It's my life! Really?

I've just listened to the song It's My life by John Bon Jovi after a long time, perhaps after a few years. This song was one of our favorite songs during our college days. I still love this song. Only difference between now and ten years back is that I can't feel oneness with the song that I used to feel in 2000. It's not just my life now in 2010!

Ten  years back, I was a student at IIT Kanpur earning Rs 5000.00 a month from the government as scholarship. There was zero liability on my head, no income tax to be paid, no EMI to be given, no credit card bill to be missed, no frustration at not getting salary hikes, no late night calls to attend, no worry over sensex going down, no rat race at all. I was really free (free as in freedom) then to enjoy my life my way.

Yes, Indian is my caste too!

One social evil that I've hated since I first came to know about it in my childhood is the caste system in Hinduism. There are many good things in Hinduism and I'm proud about that. But caste system is one thing which I can never agree to. It's disgusting; it's very inhuman; undemocratic. I see traces of racism in caste system.

Fortunately I was born in Assam where caste system is much less prevalent compared to other regions of India. There was a great social reformer in Assam circa fifteen hundred century named Sankardeva. There is no politics or politician in Assam based on caste. Assamese surnames are not based on caste. My surname Saikia can be written by people from different castes. But Assamese society is still not a completely casteless societies. Villages were named after castes. For example, hira-gaon (village of the caste hira), kalita-gaon (village of kalita caste), koch gaon (village of koch caste) etc. In rural areas, people from upper-caste-Assamese-Hindu won't eat at the same table with people from lower castes. Inter-caste marriages take place in Assam; but across some castes; not all.

Caste system is much more prevalent in rest of India. There are political parties whose main vote plank is castes. Inter-caste  marriage is a very rare phenomenon.

I wonder why caste system was not abolished during the social reforms that took place during the 18th and 19th centuries in India. We could abolish other social evils like untouchability, sati, and aversion to widow-marriage etc. I don't know if there was any social revolution against caste system in our history.


I thought gradually caste system will go away from India. With education and contact with the rest of the world, I thought Indians will realize how inhuman is this caste-system. I would love to see a society where there is no caste. I wish the government enacted a law banning the caste system. But I don't see that happening. One recent phenomenon has demonstrated that instead of  discarding the evil, we are moving towards it! In the latest census currently undergoing across the country, people will be asked to mention their castes.


I have always rebelled against the caste-system. I won't teach about the caste system to my next generation. I know there are many like-minded people in our society now who abhors caste-system. I'm very inspired to know that Amitabh Bacchan in his blog has written that he would write his caste as INDIAN in the census. Let's us all record our castes as Indians.


References

1. Interrogating the caste census, K. Subrahmanyam , Indian Express
2. Reviving the caste system, Kuldeep Nayar, The Dawn
3. Untouchable, National Geographic
4. Rediff's campaign against caste in census

36 years of parents' wedding

Today is the 36th wedding anniversary of my parents. On 13th May 1974, my parents tied the nuptial bond. It was of course an arranged marriage. One of my father's sisters (পেহী) was married in the village Dumdumia-Balisatra. That is my mother's village too. Then my mother's elder sister (জেঠাই) was married to the neighbouring village of my father's village Hatisung-Kujidahn. I think the the proposal for my parents wedding would have come from one of these two links. (I'm not sure. I'd ask them today.)  My father was the eldest of six siblings whereas my mother was the youngest of 12 siblings. There was a 10+ years gap between two of them. Did they meet alone to get to know each other? No, they didn't even talk to each others before marriage! My father's eldest sister (ডাঙৰ পেহী), who expired a few years back, and his youngest brother (বোপা খুৰা) met my mom before the marriage. And the marriage was finalized!  Very unthinkable if you fast forward the clock by 36 years; isn't it?

One success mantra behind their happy married life: I have never seen them fighting like many other couples. Whenever my father was angry, my mother was calm. Whenever my mother was angry for some thing (it was very very rare), my father kept quite. That way a fight never broke out between them.

My father is retired. My mother is working and will retire in 2015. They live in my native town Morigaon. Unfortunately, I am not with them on this day today. Just wanted to tell them: Deuta-ma, you've been the best parents of the world. I don't believe in gods that exist in temples. I see manifestation of gods in you. Love you.


I hope to celebrate the 40th wedding anniversary of my parents in 2014. (Last anniversary that we all celebrated was the silver jubilee year in 1999.)