Blog
Cultures
Hello from Valencia,
I send greetings to all of my dear friends and collaborators. I will be in Europe for a while.
I have a lot of work here, so I will have to focus on the Occident for now. Although my thoughts wonder towards the Orient. There are many memories of the days in India. Like for instance this wedding in the picture, which took place around Gujarat. I think Hindu weddings are very curious. For a Hindu there are three big events in life: Birth, the wedding and death!
The birth of a child is celebrated big time, always if a boy is born. If it´s a girl it´s depending of the family if she is welcome. A girl could mean a burden for the family, since they have to feed her and save money for her “dote” (this money is for her future husband) and then she goes off to live with her “in laws”. Many times, in order to avoid this, girls are being aborted during pregnancy or even killed after being born! This fact is cruel reality! (As many as 2,5 Million girls a year! UNBELIVABLE!)
The wedding is a very big celebration; it takes a couple of days and marks the beginning of a new cycle for a person. The weddings are very elegant, everybody wears precious clothes, and especially those saris are beautiful and very colorful. Usually the couple arrives on an Elephant or horses accompanied by a very loud playing music orchestra. Still today, the parents of the couples are picking the spouses for their children. Something very difficult to imagine in Europe right?
Death is also being celebrated,-unlike the occident, the loss of a loved one is not as dramatic. In India, the people believe in a better life after death and so they are happy for the dead person and usually have a party, even though you can also see a couple of tears since they will miss the loved one. In Benares, at the Ganges River, is a fire that never burns out. With help of this fire, they burn the dead bodies and the rests are thrown into the River. When I saw this, I was very impressed. There is a house with people living in terrible conditions awaiting their dead. They literarily sit on the floor waiting for their turn!
I´m always astonished by such different cultures that exist in each country!
Talk to you later!
Nane
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