I called on a dear friend after a long time last week. He had been unwell as has dear wife but I was unable to visit them earlier due to my own preoccupations with other matters.
During the course of catching up with all that has happened during the period that we had not been in touch with each other, it turned out that two major events have shattered their peace of mind.
To understand the problem, some background. Both husband and wife are devout Muslims who observe all the tenets of their religion.
They have two grand daughters and one grandson that I know personally. One granddaughter lives in Pune where we too live and the other is now in Canada. The one in Pune has got married to a Hindu and has also produced a great grandson whereas the one in Canada has married a lad from their own community and is yet to produce a child. The grandson lives in New Zealand and is now in a live-in relationship with a Maori girl and the couple plan to eventually get married.
The grand daughter marrying a Hindu and the Grandson in the current situation is what has upset the two friends. No amount of my pointing out to them that the world has changed and that we have to accept that things are different now than they were during our youth would help them come out of their despair.
Their stock response to my pointing out to them my own family’s cosmopolitan marriages covering inter caste, inter religion, international marriages, was that it was acceptable to them that their friends could be quote modern unquote (said with derision) but they were not prepared to accept such transgressions.
Sad. I left them to their misery and have promised them not to raise the subject when I next visit them.
Sad indeed. But, sometimes we have to agree to disagree to remain friends.
Oh, nothing will happen to the friendship. I am just sad that they feel so out of date.
Some people will not let other people make their own decisions in life. They have to interfere, issue instructions, and get angry if their instructions aren’t followed. Whatever happened to live and let live?
nick recently posted..The silent type
It could also be that these two were not consulted!
A good reminder to me of how my wife and I benefited from the leniency of our parents. But now I am anxious for my kids. No way do they get the freedom that I enjoyed!
There are many friends that I do not dare discussing family matters with, whether it be the children or sometimes the parents.
Looney recently posted..The Toilet Wars
I think that by the time that your children need to take such big decisions, things would be even more liberal than they were in your time.
This indeed is sad. The poor people are disturbed by the fact that their offsprings are happy. I am sure that they see it in a different way, maybe even protecting happiness of the younger ones, but I still think that the upset is self-inflicted. I sympathise.
That is all that we from the outside can do.
That’s too bad, but there is nothing you can do about it to make them more accepting and less miserable. You did your best.
Cheerful Monk recently posted..Back to School
Yes, I tried, but my heart goes out to the children.
that story just makes me even more proud to know you.
that you married urmeela and accepted that she followed the christian faith and that you still kept your hindu… and raised a wonderful son. and now have a beautiful daughter in love. that you all loved and love each other and made it work.
why can’t people be more generous with their love and their hearts?
why must edicts destroy a family? it’s very sad indeed.
if families can’t even accept differences… how can whole countries ever hope to.
tammy j recently posted..simply jack
Conditioning. That is all there is to it Tammy.
It’s all about expectations. Really, we don’t own our children and grandchildren. As you say, the world has changed and while those expectations were acceptable in the past, they no longer are. Painful, but true.
That pain in my opinion is self induced.
so much of this and other stuff steeped in culture – whether it best – is quite another matter…
and I guess, they had aspirations for their offspring – and their future family…
sadly I don’t think this is a one-off situation, I would imagine there are many who cannot come willingly into the new century/trends.
I have my elderly sister in similar overtones…we usually talk once a week, and sometimes I think “if only you had listened to the whole conversation, including the words you now conveniently leave out…”
this in relationship to something I said about a decade ago – what I said was “I haven’t used my brain like this for a long time” – she has changed it to tell people “Catherine said she hasn’t a brain…or course, she has, she is not dumb”
(completely out of context…)
and that when I want to “slap her badly” 🙂
then there is another conversation she tells which is about “the man…” I do know which man, but somehow she mixes it up to reference any man – so I try to keep male-names out of the mix, ’cause it sets her off!
You are right that they are not the only ones. We have the so called honour killings here based exactly on such old fashioned values.