the ever piling divorce applications may be a way to determine the number of troubled marriages, what's never accounted for are the number of couples pulling through loveless relationships. 

Going by a British survey done sometime back, over 59 per cent of wives would divorce immediately if their economic security was assured while half of husbands thought their marriage was loveless. Over 30 per cent said they were living in a doomed marriage to save themselves from going through a massive upheaval while another 30 per cent men said they were staying for the sake of their children, because they were scared that they would have to leave them otherwise. Get asking people here, and they confirm no less.  

"Given a choice I would have walked out within the first year," agrees Nisha Vohra, a homemaker, who's been married for seven years now and has a six-year-old son. "It was an arranged match which seemed fine during the initial months. But too much interference from my mom-in-law and my husband being subservient to her made me resentful. I planned to seek a divorce, a decision which my family supported. But by that time I'd become pregnant so thought it better to carry on with my marriage," shares Vohra.  

"This is very common," avers divorce lawyer Ranjana Dixit: "We have so many women, especially from lower middle-class homes, who'd rather stick on in a troubled marriage than be financially insecure or bear the risk of social embarrassment. In a recent case of a Muslim family that came to us, Shama had been divorced by her husband Imran, who had even performed a second wedding. However, after bearing all the social and mental agony, Shama pleaded to be allowed to stay with the husband and his second wife to ensure financial security. That speaks volumes for the dependency of a woman on her husband."  

But is a loveless marriage reason enough for divorce? "Yes, of course," states Dixit, citing the famous Samer Ghosh vs Jaya Ghosh case, in which the divorce had been sought by the husband who stated that his wife no longer cared for him. The case which was dealt by a full bench of  Delhi HC in March 2007 was termed as 'an irretrievable breakdown' of marriage, which also amounts to mental torture, and which is one of the seven grounds for divorce." 

But who's to decide if a marriage is loveless or not? questions Khursheed Kanga, a  relationship counsellor. "The problem is that people have a utopian notion of a life-long romantic love. But reality kicks in soon after marriage. So it is this very notion that we try to fight first when people seek help from us to deal with the depression of a troubled marriage," though she agrees that, "Many of these people want to work on their marriage because however much they may wish to, they cannot divorce. And the reasons vary from concern for kids, financial insecurity to social embarrassment." 

Reasons which are valid according to sociologist Reeta Brara: "Only  love can't sustain a marriage. It may not be a perfect institution but provides many safeguards like economic security, social status or bringing up kids together. And one should not be embarrassed in seeking them through a marriage. In fact that's the stabilising factor in any relationship. So, one can't really give up on a marriage just because there's no love." 

Also, is the fear of leading a divorced life a deterrent for couples? "Of course it is. Divorce can be a shattering experience and not everybody can handle it. Besides in  India, there's a certain stigma attached to it, which sort of forces many to continue in a troubled marriage rather than walk out." 

{The writer of this article is Asst. Editor ‘Lifestyle’ TOI .com and has be reproduced from ‘Times of India’ with her due permission. Acknowledgement:- Times of India}

The Police Story

Can you ever imagine criminals and murderers bringing a drunken cop to police station? According to a news report, this happened in U.P. Two under trials lodged in Moradabad district jail facing charges of robbery and murder were brought to Bijnore for court hearing but found the court to be closed on account of Krishna Janmashthami festival. To enjoy the festival, the cops escorting the criminals decided to have booze. They asked the criminals to wait at a bus stand and went inside the liquor shop. Later finding the cops too drunk, the under trials escorted the cops to the nearest police station instead of running away! This is a strange case of bad boys turning good Samaritans while the cops showing how much irresponsible and careless they can be in discharging their duties. Is it not puzzling as to why these criminals were taken to court on a holiday and how the cops left them at the bus stand without any escort?

In an another incident, this too in U.P., a young IPS officer, additional Superintendent of Police in charge of traffic was assaulted and dragged in a car for almost a kilometer while chasing three police constables fleeing in a car. These police constables were caught red handed by her demanding bribes from lorry drivers on a roads intersection. Even though both the incidents happened in U.P., the modus operandi of the police are same every where from Kashmir to Kanyakumari.

Recently the Karnataka police has released a report by the Public affairs committee of Bangalore according to which ‘38% of policemen believe that corruptions part of the system and that honesty does not pay all the time. 64% police agreed that greed is the root cause of corruption’. This may be true to some extent because of the general perception that the ‘moolah’ so collected from the lower rank constable is shared up to the top level. But does it not mean that corruption is not on account of low salary or living condition but because of greed? Never the less, both the above cases bring the police force in a bad light. If there is one up right police like the one lady S. P., there are three others who are all ready to pull them down.

It is very rare that a positive story about police activity is ever flashed by the media. Even our films shown them in a bad light acting like a ‘buffoon’ or hand in glove with the criminals and smugglers (films like ‘Ardh Satya’ or ‘A Wednesday’ are exceptions). It is heartening to note that a NGO ‘Janaagraha’ from Bangalore has launched a website “I Paid a Bribe” to sensitize the public. www.ipaidabribe.com is a Janaagraha’s  unique initiative to tackle corruption by harnessing the collective energy of citizens. It can be hoped that this site will bring out more such cases of corruption in all fields of life and the ‘non corrupt’ higher officials take note of such cases to punish the guilty, corrupt and irresponsible people in their respective departments for a better and cleaner image in the society.

( Sorry for the inconvenience as the comments button is not functioning for this particular post. You may mail me your opinion at my email Id-  srayyangar@gmail.com)

Dreams and Focus

All counselors, teachers, personality development speakers emphasize that in order to achieve your goal, you should have a dream and focus on that dream. Our ex President Dr. Abdul Kalam always talks of dreaming big whenever he is in the company of youth and children. He is pained to tell that lack of confidence amongst youth was increasingly becoming a hindrance to make their dream a reality. Going back in time, these words were never heard from anyone during my childhood days. The word ‘Focus’ was confined to photography and we only used to day dream. But now when I look back, I find that my own day dreaming has great bearing on my life today.

While talking about my dreams, I have to go back to my childhood days. When I was in school, I got fascinated towards colorful children magazines. I developed interest in writing. Initially it started with writing comments on article under the columns ‘Letters’ and slowly switched to writing stories for children in a magazine style on a note book with sketches and dummy advertisements!  Then came a phase when my stories started getting published in the same very magazines, I used to patronize. As the age progressed I started writing filmy style stories because of filmy influence on me. It was only during college days that my writing skills in Hindi got stabilized and choose to write satires which are being continued even now.

Now it can be told that I had a dream of becoming film script writer and film director. Being a film buff, often I used to day dream about my stories being filmed and how I shall be directing the various scenes, how shall be the background score etc. Once in college, I even got hold of an application from Pune Film Institute for admission but I could never gather the courage to ask permission from my parents lest they get annoyed. In other words, as Dr. Kalam says, I had no confidence to get their consent. Like any other youth of those times, there were only two options left before me- either to pursue science or arts course. No body talked about technical or other professional courses. I chose Science, did post graduation but landed on to a Bank job.

But all said and done, the dream remained in my heart and mind. What if I could not become a script writer, I am happy with the thought that because of those dreams, I am able to script write articles, satires, political comments etc and am able to continue this passion. The idea of my writing this article is to reaffirm my faith that focused dreams do play a vital role in personal life. Keep dreaming about what you want to achieve in your life, be focused and sooner or later, those dreams are going to turn in to reality. To substantiate, I have another personal experience to share.

At the fag end of my career when I took retirement from service in 2001, I had a dream of things to do after retirement. I had a dream of visiting all my schools, colleges and houses wherever I studied/stayed right from class 1 up to post graduation level spread across 9 places in Madhya Pradesh. This idea, this dream and the urge kept ringing in my mind over the next 7 years. It was only in 2008 that finally I could give shape to my dream and embarked upon the dream journey down the memory lane which ultimately secured me a certificate and place in ‘Limca book of Record’ 2009 edition  and ‘ India book of Record’ 2010 edition.

(To read my complete travelogue please go to the  following link- http://srayyangar.blogspot.com/2009/03/journey-down-memory-lane.html )

To conclude, with my own experiences as above, I strongly feel that ‘If there is will, there is a way’. Dreams do influence your life and help you in achieving your goals. Will, determination and focus can turn those dreams into reality some day. So keep dreaming without loosing heart and never say good bye to your dreams.

Of Ego & Expectations

25 years back, it was a happy joint family. All the family members with their children shared a bond of love, care, happiness and togetherness all the time. They played, eat and slept together. Had fun during summer holidays and were in touch with each other through regular post cards or letter writing. It was a picture perfect setting like any old Hindi family movie.

Now 25 years later all those family members are living separately. Their children have grown, some are college going and some are working and married. Their relationship and bondage with each other have become weak, meeting together is rare and get-togethers reduced to occasional family functions. Children are indifferent to their counterparts and communication is reduced to just ask welfare or say hello & bye!  The feelings of selfishness, bitterness and jeliousy have a cascading effect on the youngsters too. Sometimes, the grudges between heads of two families get reflected on to their children who also do not see eye to eye. The whole gambit of ‘Picture Perfect family’ has disappeared in the din of fast paced life. No one has time and patience. Out of blue, a close knit family breaks up.

It is said that as the person grows, wisdom sets in but how come such happy relationship of oneness of yesteryears is forgotten and relations become sore. Even though there were no major issues of differences, no fight has taken place amongst any family members but still the strain of ‘All is not well’ loom large on their faces. An expectation rides over rational thinking- ‘Why me alone, why not they?’, ‘Why should I initiate, why not they?’, ‘If you call me I shall reciprocate’, ‘If you come to my house I shall come to yours’, ‘If your children talk to my children, they will talk to yours!’ Each one of us expects the other one to take the lead, initiate and talk. The roots of ‘give & take’ feelings have gone deep in to our heart and mind.

The dynamics of human relations are changing. There used to be a term ‘Thick friends’ earlier, now ask someone who their thick friend is? Do not be surprised if after a long pause and thought you may be told there is none! And this is not just confined to family relationship but covers all other relationships like friendship, lover’s relationship, employee- employer relationship, etc. The feeling of ‘why me why not he/she’ makes all the difference. The changing life style, stress and strains of daily life and distance of living apart can be some of the factors but the major factor contributing to such a change can be attributed to our own making.

Ego and expectations have eclipsed our mind. In order to build a healthy and fruitful relationship it is paramount to understand that in the larger interest of relationship individual’s ego and expectations are to be kept set aside. The problem is not with our expectations but with our insistence that things must and should work out the way we expect them to. It is imperative that in any relationship there has to be some kind of invisible sacrifice, a readiness to forego and forgive attitude, forgetting smaller inconveniences in order to make a space for others to stay in your heart. All said and done, when ever you feel hurt, insulted and ignored, think with open mind, analyze and ask yourselves ‘what wrong have I/We  done’? Probably this may answer some of our own problems.

How safe & faster is e-MO?

The Indian department of Post has replaced the old Money Order form (M.O.) with a new easy to fill eMO form MO-8E (I). As the name suggests, this has been introduced for faster remittance of money keeping in tune with the technology. This new form has certain flaws.

1-     There is no writing space for any kind of personal message to the payee. Instead, there are 21 message codes (just like the one used in Greetings telegram) to be used which may not necessarily cover the purpose for which the eMO is being sent by the sender.

2-     There is no ‘Acknowledgement portion’ which used to be sent back to the sender as a proof of having delivered the money to the payee. Thus, the remitter will have no proof in hand in case of a dispute to prove at a later date that the payee has actually received the money.

3-     As per the existing system, the MO can be tracked only through the postal department website www.indiapost.gov.in

How can a layman or villager track the eMO on computer is a question, the department has to answer. Other wise he has to travel repeatedly all the way to the post office to know the status.

In this context I would like to share my experience. On 14^th May I sent an eMO from Bangalore to a publisher at Faridabad (Haryana) towards cost of a book. In between, the publisher informed me of the non receipt of MO several times whenever I sent reminder. However the website tracking system showed that the MO has travelled through various Post offices like Central Server to Escortnagar Faridabad, to Amarnagar Faridabad to Nhpc colony, Faridabad during the period 15/5 to 26/5. Finally, it showed the date of payment as 26/5. But the publisher kept on repeating the same reason for not sending the book to me.

After waiting for full 2 months, finally I decided to lodge a complaint with the Postal department asking them either to produce me the publisher’s acknowledgement of having received the money or else refund me the MO amount. The department promptly sent me a reply based on the same tracking record stating that ‘The MO was paid to the payee on 25/5’ and that my complaint is settled’. I simply forwarded the reply to the publisher with a note asking them to send the book now or else keep and treat the amount as my donation to them. Believe me; I received the book by courier in a record time of just two days thereafter. Incidentally, the book I ordered was all about ‘creating record’!

The larger question is, if this is a faster mode of remittance, how many days can be reckoned as fast. In the instant case, the eMO sent on 14/5 has reached its destination on 26/5 after full 13 days. More over how many people have time and patience to pursue such matters relentlessly and what if the intention of payee turns out to be doubtful?

Nostalgic Bollywood

It has become a trend in Bollywood to keep the titles of movies in English now a day. Even the songs will have some English lines here and there. But do you know, as far back as 1960, Sunil Dutt starrer  Hindi film ‘Ek phool char kante’ had a full fledged English song by Iqbal Singh-‘Beautiful Baby Broadway’ .

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qiBpTrpgyCs

Subsequently, music director Shankar Jaikishan made singer Vivin Lobo (voice similar to Mahendra kapoor) to sing an English-German song ‘ Ich Liebe dich, I love you’  for Raj Kapoor’s  film ‘Sangam’ in 1964.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zLs1LOelnSo

Many of the films made by students from Film Institute, Pune were tagged as ‘Art Movie’ or ‘Experimental Movie’ during 70s.But long before this; Sunil Dutt had made an out & out experimental film in 60s called ‘Yadein’ featuring himself all alone. Yes, no other artists or extras featured in the film. Only the voices of Nargis dutt and children were used to depict conversation. Unfortunately, no mention of this film is made by any film writer, critic or artist while discussing trend setting movies. B.R.Chopra was another director who made a full fledged court room drama in a song less movie some time in 60s called ‘Kanoon’. The film had only a ballet dance sequence.

If you think animation is new to Bollywood and is still in its primitive stage as compared to Hollywood, here is some good news. In 1957 came a children film called ‘Aab Dilli door nahi ‘ which had a  song ‘Chun Chun karti Aayi chidia’ sung by Mohammad Rafi and  in this song, animal characters were show in animation!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rfCJRxooOyE&feature=related

Never herd of these films or songs? Well, check out at YouTube and search for these songs/videos to enjoy the once upon a time songs!