namaste saarangam.
You said in post no.13:
"I fail to understand the use in discussing impractical, fanciful or utopian solutions to any problem.We must always think of practical solutions to any problem."
• The level of a solution being impractical, fanciful or utopian, varies with individuals and families. For example, when I say that brahmin girls should not vie with brahmin boys, seeking only engineering degrees and IT jobs, and that they should instead be trained right from their school days to prefer occupations such as teaching, arts, karnAtic and devotional music and so on, that have their own ways of flourshing even these days, this suggestion might seem downright utopian or fanciful to some; some might spurn it as impractical and crazy; but there could also be others to whom the suggestion might seem useful and practical. For example, I know of a pious, young, Tambram couple whose first daughter preferred a plush IT job, while the second listened to her parents suggestions and did a four year Humanities course in the IIT and is now teaching, among other subjects, Sanskrit.
• Expecting every Tambram father and son to do daily sandhyAvandanam is utopian these days, but suggesting that they at least get to know the efficacy of and chant the gAyatrI at least 108 AvRtties daily and increase the number gradually, should be downright practical.
To shrI kunjuppu who takes exception to what he terms as my 'lament':
Sir, my 'lament' is only about the decline of brahminical perceptions and values, which are neglected in daily life, specially by brahmin girls who are in posh jobs and rewarding higher education. I am not against girls being considered equal to boys in the areas of education and employment, so long as that does not lead to their neglecting our religion, culture, tradition and values. Girls must work in posh jobs where it is necessary for the family, but then, IMO, if girls stopped preferring the IT jobs, engineering education, and higher studies abroad, boys would then automatically have to marry girls who either do not work or in jobs that commensurate with their person and culture, and this could lead to a much peaceful situation in family life.
thank you sai.
by the tone of your above posts, i feel, that you are giving the girls a different role in life, supposedly separate but equal, but in reality, a subservient one. ie the man has the dominant role, and in the most enlightened form, could be termed as a partnership of equals with the man being more equal. atleast that is way i see it.
lt us take today's realities. folks do not have the luxury of several children, to partition careers between them, which was done in the olden days, even in mine own.
today, the attitude is, that career is a self fulfilment object, and to be pursued, regardless of gender, atleast in our community, to achieve certain satisfaction and goals, whatever each one may define it.
re your story of a pious couple, i too have a story of a neice who did philosophy and in her early twenties cast away the modern values for the ultra traditional one of her in laws. to put it mildly, she has regretted this wanton and unnecessary restrictions of traditions, after a few years, and is unable to get out of that household . there is an inherent cruelty against women in our values which along with many other values we have shed in the past century, we should continue to discard.
under those terms, we cannot define that a woman is a guardian of values and should confine herself to only certain professions. it is grossly unfair and to me, exhibits a callousness and indifference, which womenfolk have been forced to live with since the dawn of time.
sai, i am afraid that i think, the salvation to our values will not and should not come through restricting womenfolk. because even if you think otherwise, i am quite sure, every woman in her thirties or less, would find your suggestions unacceptable. so would many parents, who have only one child daughter or only daughters or parents with a sense of fairness between the genders.
also sai, i think, by suggesting all these attitudes towards women, including categorically admonishing them alone for ic marriages, we are trying to turn back the clock. why is it that no one is talking about the ic marriages done by boys. if ic marriages is such a condemnable act, should not the boys, as nominal leaders of the community for the next generation, should be pulled up first and foremost? i have not yet read one email condemning our boys for ic marriages. only breast beatings at their inability to find wives.
finally sai, your comments,
'Girls must work in posh jobs where it is necessary for the family, but then, IMO, if girls stopped preferring the IT jobs, engineering education, and higher studies abroad, boys would then automatically have to marry girls who either do not work or in jobs that commensurate with their person and culture, and this could lead to a much peaceful situation in family life.' i find a basic contradiction to your general tone. who are we to judge where and necessity which should dictate a well paying career, as opposed, to one which would 'save our culture'.
let us start with the basic tenet that humans irrespective of gender, are equally endowed with intelligence and should be encouraged to fulfil their destiny. frankly speaking, i do not know, how many of us as parents, have any control over our own children's choices and whether what we chose, is indeed in their best interests. or is it in the best interests of the parents?
times have changed, and it is upto us, not to fight against the tide, but to manage the boat and steer it to the safe harbour, carefully and gently. it does not matter who the captain and who the first mate is - it is just that they work in harmony to steer the boat in the same direction.
thank you.
