Caste is the biggest issue in Indian Culture.
People differentiate between each other on the basis of caste. There are so many sects and caste, and each one of them have a sense of superiority and have their own sectarian thinking. I was reading on web and found that the number of groups in which we are divided is more than I had imagined.
The exact lines were
"The majority (about 80%) of Indian society is broken up into about 2000 castes which can be further broken down into endogamous units which are called subcastes, the total number of these units in India is estimated to have been 75000 at its peak, and still about 43000."
Even if there is 50% of error in the above data, then also this number is very high.
We consider caste when we have to give favor, marry, chose our neighbors, or do anything. However when we are in need we forget everything about caste. A patient never asks doctor if he is of the same caste. A blood or organ donor is not asked about his her caste. If a security officer risks his or her life for our safety we do not ask his or her caste. we do not think of the players' caste when we praise or curse them for their victories and defeats. We dance on tunes of music never knowing the caste of the composer or ever bothering for the caste of the performer.
The funniest part is that we hate when Indians are victims of racism outside Indian while here we divide us into so many sects. Isn't this hypocrisy when we have made so many ways of differentiate between people. Whole country out-cried when a bollywood actress accused an English actress of racial apathy in a popular television show. At the same time we vote in elections based on our caste.
Two different castes do not marry between each other. If the boy and the girl are from different caste and they want to marry each other then their families leave no stone upturned to break the relationship. A child has a very beautiful relationship with his or her parents. Similarly, love between two individuals is also a very sacred relationship. These two relationships should never be compared nor they should compete between themselves. They are different and one require both of them to survive. However, in Indian society Parents often try to force their will on child. In this attempt it is not only the child but the Parents, also pay a huge price. They destroy the relationship they had with their child. The child starts looking life as a compromise and the relationship with the Parents as a sacrifice or duty. The charm of life is sucked out of it and what remains is sadness and questions like "what if". The torture is more intensified when the child cannot ask these questions to anyone. The only person he or she could have shared the agony is gone to live their own agonizing life. The child learns how to wear a fake smile, hide the pain and act OK. Whatsoever is the child tries, there is no relief from question "what if", which never stops haunting their minds. The parents just think that things will change with time. Then there comes a time when actually the things don't change. However, by that time the people who took this decision are either gone or its too late to change anything.
The children who are cursed to lives this painful life fall in two broad categories - lucky ones or unlucky ones. The lucky ones simply die or cease to be the way they used to be. The real torture is for the unlucky ones. They are just wandering souls, long dead but still clinging to the body they lived in. Every day that ends without the partner is like the experience of death. They are cursed and never find joy. There is no motivation or inspiration. The are just act to be the person they were; actually they are now mere performers playing that role, the person they are acting to be is not them; they pretend to be the character and just wait for curtains of life to fall so that they may be free.
What if, I would have been brave enough to break free from shackles and get what my heart wanted. The answer to this question becomes the fantasy of the person's life. When sleeping, most of the times a young man either dreams of great conquest or of women while a young women dreams of men or of people loving or giving her importance. However, these wandering souls just wonder in there dreams as how they could have got what they should have got. Daily, they form a new answer to the what if question and dream of it as it were true.
At times, the person feels like walking away from this chaos and taking asylum in someplace no one can find them. It may be a new city, a new country or a forest. This actually is yet another dream to soothe the nerves. Deep down they know that they will not be able to do any such thing. Had they been able to do such thing, they would have been the lucky ones. They simply have to wait. They have to wait till its time for the show to be over.
The only solution is to all this problem is right answer of the "what if" question and at the right time.
