Is Caste Enough A Reason To Decide One's Fate?

I went to meet one of my friends, Adrija, in the evening. She stays in Chennai and she has come to visit Calcutta for a short time. Her mother, Meenakshi aunty recently had an operation. Hence she was there during my visit. We were all sitting in the drawing room sipping a cup of tea and having pakoras, when aunty proposed to tell a story about caste discrimination.

The story was about Ria and Rahul (who was an air force officer). They met in a party and immediately fell in love. After going out for quite some time, they decided to get married. They informed their families. Initially, both the families said YES. But things started getting bad when Rahul’s mother showed disappointment regarding Ria’s caste. Rahul was from a Brahmin family and his mother wanted a bride who belonged to the Brahmin caste. Rahul tried to reason out with his mother but his mother was adamant. Rahul was torn between his love and his mother. Eventually, he married the girl whom his mother chose for him.

On the other hand, Ria was shattered. She found it very hard to accept the news of Rahul’s marriage. She went into depression and refused to marry again. She learned to bear the pain and live with it.

Three years passed, when Ria got the news that Rahul had died in a plane crash. As her brother was in air force, she got to know that Rahul had committed suicide. Rahul deliberately took the plane even when he knew that there was little amount of fuel in the engine.

The truth was that Rahul found it hard to cope with the loss of Ria. He was not happy in his marital life. When he found life to be hard to bear, he went into depression and finally committed suicide.

That’s how the story ended.

This story moved me not because I am a romantic but because it deals with a serious problem that prevails in our society and how two lovers were victimised because of it.

In India caste is a very important factor while deciding a bride for marriage. I remember when my uncle was getting married my grandmother was very possessive about the bride’s looks and the religion. I, being a girl of 21^st century, completely disagree with this. To me, the process of slotting people into different categories based on their religion is meaningless. Moreover, when two people fall in love they don’t see their religion but the connection they feel between them. Therefore, a big decision like marriage should not be done based on caste.

I have often thought about people’s psychology behind their possessiveness about their religion. The truth is that people are too proud of the various norms set by their religion. As a result, whenever they see that something is not in harmony with these norms, they become egoistic. Then, everything revolves around what they believe in and how they are going to mould the situation to make it right.

It’s because of these ego-centric, religiously orthodox people that our society suffers and innocent people are victimised. Therefore, caste discrimination is not only bad but it brings a lot of heart ache and hatred.

P.S:- Thanks to my friend, Sohini Dasgupta, for helping me with the title of today's post.......