What I am going to narrate is another real incidence, which sounds very amusing, but certainly there is a great food for thought.
One of my best friends, Anand, called me up day before yesterday after a long time, to inform me that he had liked a girl, and even his family liked her, and everything would be settled down in a month, and marriage would be in December. He had come back from US for a holiday and this surprising development happened. This came as a great surprise for me because this guy never liked the company of girls and always used to tell us that he would never marry for any cost. There were many incidences in our college days when he ran away from some opportunities because he had work with girls! Like anchoring in a college function or some performance like a duet song.
First of all I could not believe his tone when he told me this. He sounded perfectly happy. So naturally I conveyed my heartily condolences to him, and wished all the very best time in the remaining time of freedom J.
Today I was waiting for his call, as he was supposed to call me to inform the dates of the engagement and marriage. But I did not get any call from him. I thought the guy might be having a long list of people to inform, and thought give him a call myself. When I did so, I was expecting the same happier and exited tone of a boy about to get married. But it was a diametrically opposite one. First he took some time in some other things. Then finally when I rounded him on this, he gave me shocking news. His proposal was rejected by the girl’s family.
Anand comes from a very rich and yet a very generous family. His parents are so well cultured, respected in the whole town. His father is a well known surgeon in Bijapur, and his mother a devoted house wife. They are totally against all the social evils like dowry. For his sisters they never gave any dowry nor were they going to get for Anand.
The very next day both families were sitting together for further discussion, to fix a date and all. As Anand said the meeting did not last for more than 20 mins. The first topic the girl’s family raised was dowry. Anand’s father, clearly denied dowry in any form. This for anyone of us is a reason to be happy and respect such a person. But surprisingly for the girl’s family, it was not. Anand said they suddenly started looking into each other’s face and fell silent completely for a while. And they asked for some time to discuss something within their family, and went out. After half an hour the mediator for this proposed marriage returned, without anyone from girl’s family. He told Anand and his family that they are not interested in this relation!
The reason…..they thought that if Anand and his family are not demanding any dowry, then there must be something wrong with Anand or his family!!!!
You would not believe, but it is the truth. I did not know whether to laugh at those stupid people or cry for Anand.
Have the social evils left another effect on our society, that we can not realize the truly human values of a person?
Or is it that social evils have become so common that if someone is denying them, opposing them, and is keen to be a living personality outside them, is perceived to be abnormal?
Or is it just a suspicion of the human mind that always perceives that if there is something good, it is veiling evil behind it? Why are we generalizing the same on everyone?
Now, with such an incidence, if Anad’s father changes his mind? And asks for dowry next time? Offcourse he wont do it. But such incidences do have a potential to change the little humanity we have in the society.
Probably here there is a need to run a campaign against dowry in a different way.
What do you think?
4 comments:
Dowry itself is a bogus word. What the girl's father was offering was the daughter's share in his property. The word dowry itself has created all this mess, leading to strict dowry laws, totally one - sided in nature and openly prone to misuse which shatters the life of so many people in a single blow.
Visit saveindianfamily.org and savefamily.org for the 'other side of the coin'
well....
there is a way by which one lends the share of property to his children.....
by this way is there anything being worked out????
Mr. Crusader.....if the girl's family meant "dowry" im sure they meant it as an offering to the boy for marrying their daughter. If they really meant it for their daughter's well-being they could still have done it...by putting that money in her account....fixed deposit in her or her future children's names....or giving her the freedom and opportunity to approach them in time of need. Icannot see why the boy's family objecting to this.
Please do not minimize the evil that has so engulfed our society. You are doing your sisters of the country a big diservice....
Asking for dowry is a true and real meaanness and greed.I have been totally against it always. That is a mark of the lack and want of a true social progress.
As has been pointed out by inmate of infinity, the parents are at liberty to do something for the well-being of the girl, by giving a share of the property in her name or account.
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