Of all living faiths and traditions in the world, probably only Hindus keep the god of love in their divine pantheon. Kamadeva and his wife, Rati (desire), retain a powerful grip on the Hindu imagination on account of their painful association with Parvati’s quest for Shiva, and the more joyous link with spring and the stirring of dormant passions among the populace, especially young lovers. More pertinently, despite its known proclivity for compatible caste and status in marriage, Hindu tradition accords recognition to controversial unions such as those by elopement, so as to protect young women.
Recently, however, some rich and irresponsible girls have spoilt the pitch for couples seeking to overcome societal or parental resistance to their union. Some disapproval is grounded in tradition: same-village or same-jati affairs are viewed as incest, as a village is considered one ‘family’ even if it is multi-caste; jati implies common ancestry. North Indian villages are facing youth rebelling against these taboos, sometimes with tragic consequences. Opinion is growing for a more measured response, but media propensity to scandalize faith or put guardians of tradition in the dock serves only to muffle voices of sanity.
Currently, two high-society elopements are in the news. In Kolkata, a modest Muslim family is trying to come to terms with the death of a bread-earning son, in circumstances still under investigation. Some points are in order. The heroine of the story limited her relationship exclusively to the man she married, and did not visit the family after his death, much less live a few days with them. Police officers who spoke to her reported she was sad at her husband’s death, but wished to remain in the comfort of her natal home and expressed a desire to ‘move on’ now that he was no more.
This is astonishing. A relationship purely between two persons does not even need to be sanctified by marriage. Marriage is a social institution: one acquires a new family, and gives one’s children a father’s name, caste, faith, and position in society. One submits to rules and taboos, and enjoys new freedoms. That is why marriage requires witnesses, whether it is a social contract or a religious sacrament.
The publicly-televised elopement and marriage of Telugu superstar Chiranjeevi’s daughter, Srija, is scandalous for different reasons. The inter-caste marriage of a rich girl from the powerful Kapu community with a middle class Brahmin boy is unremarkable by itself. What is disturbing is that a mere engineering graduate plotted for a year to elope with another student supposedly under domestic confinement, rather than concentrate upon acquiring further educational qualifications that would have enabled him to support her with dignity a few years down the line.
One does not know what Mr. Shirish Bhardwaj’s father thinks of funding a Master’s degree for a son married to a rich but penniless girl! The humiliated Chiranjeevi family has no reason to come around and provide the couple a lifestyle to which Srija is accustomed. If media reports that the Kapu community intended to field Chiranjeevi to give them a significant political presence in Andhra Pradesh are correct, the actor will not be able to treat the elopement as a purely personal affair. There is also an emotional fan following, upset over the public humiliation of the actor.
With hindsight, the betrayal began at home. Someone trusted by Chiranjeevi played go-between for Shirish during the year Srija was at home under her mother’s supervision. Her confinement, however, was loose enough for her to walk out of the house on the pretext of visiting an aunt nearly; she then took a car to the Arya Samaj temple in New Bowenpally, Secunderabad. The painful part of the plot is that an invisible hand was orchestrating the affair with precision, informing a television channel and getting the marriage telecast over all networks the same day, and helping the couple go underground.
Personally I feel the media owed Chiranjeevi some respect and should have informed him about this turn in his family life. The superstar’s humiliation would have deepened when Hyderabad police informed the media a day after the elopement that the groom had a dubious past, having been involved in the kidnapping of a minor girl in 2002, a fact admitted by his advocate father.
Worse, the runaway bride is being tutored to disgrace her father. Benefactors with deep pockets have enabled the couple to travel to Delhi and hire legal aid to seek protection from the Delhi High Court on grounds that the bride’s family posed a threat to their lives. The police had been directed to protect them at public expense. Since they specifically cited the Rizwanur Rehman case to buttress their plea, and the CBI is on the verge of establishing that the latter was probably not murdered, it may be appropriate for the court to reconsider police protection and discourage spoilt brats without the ability to stand on their own feet from draining public resources.
The directive that Chiranjeevi appear in court to give his consent to the marriage is uncalled for in my view, as the wedding is fait accompli, and Srija has now to be welcomed into her husband’s home, and not take him into her father’s house! Already, the virtual allegation has forced Chiranjeevi’s brother, actor Pawan Kalyan, to deposit his licensed revolver in the local police station and publicly assert that there was no threat to the couple’s lives. The family lawyer informed the court that Chiranjeevi had already issued a statement on television wishing his daughter well.
Still, Srija thought nothing of publicly taunting him: “I am very happy that my father’s lawyer disclosed before court that he has no hassles about my marriage with Shirish” (The Times of India, 22 October 2007). She expressed alarm at the absence of the word ‘blessings’ in his media statements, and tried to goad him to talk to her in-laws, something she should have ensured before the wedding. Far more audaciously, she wants Chiranjeevi to produce a film starring the couple (surely a financial demand?). The young lady needs to be made to finance her own rebellion and lie on the bed she has made with so much fire and brimstone. The judiciary should stop pandering to rich ill-bred youths.
The Pioneer, 30 October 2007