What Is Our Culture?
For thousands of years Indians have pride themselves for their culture. The culture that I should call mine as well. But, what is that culture?
The wife needs to burn herself alive after the husband dies.
A princess needs to be married off, and only a prince can rule a kingdom.
Only a male child brings honour to our family.
We are not Indians, we are Rajput, Tamils, Kannadigas, Gujaratis, Maratha, etc.
You can wager anything in gambling, even your wife.
Also, one woman has to be a wife of 5 princes.
When you are angry, curse people, even though, you are a well learned Sadhu who is about to attain moksha. But no, you have no control over your anger and you can curse people. But yes, also preach peace and meditation.
Since some Mughal kings were bad, the entire community is bad. Also, they are not Indian.
A woman (court dancer) can fall in love with a prince, but if she does she is buried alive.
A naughty kid can eat butter from houses, steal clothes of bathing women, do dandiya with 1600 gopiyas, should be worshipped because.... he did something good, I just can't recall it. Yeah he was God, and he just let everything go wrong before he intervened to help fix it.
4000 years ago some dude said, let's play a game, put some coins around a bull's horn, whoever is able to get the coins, keeps them.
Another dude said, let's race with bulls.
One more was like, fuck it, I will just eat those bulls, you do what you want. Humans hunt animals and eat them.
It is totally okay to just massacre millions and then realise your mistake, later devote yourself to a peaceful religion. No uproar whatsoever.
There were caste systems from the beginning of Indian culture. Kshatriya, Bhramin, Vaishya, Shudra. Thousands of years ago, we created a divide based on which house we are born in. Marvellous.
A God can take form of a slutty dancer to break the concentration of a praying Yogi.
We let a lunatic side-kick roam around heaven among Gods chanting one phrase and having a kick out of pulling legs of Gods.
You can ask your wife to walk through fire.
You can ask your wife to leave.
You can love someone and marry someone else.
Write a book about sexual pleasures.
Use your wise brain to destroy opposition and then call it Chanakyaniti. I mean, couldn't you have used it to make peace?
You can spend money on building temples but not hospitals. This is also an old tradition, remember all the big temples and idols commissioned by the kings over time?
Slavery was okay. We used to call them dasis.
Monarchy is fine. A king's word is final. Hmmm. Modern world calls it dictatorship. Quite an interesting culture.
Swayamvar, a woman allowed to choose her husband. But wait, this is something we don't follow anymore.
Being too proud of Indian culture.
Alright I am tired of writing it down. If you get the message share this. If you do not agree with the message, share it and tell people how idiotic I am. If you do not get the message, share it and ask people to explain it to you.
But, if you think we had a great culture. Think again. This time think hard.
Peace Out.
-Naimish Sanghvi