I am reminiscing, what old people normally do when they have been restrained in one living space. We have been discussing Harari's HOMO SAPIENCE and his legends:
According to Harari, humans have taken refuge in many myths. Ideas of religion, God, even our international banking systems, he argued, are convenient constructs. These structures console us in bad times. give us sanctuary, and situate us in comfortable surrounds. We need them, so we accept them and suspend disbelief. For instance, we hand over our money to banks across national barriers, comfortable in our belief that when we want our money back, it will be swiftly returned to us. When banking systems collapse we forget that we built them up and gave them credibility, and we are outraged.
So I have been thinking about elaborate cultural practices -- I was well-placed to examine them as I was a Hindu girl growing up surrounded by Muslim houses. Their children were my childhood playmates, their men ran our corner shop and their women exchanged gossip with us over the broken down compound wall.
But, when it came to ceremonies and practices, the divergence was palpable. When Hindu girls got married, they left their homes for good and followed a strange man (if it was an arranged marriage) to his home, after shedding a few obligatory tears, or, as in my case, sobbing my heart out for leaving my Achan (father), who was the only person I loved in the whole world.
Muslim girls had no such problems . When they got married, the bridegroom just turned up in the evenings, after supper, and left early in the morning. The girl now, would get an ara, a room of her own, where she would collect and display little tokens of her married life.
Aliyumma lived across the gully from our back garden. She was the most beautiful girl I had ever seen. Flawless complexion and beautiful features, not to mention a smile to die for. Muslims in those days married early. Aliyumma had stopped hopping across the gully to play with me when she started menstruating. She had always worn a flimsy thattom,, an apology for a face cover. It was always a small thorthu (bath towel) twisted around and under her hair. She taught me how to secure it without pins or slides. Interestingly, she never wore a burqha, the full-length head-to-foot gown that is now common practice in parts of the world. And ugly beyond despair.
Aliyumma also stopped going to school at about the same time. When I asked, her Umma (mothersaid she would soon get married. She was all of thirteen years old. Our world diverged, mine to college and exams, hers to visiting husband and babies. Her husband worked in the Indian Navy and he wasn't around very much. When I went to her ara she would show me the small bottles of attar in her display almirah, silk scarves, crockery that had been presented to her... And she would giggle, carrying secrets that an unmarried me could not guess.
Sometime later I heard her husband died quite young. I had lost touch with her when I myself married and left India.
On one of my recent visits to my hometown, Thalassery, I stopped off at a textile shop near the bus stand to buy dothis as a birthday gift for a favourite friend and relative, Balettan. I spoke in Malayalam to the owner when I reached the counter to pay.
'You are from Thalassery, I can see, from your Malayalam accent,' the shopkeeper exclaimed.
'Yes, I lived near those fields on Court Road. My father was a lawyer.'
He was Muslim, this shopkeeper; so I asked whether he knew my friend, Aliyumma.
''She was my Umma,' he said. 'She died quite young.'
I had married into a westernized Sri-Lankan family, went where I pleased, and worked as a teacher.
Aliyumma did not stand a chance.
According to Harari, humans have taken refuge in many myths. Ideas of religion, God, even our international banking systems, he argued, are convenient constructs. These structures console us in bad times. give us sanctuary, and situate us in comfortable surrounds. We need them, so we accept them and suspend disbelief. For instance, we hand over our money to banks across national barriers, comfortable in our belief that when we want our money back, it will be swiftly returned to us. When banking systems collapse we forget that we built them up and gave them credibility, and we are outraged.
So I have been thinking about elaborate cultural practices -- I was well-placed to examine them as I was a Hindu girl growing up surrounded by Muslim houses. Their children were my childhood playmates, their men ran our corner shop and their women exchanged gossip with us over the broken down compound wall.
But, when it came to ceremonies and practices, the divergence was palpable. When Hindu girls got married, they left their homes for good and followed a strange man (if it was an arranged marriage) to his home, after shedding a few obligatory tears, or, as in my case, sobbing my heart out for leaving my Achan (father), who was the only person I loved in the whole world.
Muslim girls had no such problems . When they got married, the bridegroom just turned up in the evenings, after supper, and left early in the morning. The girl now, would get an ara, a room of her own, where she would collect and display little tokens of her married life.
Aliyumma lived across the gully from our back garden. She was the most beautiful girl I had ever seen. Flawless complexion and beautiful features, not to mention a smile to die for. Muslims in those days married early. Aliyumma had stopped hopping across the gully to play with me when she started menstruating. She had always worn a flimsy thattom,, an apology for a face cover. It was always a small thorthu (bath towel) twisted around and under her hair. She taught me how to secure it without pins or slides. Interestingly, she never wore a burqha, the full-length head-to-foot gown that is now common practice in parts of the world. And ugly beyond despair.
Aliyumma also stopped going to school at about the same time. When I asked, her Umma (mothersaid she would soon get married. She was all of thirteen years old. Our world diverged, mine to college and exams, hers to visiting husband and babies. Her husband worked in the Indian Navy and he wasn't around very much. When I went to her ara she would show me the small bottles of attar in her display almirah, silk scarves, crockery that had been presented to her... And she would giggle, carrying secrets that an unmarried me could not guess.
Sometime later I heard her husband died quite young. I had lost touch with her when I myself married and left India.
On one of my recent visits to my hometown, Thalassery, I stopped off at a textile shop near the bus stand to buy dothis as a birthday gift for a favourite friend and relative, Balettan. I spoke in Malayalam to the owner when I reached the counter to pay.
'You are from Thalassery, I can see, from your Malayalam accent,' the shopkeeper exclaimed.
'Yes, I lived near those fields on Court Road. My father was a lawyer.'
He was Muslim, this shopkeeper; so I asked whether he knew my friend, Aliyumma.
''She was my Umma,' he said. 'She died quite young.'
I had married into a westernized Sri-Lankan family, went where I pleased, and worked as a teacher.
Aliyumma did not stand a chance.
