Is it really turtles all the way down?
A good answer would be – “Why does it matter Fear Itself? … it doesnt pay to be paranoid about everything. The world’s been turning for ages… it’ll turn regardless”
Ah, interesting. Yes, both guys were from well-to-do families, the Tamil guy in particular (both father and son were airline pilots, had considerable real estate investments, etc.). The Marathi guy at least had the excuse of being an NRI for not helping out at the temple more often, but the Tamil guy was living in the family home and getting some stick for not being as interested in priestly duties as his younger brother.
mallurox, thanks for weighing in. I wasn’t thinking of these guys becoming radicalized - that was kind of a separate question, related to acsenray’s earlier remark about purists. Neither of these two particular fellows were in any danger of doing so. Certainly not the Tamil guy, who used to love to talk about the steak dinners he enjoyed when in Dubai. 
But now I have to ask - fair dinkum?!? Are you Australian-born, moved to India, or did you just go to Oz for university?
Actually, I’ve been told that before. It makes sense to me. 
Anaamika, I’ve heard a similar comment from an Indian-American grad student I know - says she wants to avoid the whole “ethnic clique” thing. Given how some such gatherings can do more to foster separatism than comraderie, I avoided them myself when I was younger, so I wouldn’t fault anyone else for doing so.
Okay, for acsenray and Anaamika (or any other atheist Hindus in this thread) - did you come to your atheist viewpoint over time, or did you grow up with that line of thought? If you weren’t always atheistic, do you find yourself still do things like keep yantras around the house out of habit or for tradition’s sake?
I’ve been an atheist ever since I was old enough to consider the matter.
I just don’t want to be like my parents, who refuse to have any other friends. I’m in a cross-cultural relationship and I’ve learned so much from that. I might find it more comfortable to be around all Indians but not as exciting.
I can pinpoint you to the exact years.
In 1989 when I was 14 I became agnostic because of one huge scandal that broke in my house. It shook my faith severely and sent me on a detailed hunt. Before that I believed implicitly, or more appropriately, didn’t think about it.
I spent approximately the next 10 years thinking on it, studying other religions, examing my faith, being alternately angry with it, then apologizing to myself and to my God.
In fall of 2000, I had an epiphany. It was exactly like that, too, I was just sitting around reading something or other on religion, and I suddenly had a very clear view into my own mind, the kind you get very rarely, and I realized I had no belief in me for a god. Further, I also found I had no need for it. I wasn’t feeling sad, or angry, I judt didn’t believe.
Do I keep things around? Hell yeah. (I don’t even know what a yantra is, actually.) But I have a little enameled engraving of baby Krishna, a little silver figurine of Radha-Krishn, as well as a shiv-ling and a few other small things.
I rib my SO mercilessly about the shiv-ling because we don’t want to have kids and it’s supposed to cause fertility in men - I wave it at him, and he says “Keep that thing away from me!”
If we limited ourselves to questions that mattered, we wouldn’t need all those hamsters.
Nitpick - Virility, not fertility. A fertile man would be a rare thing indeed.
Do you know anything about the BAPS temple/sect/whatever?
Hee, sorry.
even sven, can’t say I have heard of it like that. A quick googling reveals not much. Have any more info?
Would this be them?
Sorry … i needed a term to describe me as the “real deal” hindu. Fair Dinkum Hindu would be a good name for a jazz band dont you think? 
. Never been outside of India, though of course Oz is relatively familiar country due to my interest in cricket.
Woot! I found this thread! YAY! does a little dance
I’m reading A Suitable Boy, so bear with me.
Caste System: When asked casually of my husbands Indian co-workers they kind of shrugged it off. This is my theory. Castes are so established culturally that even if there is a public backlash about it, that somewhere, it may still matter more than folks are comfortable saying to silly americans. For example, everyone says it doesn’t matter, but when it comes down to who you marry, does it really? If you do marry someone outside of your caste is there a stigma about it? I did check a few indian dating sites and they do allow you to search by caste. I don’t know if it is for the parents benefit or what, but it does seem important.
Which brings me to my next question: Arranged Marriages. Is this still done commonly? From one dating website I found quite a few parents looking for matches for their children. Even if the parents are still all for it, do the kids kind of sigh and think it’s old fashioned? Or because of that being a cultural thing for them accept it as the way it is gonna go?
Eve Teasing- The Guys My Husband Works With: they shrugged this off as something unimportant too. That it may happen, but gee whiz, it isn’t that big of a deal.
The Arts: Someone brought up M. Knight Notevengonnatrytospellit as being fairly unusual in that he is in the arts and that is frowned upon. To say India has a rich history in the arts, I find this confusing. And god knows, someone in India is making a shitload of movies. Where do artists/musicians/performers fit into society?
Being an american southerner, I know there can be differences in what you say to outsiders than what you actually do. As I progress through this book, I’m certain I’ll have many more questions. Please understand, my major was Cultural Anthropology. So my desire to dig a bit deeper than a public facade is a feature, not a bug.
For educated, white-collar, middle- and upper-class people, caste is not a day-to-day worry in their professional or personal lives. However, as I stated before, the vast majority of people will marry within their caste and within their ethnic group, and this factor retains cultural strength. However, in my father’s generation for example, there are several cross-caste marriages – all of these matches, however, are “love matches” – all the arranged marriages are within caste and all within the ethnic group. If you look at matrimonial advertisements among Bengalis, you will notice that a lot of people are combining the top three Bengali castes – Brahmin, Vaidya (Boddi), and Kayastha – into one “white collar” category.
Yes, the vast majority of marriages are arranged. However, among the educated and affluent, “arranged” has a flexible definition. Most often, families will try to introduce unmarried individuals through personal connections. However, in the end, it is up to the people concerned to make the final decision.
“Love matches” are becoming more common among the affluent and these tend not to follow caste/ethnic lines as strictly.
No.
Perhaps. Amongst my family, parents would be generally relieved to find that a young person has found a suitable partner for himself or herself (still preferring to stay within caste, but flexible on that; less flexible on being outside the ethnic group, but it happens anyway). Young people feel they have the freedom to find their own spouses if they want to, but in the end, the majority still fall back on family introductions. It’s not a matter of acceptance. Many of them actually prefer it this way, expecting some level of security in having a potential spouse pre-vetted by loved ones. Also, there is a growing perception among Indians (and among Indian-Americans as well) that a “love match” does not necessarily add any benefits so far as a successful relationship and future happiness. While more and more people do “date,” long-term dating is not seen as a guarantee that you will really know a person better.
It is a big deal, especially in Delhi, whose public culture is seen as being very hostile towards women. I would never recommend a woman travel without a male escort in Delhi. It’s pretty rough.
Frowned upon, for being a movie director? I frown upon him for being a pretentious bastard and a director with limited talent, but who’s frowing upon him just for his choice of profession?
In Indian society it doesn’t really matter what some outsider is doing. But most parents want their own children to go to financially secure professions – doctor, engineer, etc.
They’re rich; they’re celebrities. They’re on screen, on TV, and in the gossip columns. They’re not really part of day-to-day society for most people. Most parents would not want their children to become part of the celebrity world. And most movie stars (especially women) go to extreme lengths to try to show that they themselves live moral, conservative lives.
Mothers of sons, especially, want their sons to stay away from girls involved in acting, modeling, etc.
Traditional artists are respected, especially in Bengal But, as I said, every parent wants his or her own children to get a proper job and every mother wants her son to have a traditional wife.
And, I have to add, as always, India is very diverse and Indian culture is very diverse, so while everything I say is true, at the same time it is also not true.
I forget who said it, but it goes something like this – “For every true statement you can make about India, the opposite statement is also true.”
Oh, and on the Eve Teasing, the fact that there are apparently a large number of Indian men don’t think it’s a big deal probably contributes to the problem. As I said, it’s a big problem in Delhi, but less of a problem (though not non-existent, I think) in the east, west, and south.
Not by me! I’m from Bangalore - Bombay is most definitely north. Not “waaay up in the north somewhere” like Delhi, but definitely north. I think you’re more likely to find vegetarians who come from south India simply because the north has always had more of a Persian/Muslim influence. South Indian cooking is more vegetarian partly because of the strongly Brahmin tradition in the region, although of course this varies from state to state. Karnakata and Tamil Nadu are quite staunchly vegetarian.
Persian/Muslim influence has nothing to do with it. Remember the Vedic Aryans themselves did not shun cow-eating. Dietary restrictions in India have developed regionally depending on the local environmental conditions. Beef is not eaten throughout India because economically it was not ecologically viable to raise cattle for food as opposed to labor/dairy. (See Marvin Harris). Vegetarianism is common in Gujarat and the South because the local ecologies did not make it beneficial to raise animals for food there.
I suppose you have a point there. I’m not quite so sure that it’s entirely due to environmental differences, though. It’s certainly feasible to rear goats and sheep in arid and semi-arid areas, and there’s never been a tradition of eating those. I’m just saying I think there’s a certain cultural/religious component as well, not that environmental factors are irrelevant.
As Marvin Harris shows, the cultural/religious components follow ecological factors. The North never was vegetarian. It didn’t become non-veg as a result of Mughal influence. Hinduism is not an inherently vegetarian religion, as shown by the Vedas themselves.
The same is true in the Middle East. Judaism and Islam bar the eating of pigs as a result of the unsuitability of raising pigs for food in the region where those religions developed.
It may be feasible to raise animals in a certain area, but that doesn’t mean it’s ecologically/economically feasible to raise them for food. There’s a big difference. Cattle are key to the Indian ecological system because of (1) their use as draught animals, and (2) their use as a source of dairy products. So it is suitable to raise cattle in India for certain purposes. However, if cattle became a food source, then that would have caused major problems in the economic/ecological balance.
Marvin Harris also shows, if I recall correctly, that there are circumstances in India in which beef is sometimes eaten by people who supposedly don’t eat beef and that meat is sometimes eaten in India by people who are supposedly vegetarian. (Obviously, though, they don’t tend to make it widely known.) These pockets developed where such deviance would not upset the general ecological balance.
Sure, especially if it’s a fusion band like these folks. 
Finally got your user name, btw. :smack:
In my limited sampling of male grad students (never got to ask any of the women), the ones from outside the big cities were much more likely to expect that their parents would arrange things for them. As one fellow said, “Who knows me better than my parents, and who else would have the wisdom to choose well?” implying of course that he didn’t feel up to the task himself. The guys who grew up in the big cities expected the more relaxed arrangement that acsenray mentioned, where parents might set them up with someone but the intended bride and groom could still say yes or no. The latter arrangement can still transpire pretty quickly, though; there tend to be only a few days of (sometimes supervised) meetings before the yes/no answer is given. And it was slightly disconcerting to hear the guys talk about marriage like it was just another item on their to-do list.
Another question: as a visiting colleague of a university professor in Delhi, I got to know several of the male grad students reasonably well, and they were put in charge of taking me around town for touristy stuff, etc. As a thank you, and partly because I wanted to see a movie in a real Indian theater (which didn’t quite happen), I invited all the grad students to come out for movie and dinner afterward. A few of the guys came along, but not one of the girls, which I found a bit disappointing. Is there some social inhibition in girls and guys going out in groups, even if an older adult is present as a chaperone?