When I came to Chennai searching for a job, I had a roommate named Raja .He is the eldest son of a  family of five chidren, in a village near Tirunelveli. Being born and brought up in a traditional middle class, he respected family values much. He is  hard working, a bit brilliant, outspoken , clever, a proud son to his parent, a caring and responsible brother to his sibs.  He was such a responsible son, that he did not spent unneccesarily. He started his career as a trainer in a software institute , then became a software developer and today he is in singapore working for a multinational banking company, leading a happy, hassle free, wealthy life and earning in $$$. He was completely responsible for bringing up his brothers and sister. Two of his brothers are engineers, one is an advocate and his sister got married recently.

 After fulfiling his responsiblities he is getting married now. He is marrying a girl from a different country, religion, culture and language. Like every typical Indian parents, his parents also did not agree and he has to fight for convincing his parents and relatives to marry the girl whom he adores most. Finally he persuaded his parents and his marriage is in Tirunelvi - a hindu marriage in typical south Indian style. He has expressed ( infact blasted)  his feelings about our society and culture . Please read his article  in the following URL, before reading further

http://rajaganapathy.wordpress.com/2008/05/19/my-anger-part-i/

Raja, First of all Congratulations to you and Elaine. Felt really proud and glad  when you told me that you are getting married. Kudos for your stubborn!!

I’m not going to offend you completely for your article (as you are expecting). I do accept you to certain extent but your article has hyped other culture as a safe, intellectual, hardworking and our culture as violent, money minded and caste based. I do not know how to react on your ignorance.  Atleast you had known that our culture is dated back 2500 years, happy about that. Culture is something that undergoes constant changes as per human needs and wish. ( 2500 varusathuku munnadi elai thalaioda alanchaanga, innaiku apdiya?). In olden days men were wearing kovanam (innaiku ethana peru kovanam kattitu irukaanunga) women were not wearing jacket (Ravikai) but today if a women is not wearing a jacket it’s an offense.

Tell me which culture does not have violence, What happened in your neighbouring country Malaysia couple of months back, which does not differ much with the so called caste based violence that you have mentioned. ( To remind you there have been constant violence among the nationalities in Sinagpore too). Let me tell you something about America ( ellarukum nallathu kettathu solra naatamai). Do you know the risk involved in leading a life here in the US? In the past six months , five Indian students have been killed for money ( Do you think this is a safer culture). I hope you might have read about the mass university shooting incidents. ( safer Culture!!?). Almost every American holds a gun for safety.  To know more about the racial discriminations , I would recommend you to watch the movie ‘ Crash’ . People are at constant threat here, the amount that one would be sued is directly proportional to the wealth one possess. ( even if he commits a very minor,uninjured accident) . Europe is well known for racist acts, Australia is not far away too. What about Mid-east , Africa  - safer?? It looks as if people were leading a happy and wealthy life, incontrast the depresssion rate is very high in western countries.

Every culture has it own pros and cons. You cannot say one is better than the other.  If you look on the negative part alone then the culture would appear worst .Having been fascinated by western culture, why did you wait for your parents approval? You are independent and you could have got married without even letting them know (like a western guy) . But you waited and marrying her in typical cultural style. Isn’t that a victory to our culture? 

கருப்பு கண்ணாடி போட்டுட்டு பாத்தா எல்லாமே கருப்பா தான் தெரியும், அத கழட்டிட்டு பாருங்க வெளிச்சமும் தெரியும்! சு.ப. வீரபாண்டியன் அப்படின்னு ஒரு பேராசிரியர் ‘கனவு….காதல்….கொஞ்சம் கடமை ‘ அப்படின்னு ஒரு அருமையான கட்டுரை எழுதிட்டு வர்றார். முடிஞ்சா படிச்சு பாருங்க , அவருடைய வலைதள முகவரி, http://subave.blogspot.com . கலாச்சாரத்த பத்தி கொஞ்சம் தெரிஞ்சுக்கலாம்.