Wednesday, March 14, 2012

An unfamiliar India

The fascinating relation that is shared between Indians and a variety of animals is woven integrally into the mythological and cultural heritage of India. The Vedic age for one records the mention of different Gods and Goddesses taking the forms of animals.  This fairly popular gimmick has lasted over the centuries.
The different avatars of Lord Vishnu famously known as the Dashavatara ranges from Mathsya, a fish, Kurma, a turtle, Varaha, a boar etc. Following this tradition legends and myths evolved around certain familiar species. The Brahminy duck for example became the permanent symbol for fidelity. This deep rooted belief of the sacredness involving the existence of animals was deep-seated in a sense of identification. This was made more prominent by the Hindu-Buddhist theory of transmigration.
 India has gained the title of a developing country from a severely under developed one and thus she had to make a long and tiring socio political and economic journey. Not a religious one though!
In June 2003 the media developed a deranged frenzy around a nine year old Santhal girl. Pictures of this dark complexioned profoundly smiling tribal belle had captured the first page of several papers. The reason behind this madness was well another proof of the deep seated perpetual love or shall I say respect for the search of a better word for the bond shared by Indians and animals:  this girl was convinced by the elders of her tribe, the Khanyhan tribe to tightly lash the wed lock with a local stray dog lovingly called, Bacchan!
However disturbing this might sound, it is not particularly surprising. The tradition of marrying off young girls to different animals is quite popular among the mostly uneducated tribals of India.
These dogmatic religious stigmas are pulling back the Indian collar in the way to attain an absolute and all rounded development, by a treacherous hand.
The question that arises here is what can be done about it. The answer I am afraid is in the negative. This has been going on in this subcontinent for centuries and is not vaporizing any time soon.  With time and the spread of extensive awareness these redundant religious anecdotes might be eradicated.
This is that part of India that I am not very well acquainted to, not that I had ever had any inclination to mend that thought.  Being a 21st century girl I often do not let the beliefs of tribal India rain on my parade. It is true that their colourful costumes, fancy hairdos, numerous piercings, hallucinating images inducing alcohol and mystical music did enchant me, but their beliefs were more or less fabled hocus pocus as far as I was concerned.
Never did I think that it was possible for me to witness something so hauntingly similar in my modern city life.
Early one Saturday morning the beginning of my much awaited weekend was disrupted with the continuous ringing of the door bell followed by heavy pounding on the door. It was my cook, Namita mashi(aunty). Her orthodox mother in law was forcibly getting her daughter, Kajol to marry a cow! The reason according the very distressed Namita mashi was simple. Her mother in law had promised the Gods in her prayer that if her alcoholic son succeeded in not touching a bottle of alcohol in a fortnight she would get her granddaughter to marry a cow, which is a very important animal under the jurisdiction of the Hindu religious beliefs!
The cops were called and this blasphemous episode was put to an end.
This incident jarred me to my very boots. The predominance of the superstitious stigmas surrounding the relationship between Indians and animals was forcibly made clear to me in a confused span of 30 minutes!

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