‘theetu’
I came across this blog taking about ‘thetu’, Since it was a new word for a malayalee for me, i went up and asked my colleauge about it. He was a bit surprised and asked me where i got this tamil word. finally after a lot of shying and smiling he started explaning the concept….with the first few words of "girls…men.." i got the idea…..
original post at http://sandhyakrish.blogspot.com/2006_07_01_archive.html
a reply
Nice points to think about….my humble take on religion that it’s something to be understood in your way. You could say that there are two types of people. I warn you this is a huge generalization but still it can help us take the larger problem and constrain, if only for the current discussion. One, the people who are religious or don’t-care about religion without thinking at all, that is either they are not too interested in thinking or are too engaged in their daily life to think, they are happy following what other kind interpret or with minor variations to that. They religious among them believe in a afterlife, maybe because they are not happy with their current life fully and expect something better or they are happy now and want to remain happy forever. They may at some level think of following the religion blindly as bribe for a smooth afterlife. A large part of the population is like that, it’s neither bad nor good
The second type of people includes people who are willing to think about religion and life. They either are able to do so or they think that they do so. What they interpret depend largely on the individual and their environment and chances are they can revert back to the first group. Even atheists come under this category.
Now there is a third type I cant talk about cuz I don’t know if they exist. They are people who can see through everything. See the truth. Here there is a substantial problem. U can see through, say N, layers of hypocrisy or lies, but you never know if there is a n+1th layer. Its for them to know or feel and us to ponder about until we reach that stage.
Now coming to your problem of allowing “theetu” people in temple… Mostly the people in the second category would agree with you but they do not form a majority. Eventually if this were to be forced upon them, they would just feel violated. But there is light at the end of the tunnel. Like I said the first category depends upon second category for the interpretation of religion. The older generation depended on a second category that believed/interpreted that the rule in the old way. Like an majority of the old generation Brahmins would have revolted at the idea of a shudras entering a temple, but now you don’t find that much people revolting, at least not openly. slowly as time progress the “general opinion” will turn in favor of the other side of the rule and it may be allowed….but till then give it time…
as u had commented in my blog, i agree that it’s small baby steps that we need to take initially.. but tht should be only regarding creating initial awareness and discussion. After that when the rule has to be changed it has to be done in one quick stroke. You urself have written in ur nlog, “Like an majority of the old generation Brahmins would have revolted at the idea of a shudras entering a temple, but now you don’t find that much people revolting, at least not openly. slowly as time progress the ‘general opinion’ will turn in favor of the other side of the rule and it may be allowed”. When Temple Entry Act of 1936 was brought in, the majority of those who had access to temples then were against it.. but nw the situ has changed nd have accepted the law.. so i dont believe in waiting for the majority to turn around, tday
“matter of faith” applies not only to the priveleged (those who have temple access now) but also to the less fortunate.. so nothing wrong in choosing the right path.
Comment by Sreejith Unnikrishnan — June 25, 2007 @ 2:39 pm
Hi There,
Yes the act in 1936 paved way for its acceptance, but can you say that it did not hurt the sentiments of a lot of people.
I dont know you see people who opposed it (or in your words people who had access)….see they are not “bad” people. they are just constrained by the world in which they grew up. In their world “the fact” was that, lower caste people should not enter the temple. From where we are standing this might seem to be an egregious or wicked thing, but it is not for them. They were brought up like that and their faith is linked to that.
And I for one believe that we do not have the right to take away their faith from them. We can create awareness and when our generation comes, it would become “unnatural” thing and get removed but till them its better to wait.
Comment by cafm — June 25, 2007 @ 3:10 pm
Of course it would have hurt many. What I meant was, even if we wait for time to heal and help, there would still be many who are dissatisfied.
Happy to know that you too believe that, ultimately the rule needs to be changed. It’s only on the time of execution that we differ
It can be
1) as u said l8r; when the nxt generation takes over. But thing is you wud have denied justice to a small number who neednt be alive even then
2) or it can be done immediately. delivering justice to all but wud certainly be trampling a few people’s beliefs
Each has its own merits and demerits. Peace for now
Comment by Sreejith Unnikrishnan — June 25, 2007 @ 6:18 pm
shalom!
Comment by cafm — June 25, 2007 @ 6:28 pm