An open letter..

Dear ‘I-am-against-INTERFAITH-marriages’ parents

I hope you are happy. I hope you got what you wanted. Through whatever’s left of your life, you've managed to put at least me in a state of despair. I hope you can justify my loss as your gain.

All I wanted was to marry your daughter. I come from a respectable background; have a comfortable source of income and a lifestyle that compliments your daughter’s. I have almost everything your daughter needs to be comfortable and for whatever I don’t have; I am capable of making up. I love your daughter and my feelings are reciprocated by her as well. I believe you’ll find me less credible when I profess my love but I hope you have faith in your daughter and her choices. I assure you and I think you also know that you have nothing that can be a reason for an ulterior motive for me, so let’s get that out of the picture right now.

You might be smirking when I say that I love your daughter. You think that’s not good enough a reason to give your daughter away to someone. There are other things to be accounted for. Like religion and community. According to you, it’s the pillar that supports the entire institution of marriage and being together. You've been a part of it. You've done the same thing and you are happy right now. If a man and a woman worship different gods, they are forbidden to be together by divine laws. God doesn't want this.

Well, let me shatter your miserable tenets for you. If you think religion is the pillar for a good and successful marriage, I am sorry to say that you have spent your entire life living on a belief that doesn't amount to anything. I can say, with certainty, that you haven’t understood what religion is. You treat Gods as kings and start fights over it, fights where no one wins. You rejected me as a prospect for your daughter just because I am not from your community. It’s actually validating that you see other communities as inferior to yours and you cry ‘muddling’ when someone like me falls for someone like your daughter. Who gave you the right to treat me like a second fiddle to the human existence?

I find it ridiculous that, in this day and age, you consider religion and community to be a dividing factor. I find it absolutely hypocritical on your part to take the Indian National Pledge where you say “India is my country. All Indians are my brothers and sisters.” as you don’t believe in any of it.

I urge you to come forward and tell me what exactly my community is lacking, which makes you go vehemently in opposition of us being together. In fact, please tell me on what grounds am I not suitable for your daughter? Compare me with men from your community and tell me if they possess something extra.

- Men in your community have pure genes.

I request you to take a few bio lessons to know how your intra-community mingling is taking a toll on your community’s genetics and how imperfect it has become.

- There’s a vast cultural difference.

Let me inform you that all the cultures eventually practice the same thing. You have different customs and festivals but you are the only one who brings in a gap between them and me. Let me tell you that I've been learning about your culture and customs ever since I met your daughter. That’s my effort to make her feel at home and be involved. If that’s not what you do for your loved ones then I’d really like to hear more on it from you.

- Marrying your daughter to my community will make her have to adjust and compromise everywhere.

I believe you’d expect that in our pseudo-male society, a woman has to adjust and compromise. But because you never tried to get to know me, you don’t know that I don’t agree with the concept. I am a believer of social equality of men and women in each and every aspect of life. My wife, irrespective of her religion, community or lifestyle, will not be the only one to compromise or adjust. To marry someone and spend a lifetime together means a series of compromises and lessons taken together. You make efforts to make the other comfortable and happy. ( P.S. If you have been expecting your wife to make extra efforts then I pity you.) This is not a patriarchal society and women do not have to sacrifice.

- In every religion interfaith marriages are prohibited.

What does religion have to do with marriage? If you say its prohibited to marry someone who doesn't worship your god, you are practically defying the concept of one god, the concept of “God is the One Eternal Being”. I’d love to see you try and come up with a justification for the concept that the god you follow is only a god for you and is not just another variation of what we have perceived god to be. This leads to the very religious version of “My dad can kick your dad’s ass”.

- Suffering of women when inter-faith marriages fail.

Did you ever think about suffering of women in general? Are you saying women, in general, don’t suffer? Who suffers when a same faith marriage fails? You can’t be suggesting that same faith marriages do not fail. You can pull up the stats for failed marriages for your community. Faith has nothing to do with women suffering and failed marriages.

- Lack of religious instructions or education on what marriage means in your community/religion?

The state of matrimony has always been regarded as the most important part of life by all. It is clearly stated that god is better pleased with a married man than with an unmarried one, and that She/He is better pleased with a man having progeny than with one who has none. It has always been regarded as the bounden duty of an individual to marry and to bring up a family.

How does that differ among different religions? You may add the clause to marry within the faith to continue race and religion. To continue race is logical but eventually it’s going to fail. I don’t think that you see the bigger picture. To continue religion, is a feeble attempt to induce faith forcefully. If one has faith one has religion.

- If your daughter believes in her religion, she shouldn't marry a man from other faith?

That is so sexist. Why does a woman get questioned about her faith if she marries a man from other faith? How do you grade the religious belief and inclination towards God? For all you know the man from your religion/community, your daughter is to marry, doesn't believe in religion at all. Does that qualify the marriage as successful? As far as I see it, culture can’t be married to. Religion is no grounds to marry someone. Race continues if you stop making people social outcasts. Rigidity will eat up the community, as it is doing right now.

- Men in your community are better than I or at least of the same capability.

Please. You didn't even take an effort to get to know me. You started beating your age old drum of race and community and religion and rejected the idea. For all you know I can be way better than what you want for your daughter.

I am not even sure if you are a wee bit concerned about your daughter’s life and happiness. Or you are living in denial. Thinking you can make all the choices for her and she’ll be happy with each and all of them is your biggest mistake. All you are doing is clutching her tighter and suffocating her. You make her a prisoner in her own house. You kill her free will and spirit. You fail to see how hurt she is because you are blinded by your self-righteous faith, religion and fanaticism. What did you ever get out of hurting your own daughter like that? Killed her emotions and burned them on the pyre of logic and reason. Do you believe you can save your community by sacrificing your daughter’s or for that matter my happiness? Well you are terribly wrong.

You have made a decision which doesn't impact you directly. Just to follow some tenets laid by some weirdo, who injected your brains with the notion that inter-faith ties are not right, you have effortlessly killed two people’s hopes, shattered their dreams and put them through the helplessness of no choice. You suddenly felt commanding and strong when you ruled against our love and threatened your daughter of abandonment. Let me tell that you have done the most cowardly thing you ever could have done.

You should understand that you don’t have to blindly force us into things. You had your own reasons for doing things the way you did.  The world is changing very rapidly. Change can be good. Embrace good change and chances will come your way.  Also see that the world’s axis of power is moving from the OLD to the NEW. Understand this. Stop making religion/community as your ultimate goal. You will pay dearly for this mistake. I have spoken to so many people and it is shocking to see that their thinking hasn't aged from the 50′s! But it is not the 50's. You should realize that you have only one daughter. Instead of the love for community, give preference to the love for your daughter. Understand where her happiness lies and not the society’s. You make the society and community, don’t let it make you.

But alas…! You have taken a decision and warned your daughter of dire consequences. You force her to meet men from your community. She does. Have you even realized how pathetic the situation that is. If she had found anyone remotely good, she’d have given it a chance. But you are happy in your dream-world where you think you have chosen the best path for your young and they are happy. Wake up. You are forcing things down our throats. You have forced us to accept things which we don’t agree with. You still believe that we are naive and you have seen the world and that’s how you know better. You don’t. Parents, you take yourself too seriously. You cross the limits when you try to balance happiness against religion. You didn't do very well. In fact you failed terribly.

I wish you feel the pain I am going through. I wish you’d wake up in the middle of the night with a headache and then never go back to sleep. I wish you’d get lost in the middle of a conversation as all you could think about is how you've lost the best thing that has ever happened to you because you have god issues. I wish you break down in the middle of a party just because someone with a screwed up view of religion and community, stuck in the head, has ruled against love. I hope you realize that your daughter is not happy and is terribly hurt. I wish you suffocate the way she is suffocating in the tight grip of your patriarchal beliefs and your senseless tenets. I wish you to be troubled knowing that there’s at least one person, suffering because of you and you were wrong.

I wish you pain. Remember… There is no GOD for PAIN.

Take care,

A really pissed off guy.

Existential crisis...

Why are you here?
Ever wondered about the purpose of your existence?
Ever tried to look beyond the regular banal life that you live?
Instead of claiming to know who created you, did you ever think about why you were created?

Or you are just the kind to do what you have been told.
The kind who can't find an identity of your own.
The kind who can't fight the hands that mold you in whatever way they want to.
You must be the one without any structure.

Are you the one who goes to work and comes back home and thinks about the next day at work?
Did you ever gaze into the sky and wonder?
Did you ever think, for a moment, that you are not a puppet of the people?
Have you accepted things into your life because you are too afraid to ask questions and seek explanations?

Do you believe in God?
Do you have blind faith?
Are you superstitious?
Do you have the power of logical thought or are you just a tape recorder?

You are the one who laughs at the beliefs of all the other people and gets boiling mad when someone makes fun of yours. The ones that aren't even yours.
You never had any problems with others telling you who you are. You live by what you've been told.
You have closed eyes and you are a slave. They bred you to be a follower, so you follow.
You are the sheep. A black one because you can't think.
You are the scum on the face of the earth.
You are the one who fights for things inconsequential and backs out and hides when it matters.

You have their words in your mouth and their motives for your actions.
Even the voices in your head aren't yours.
You never asked yourself who you are.
You just seek approval and never try to walk your own path.
You are the reason for the stagnation.

Why do you not wonder?
When did evolution fail you?
You act condescending in front of the cattle but are you any better?
What did you want to be, a sheep or a lion?
Were you ever human or just an organ of their ways?
Why did you let them decide your fate and strangle you in their worldly ties?
Who are they to take away your individuality and how can you let them?

If you are just a medium of their actions, you should stop burdening the earth.
If you can't contribute, you should stop consuming.
If you can't lead, you should stop preaching.
If you can't find your own way, you should stop guiding.

You are gutless, spineless blob of life on which life itself is wasted.

Why did you go to school when all you learned is to have a closed mind?
Why do you make friends when you can't survive outside your family?
Why do you want to travel when you are afraid of the new?
Why do you dream when you have sold your desire?

Can you choose to fight your own battles?
Can you stop and wonder why there are Gods uncountable and if different religion could be different versions of each other?
Can you fathom the fact that you may have no invisible man in the sky to guide you and the voices you hear in your head are pure bullshit or paranoia?
Can you be logical and rational and take someone else's view into consideration without throwing fits of angry hyperbole?
Can you think for yourself, analyze, calculate and take a decision unadulterated by external influences?
Can you be human and and not be cattle?
Can you gather courage and break free?
Can you stop following and start living?

Or do I have to continue looking at you live a pathetic existence, with no ambition, you hoping that you are really important to someone, when all you are is a big failure in the name of humans and free will?

For your sake I hope all your fairy tales come true and you meet with a God that does exist, and when you meet her/him, she/he will look down upon you and will sob on her/his own failure as a creator.

I wish,
if you are a believer in a patriarchal society/religion, your god be a woman, a feminist.
if you have worshiped a white god, your god be pitch dark.
if you think your religion doesn't allow people from other religion into yours, your god be a mixed race.
if you hate homosexuals, your god be a gay.
if you hate technology, your god be a scientist.
if you believe in constraining yourself and others to rigid tenets and unwritten illogical views and senseless practices, your god be free will and pure logic.
if you like to kill, your god be life.
if you are an atheist, there be a god.
if you are a theist, your god be another human with captivating orating skills, strong convincing power and lot of morons like you to follow.

I hope you suffer for having a closed mind.