Tag: ingrate

Religious functions and late lunches

I remember being invited for a distant relative’s housewarming ceremony a few years back. The invitation card proudly stated “lunch: 12:30 pm”. I had a quiz to attend later that afternoon, at 3 pm, I think. Knowing there was enough slack for me to go to the function, thulp lunch and then go to the quiz, I went. At 12:15 (I have this habit of turning up at functions fifteen minutes prior to food; that way I don’t get bored, and people won’t think I’ve “just come for lunch”). Some ceremonies were going on. 1:15. Ceremonies continue to go on, no sign of lunch. 1:45, I realize there’s no slack at all, and want to leave without eating. Relatives get offended. Finally I went to the cooks, thulped some sweets and went off to the quiz.

Almost ten years back. My thread ceremony (upanayanam/brahmopadesham/munji). The priest arrives at the hall at eight o’clock, a full thirty minutes late. “My colleagues are coming at 12:30”, explains my father, “and we should serve lunch by that time. I don’t care what shortcuts you use but make sure we can serve lunch then”. Maybe munji rituals aren’t that compressable after all. Come 12:30, there were still quite a few procedures to go. Lunch was served while the ceremony continued to go on.

Religious functions are notorious for serving lunch late, and the religious purpose of the function is often used as an excuse to do so. I fully support religious freedom, and fully appreciate people’s choice to perform whatever ceremonies that they want. Keeping guests waiting while you do that and delaying their lunch, however, I think is gross disrespect for the guests’ time. And the sad thing is that religion is usually given as an excuse for this disrespect of time.

When you bring religion into a debate, it sometimes becomes tough to pursue a rational debate. In religious functions, if you were to make even the smallest noises about the timing of lunch, you are accused of being inconsiderate, an ingrate, and for having come there only for the food (I don’t know if the last mentioned is actually a crime). It is disrespectful to leave from such functions unless you’ve eaten, and so you are trapped into cancelling other appointments, and staying on until they actually decide to take pity and serve lunch.

I’ve brought up this topic in family forums a few times, and each time I’ve been chided for making such a big issue of something trivial. I don’t, however, understand how lunch is a trivial issue. And how disrespect for people’s time is a trivial issue. I have decided that the next time I attend one such religious function, where there is potential for the hosts to waste guests’ time by serving food inordinately late, I’ll take along a framed printout of Leigh Hunt’s Abou Ben Adhem. And tell them that all their prayers and respect to god will have no effect unless they also respect their fellow men.

Life expectancy and other stories

Ever since my parents both passed away in their mid-fifties, I’ve had a problem in dealing with the news of deaths of people who I think are past normal “life expectancy”. Despite my best efforts to control myself, and try look respectable, I begin to laugh uncontrollably, especially while reporting the news to someone. People might think I might be irresponsible, or a crack, but I like to think I’ve attained a higher plane of existence.

We need to accept that we are mortal. That everyone has their day, a day when they are going to die. It is only a question of when. So when people who have led “full lives” go, and relatively painlessly at that, I think it is only a good thing. Yes, at every stage of your life, there is something to look forward to, and irrespective of how long you’ve lived people will still count those things you missed thanks to your passing (say a grand-daughter’s graduation, or the birth of a great-grand-kid or whatever). Unless you live a completely lonely and boring life there will always be regrets. But looking at it from the point of inevitable mortality lessens the pain.

I was thinking about this while my grandfather-in-law’s last rites were being performed yesterday. He was seventy seven when he passed away late on Saturday evening. He had four children, all grown up and with grown up happy families of their own. Just over a year back, he had witnessed the wedding of his eldest grandchild (my wife). His wife is in pretty good health, and will continue to get a pension (since he had worked for the government). And he had not been in the best of health ever since I saw him two years back, requiring assistance to walk and largely confined to his house. My only regret then, was that, he had to undergo a great deal of suffering in the last few months (he was suffering from cancer which had been diagnosed quite late), and died a painful death.

You might be thinking here that I’m an ingrate and that I wish that people die once they cross a certain age. That is simply untrue. I don’t ever wish for people’s deaths. I only wish for longer healthy and happy lives. It is only that I recognize the mortality of human life, and don’t really grieve when the eventuality happens for someone who I think hasn’t died prematurely.

Of course I understand the sentiments of the bereaved family. Irrespective of the person’s age and health, I know it is only natural for the families to grieve, and that they invariably have a huge task adjusting to the new void in their lives. The fact, though remains, that death is inevitable. And unless you are like the Bangalore based doctor family which collectively committed suicide last week (a most unfortunate and unnecessary way to die), it is inevitable that some people will pre-decease others, and the latter are bound to grieve the former, and go through considerable pain adjusting to a new life.

I know this might be too heavy an argument to appeal to people who have been bereaved, and their emotion is likely to overpower the argument, but my only hope is that they soon accept the new reality and rebuild their lives around the new (but ultimately inevitable) void. It’s easier said than done but it has to be ultimately done.