I had a conversation at 1.01am on Wednesday morning...
Dimple Walla/Starbucks (DW/SB) will be in town on Friday next week and I need to go to KL that weekend as my flight will be from KL to China. Hence I called him to ask if it is okay for me to follow him to KL and he said yes, he will be leaving to KL on Sunday after lunch.
As usual, we did not end our conversation there, it just went on with lots of topics to be discussed. We talked about being vegetarian and eating garlic and onion, we talked about Tamil, we talked a number of things... and the conversation led to funerals, Tamil funerals to be precise.
Dimple Walla/Starbucks (DW/SB) will be in town on Friday next week and I need to go to KL that weekend as my flight will be from KL to China. Hence I called him to ask if it is okay for me to follow him to KL and he said yes, he will be leaving to KL on Sunday after lunch.
As usual, we did not end our conversation there, it just went on with lots of topics to be discussed. We talked about being vegetarian and eating garlic and onion, we talked about Tamil, we talked a number of things... and the conversation led to funerals, Tamil funerals to be precise.
I was telling him that it is sad/cruel when they remove the thalli and break bangles of the widow during the funeral and to my surprise DW said that is the right thing to do. Apparently according to him, the widow is psychologically prepped to say that her bond with her husband is thus non existence and hence the that ceremony will do her good. Further to that, his family will present to the widow a white saree. I was really shocked when I heard that and asked him, "why don't you stop all these", forgive my ignorance here for a moment, I thought DW is different a bit from other Indian guys, hence I thought he will condemn to such actions but to my amazement, he said 'why should I? This is the procedure and that is the right thing to do"....
I was lost for words for a while and I did tell him that I am so disappointed in him. I told him that I thought he is one person who thinks outside the box and how could he ask anyone to be in a white saree and stop wearing bright colours or any colours for that matter. To that he asked me, when I got my divorce, did I remove my thalli... I told him, when I decided to be out from my relationship with Kutty, I removed 3 things: my thalli, my minji and the kungumum I put on my forehead. The bangles, the colour, the flowers all remained in my life as these were the things I was using even before I got married.
Personally, I would be okay if I choose to wear if my husband dies but not because society wants me to do so. I will remove my thalli, I will remove my minji and I will also respect the fact I am not going to be putting flowers on my hair... I might choose to do alot of other things to respect the memory of my husband but I seriously do not like this man-made procedures that is so biased. Why isn't it that a husband who lost his wife have an identity as a widower? Wearing a white saree, no pottu, no flowers that is how a widow should be then how about the widower? His life goes on as normal is it?
Another thing that upsetted me further was that DW said, a widow who is a mother should not be there at the front line during her child's wedding. Now tell me, how narrow minded can DW be? A mother who brought up the child is not allowed to stand there at the mannavarai just coz she has lost her husband? I mean she was the one who brought up the child for Godsake, she was the one who was there when the child cried, she was the one behind every move of her child's life and this big important chapter in her child's life and she is not allowed to be there.
I really really was disappointed with DW, I expected more from him, I did tell him about it as well... I did ask him why are we arguing about this, it is a matter of opinion and his opinion just does not matter to me...
It was 3.31am when we ended our conversation. I donno if he was arguing with me for the sake of arguing or was this his stand in life....
