I saw movie "Fire" last night. Movie is not that bad but nothing so impressive, some of the characters were interesting. Which prompted me to write.
One might think that the center characters of the movie are Radha and Sita. But me, I think that center character of the movie was Mr. Swamaji. In the modern Indian society in last 5 years number of swamiji's have gone up like GDP or sensex before crisis and have become the center characters of Indian families. Though I dont see it as big problem because I beleive all these swamijis are not taking India backward in the sense that they dont teach women to stay home, do their duties and any kind of orthodoxy. What surprises me most is their theory of sexual abstention in the name of religion. I believe hinduism is a religious which has most openly talked about sex. Most of the swamijis recite Ramayana and talks about purshottam Ram and pure Sita. Well I must say Ram and Sita had happy marriade life until the dramatic turn around of events and even had 2 kids, Lav and Kush. If I think about other God, Kirshna doesnt even fit in this theory, he is one the few God on the planet who is worshipped with his girl friend, Radha and not with his wife(s). Shiva was married to Parvathi and had a son Ganesha. Many such examples can be given where Indian dieties never believed in sexual abstention but I will stop here, just think of a great mighty character of Indian mythology and related stories around him. Only Guatam Budha was the one who left his wife behind to practice maditation but here we are talking about Hinduism not Budhism. This teaching of sexual abstention makes me worried sometime. India, the modern India is known for its huge youth population, the great grand middle class which is carrier of modern India, we have at times mocked the ever decreasing population of west and have show sigh of worries of ageing population of China. I wonder if more and more people start following these false theories of Swamijis, were would it lead to us? Though population explosion is a problem but complete sexual abstention could lead to a problem of its own. And why don't kill the desire by doing it exessively ?
Other characters which can be taken as center are Radha, Sita and Julie. Radha and Sita, married to strange guys and put/forced in the family of in laws. Though my hatred towards arrange marriages has been considerably reduced but I still find it difficult to accept how a woman expted to go and live in between few strange individual, in a strange new environment. Though we are becoming more libral with our process of arrange marriages in the sense that we let couple meet alone, let them talk, discuss, if needed be in contact for longer period of time before saying yes or no. But still we do not find it important to ask a woman if she wants to live in this new family or wants to live saperately with her husband? If she wants to shift where her husband is living or if she expect her husband to shift somewhere else with her? Answer of all these quetion are by default forced on woman. She is expected to follow her husband and his family traditions.
Another character is Jatin, a weak modern thinker young stucked in Orthodox family. He was able to persuade his family for Julie but did not have courage to ask tell them that "he would like to live saperatly". Well these kind of weak youths of our society are most harmful character. In the time when youth are considered to be taking modern India forward, these timid, weak youth continues to be submisive in front of older generation. Instead of bridging the gap between older newer generation, they are like those bridges which has been broken by older, orthodox generation. Instead of pulling the previous generation with them, they have been pulled by previous generation.
Another character is Biji. A woman, a submissive woman, who has helped male chauvinism to grow. Who forces the young weak individuals to follow redicoulous traditional. An older generation who is stopping youngers to grow. Though I am not the idea, that we completely ignore the older generation but I also not of the idea that we should not oppose this older generation at all just because they are old and stubborn. They are ones who needs to be pull forward.
