I have developed a feeling of refusing to do shradha ceremoney that too first year. Is it a mistake? Pls advise?
hi, not sure what you are going to achieve by posing a query like this to the forum. there are two straightforward answers - one that mohar02 gave you, and one, that would be opposite of that.
i think both are wrong, in the sense, they will not answer your query, in the context, i think, it is posed here.
yours is a personal question or dilemma, plattered in a public forum, without providing any further information or background.
even though shraddha et al may be explained off here in an ancestral sense, ultimately, the personal element comes when you feel like performing it for your parents or grandparents.
in my case, i had no wish or desire to do the same for my maternal grandparents, for many reasons which are private. it was imposed on me by a domineering mother, for which i quite never forgave her or accepted it.
whereas the situation towards towards my parents - it was dad who left first, no amount of doing anything after, could ever make up for my feeling of not taken care of him during his ill years. the same went for mom, because she took care of dad all alone, and it took a toll of her health, which probably cut some years from her life. who knows!
but for both of them, i did all the rituals willingly lovingly affectionately and out of deep sentiments. on the first anniversary of mom's death, my sister and me, went to kasi gaya and performed the whole set of rituals, even though we felt we were cheated by the ganapadigals.
as a rule, my wife is supposed to accompany me, but i desisted, as mrs K has no intense feeling for the loss of my parents, as my own sister, who inspite of her husband's caution, came to the wild north accompanying her brother, out of intense love and gratitude for the two individuals of our lives, for whom only the two children could feel.
having said all this, a few days ago, i mentioned here in this forum, the instance of a cousin who refused to do last rites for his father - who was abusive to his mother, threw them all out of the house, (the father) was duped of a fortune by the father's brothers who literally fed him with alcohol and drugs, and who ended up dying in the streets.
the maternal uncles advised him on the same pattern as mohaar2 here, and he ended up burining his dad, but not much after that.
so dear pasupathy, there is no easy answer. and whatever comes from without is unfair and uninformed. the answer to your query has to come from within you. it is something that you can accept today. and 20 years from now, when the world will be different, and you can remember and accept the reasons why you did what you did now. this can be for or against, for each type of decision has a raison d'etre, that only you know.
if you are in doubt, dont rock the boat. continue to do the tradition, till such time, you are convinced to do otherwise. that is a safe route to take.
hope all this makes some sense to you. if not, my apologies. if yes, i am gratified. no matter what, God Bless you.