Rebuttal : Neeya Naana- Wedding Customs
January 10, 2020
I religiously follow Neeya
Naana every week. It is one of the very few watchable shows in Tamil television. It
seems that the current season is the twenty third edition of the show! Anyway,
debate is always refreshing and interesting to watch. The topic of this
particular discussion was about the changes in wedding customs across Tamilnadu
or rather infusion of north Indian customs into Tamil weddings.
One thing is clearly evident from the debate- people
like to have fun on their day of gathering. These Sangeeths, Mehindi and Haldi
(which was grossly mispronounced) ceremonies are getting increasingly popular
among the city folk because they provide for a loud glamorously entertaining
time in their otherwise dull lives. They primarily want to exhibit their “uniqueness”
and their “coolness” with extravagant and unnecessary ceremonies and most
importantly, the need for good photos for social media pervades all- these
photographers are daylight robbers but that’s a different day’s whine. Even if all
this is unnecessary, we’ll have to cut some slack because in today’s world,
both genders have to work their asses off to earn a living. They work long hours,
different shifts and have to put up with so much shit every day, so it is
justified whatever shit they want to do on their important day. It is really
beautiful to see a happy couple doing
things they like from whichever culture it might be.
Throughout history, change has always been resisted and
reactionary elements have always had their ways in society. My concern is not
with well-meaning conservatives who would want to see their culture preserved
without any outside influence for the next generation but with fear mongering
in the name of culture. There are two strands of arguments which irked me a
lot, one was that Tamizhars are being fooled nonsense and the other was that
all these changes are a large scale economic conspiracy to kill Tamilnadu. The
painful thing is that these two nonsensical ideas finds appreciation and applause
(the conspiracy theorist even got the best speaker prize) among the crowd.
Before dealing with the two stupid arguments, firstly I would
like to deal with the premise of the argument, the Tamizh culture, which
everyone kept talking about. What is that? Where is that special culture? As we
are dealing with weddings, I can only see cultures of different castes- say a Chettiar wedding or a Parayar wedding and these have entirely different
customs and ceremonies. For example a Thevar
wedding is not going to be as elaborate as say a Brahmin wedding which has so many ceremonies. People propagating
the idea of a unified Tamil culture are in their own delusional dreamland. They
see history through their biased vision and cherry pick one linear story line
as the story of whole of the state- are you finding parallels elsewhere?
The Tamizhars are being fooled they say, by whom I ask. The argument
which received an applause was lazy and shallow- other states are not following
Tamil culture but only we Tamizhars are made to follow other purohita customs. This whataboutery
circus happens when there is no justifiable argument for the motion but as we
are here, we will try to answer the lazy question properly. Society is a
marketplace of cultures that too in a globalized world where Halloween and even
thanksgiving are celebrated in Indian cities, people are inherently exposed to
all kinds of new things. The onset of globalization has made borders porous and
therefore fusion of cultures can never be curtailed. We have heard many news
where someone from China or France comes down to Tamilnadu to marry someone
from here, so the basic argument is in a way dishonest and tea kada type where few uncles join together to comment on varied
things from Pakistan to the neighbour’s blouse without any evidence or
knowledge whatsoever. Even if no one likes Tamil wedding practices, so what? The
said culture is not going to disintegrate just because no one else is following
it and moreover this argument is itself dishonest because all new inclusions
mostly do not meddle with wedding practices per se, it only complements the
event thereby satisfying the bride and the groom. To borrow one of the guests’
statement- “man is the progeny of want”- that is the nature of human beings and
it is unfair to expect everyone to become a puritan or a sanyasi.
The best counter argument was made by a man with a thick
south Tamilnadu accent who clearly pointed out- I’m paraphrasing it: even you don’t know what Tamil culture is. You
kept evolving and stopped at a point and are now claiming that it is the purest
form of Tamil culture! We have included a few more things but you are accusing
us of following north Indian culture!
The other talking point of the debate was about economic
conspiracies forged by western capitalists and illuminatis and Rothschilds of
the west trying to cripple specifically Tamilnadu- no, they didn’t go that far
but audience for this kind of bullshit is on the rise with jokes like Paarisaalan
and co. making rounds on YouTube.
The second argument branched into two ways, one dealing
with the service provider and another with the service itself. Traditional arts,
the service, they say is dying- we must try to understand why there is
reduction in demand. So if there is no demand, definitely the art, whatever it
might be, is going to die thus to pin the blame on weddings is not fair. Take Bharatanatyam
for example, there is a niche audience for the art and it does not look like it
is going to die anytime soon- traditional arts have to find their own market in
order to survive and forcing the noble acts of conserving a dying art should
not be thrust on wedding ceremonies which already have so much to take care of.
The second branch is more interesting. The complaint is
that people from other states are earning in Tamil weddings. Host Gopi
blatantly asks a participant if he is really fine with paying some other person rather than a Tamilian.
This is as ethno nationalistic and far-right one can be and to blatantly talk
like this and get an applaud is just beyond me. Let’s break it up- what Gopi is
saying is one must check the ethnicity and race before doing business. If this
is not racist, I don’t know what is. But we will and should definitely give him
the benefit of the doubt and assume that he did not mean what he actually said because
as a person in a media company(STAR) which was initially found in Hong Kong, he would
not have meant it.
Let’s leave the hypocrisy out of it and talk basic
economics, protectionism and self-reliant policies proved to be a big failure
in India’s history. Free movement of goods, on the other hand yields results-
see South East Asia. Even a trivial product as say a pencil must need raw
materials from different places to become a pencil. Imagine a Telugu speaking
or a Hindi speaking person living in Tamilnadu hearing this, where will they
earn their living then? How will we get better services if we chase out good
service providers just because they are not Tamizhars?
The most irrational person of the whole debate was the
guest speaker named Jagadeesa Pandian (I’m definitely misspelling it). The arrogance
in that man is extremely scary. He rants for five minutes straight about how bad
north Indian culture is. The ego of othering the north Indian culture and
people is just silly. He spoke like a textbook fundamentalist branding the
whole of Tamizhars as farmers- I mean how can the whole community be farmers? What
about the sea traders? The priests? He showed off his Thaali with the Tamil letter அ. I’m
wondering where he found common wedding ceremonies in Tamil history where
people exchanged thaalis with the
letter அ. This
is why I call these fundamental puritans delusional.
All these denotes the hangover from the non-Brahmin revolution
of the early 20th Century. The demonization of north Indians,
delusional warped history and a group of people to cheer are basic recipes for fundamentalism.
It is sad to see liberal revolutionaries getting rigid and mirroring the exact
system they took pains to destroy or reform.
I do not accept the argument that fusion of cultures
will deteriorate the culture. It only enhances it and makes the life of the
society even more tolerant and inclusive towards other views on life.
Everything
said, only one argument actually convinced me against these Sangeeths and shit- what is that thing
the groom has to wear! Sherwani sharvani I don’t know, it looks shit and funny.
Episode link : click here
By Admin
Rebuttal
is a series
because we are bored
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