Sometimes, the mind is a dangerous place to get lost in.it is a place where time & space are elastic and past, present and future co-exist without any issue.And it is even more scary when that manifests itself as an almost lifelike, real event.<\/p>\n
Amma <\/em>had a nightmare a few days ago. She, appa <\/em>and her kids (all 3 of us) are hauled up before a caste court, which wants to annul my parents marriage. Her father and brother (both are no more) are part of the nightmare – and speak for the caste panchayat <\/em>against my parents and us. My parents and the 3 of us are in current avtaars – current age etal. My grandfather is from 30 years ago (when he died) and my uncle from a decade ago. The caste panchayat – in her nightmare – wants to try us as a family and pass judgement on our caste transgressions. My mother was shaking and visibly upset when she told us the nightmare.<\/p>\n When my parents got married – 1965 – they broke caste rules. They belonged to the same gotra <\/em>– and they decided to get married. This according to caste rules is a strict no no. The mildest punishment was excommunication – essentially being made outcaste – and the most stringent punishment is death for the offending couple.<\/p>\n Thankfully, both my parents came from enlightened families. My maternal grandfather (my dada had passed away 3 years earlier), and my father’s elder brother – stood by the couple and ensured their marriage went off without a hitch. A large chunk of the family boycotted the wedding – because it wasn’t the kind of thing that was done. But, given the minor scandal that it caused – my folks got their marriage registered – because, technically – at least according to orthodoxy – the marriage was not valid !<\/p>\n 44 years later, my mother wakes up to a nightmare that her family was going to be hurt because she broke caste rules.<\/p>\n Everytime there is a news report on couples getting burnt for breaking caste laws – my mother goes quiet. It never bothered her earlier – but then, she wasn’t an avid news viewer then. But for the last 5 years or so, she has been getting affected by this. One morning, about 5 years ago, i woke up and went to the kitchen to pour myself a cup of coffee – mom was talking to dad about a couple who got burnt alive in Haryana for getting married within the gotra <\/em>– mom was telling dad ‘it could have been us’.<\/p>\n I wonder about caste at times. I wonder about its hold on people, despite its call to murder and burn alive people – because they broke some rules that lost relevance 3 millennia ago. I am curious about the kind of people who defend caste – saying it is part of our cultural heritage. I am fascinated by the power that caste bodies – panchayats – wield that gets a woman approaching 70, to have nightmares 44 years after she and the man of her choice broke the rules !<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Sometimes, the mind is a dangerous place to get lost in.it is a place where time & space are elastic and past, present and future co-exist without any issue.And it is even more scary when that manifests itself as an almost lifelike,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[9,50,12,13,23],"tags":[313],"class_list":["post-1800","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-and-finally","category-caste-india","category-desi-pundit","category-diary","category-india","tag-caste-india"],"yoast_head":"\n