Widow Rules

Today, when Dadisa was telling them what to do and what not to do... I couldn't believe how cruel these rules are special for baal widows when shes only 15. I wonder if all these rules are still practised so cruely or a little different now.

I am sure its not so sad now, though cant say much of the remotest remote villages in India.. I do remember an incident when i was in blore sometimes back. They had this ganesh puja procession going on. There during the aarti i saw my frd's mom going back and not entering the pooja place. I asked my frd and she said my mom feels being a widow i cant be part of ganesh pooja.. She was walking slowly as she was quite old. Just then the main poojari came by as we were supposed to do the aarti that day. The main poojari chandramauli ji asked the same qs to my frd and she gave the same answer that her mom dint wanted to be theredue to her being widow. That time poojari uncle told her to call back Aunty and he said 'If widows will not even turn to God then where do they think they can go. No poojari can come between followers n God' ..I was quite impressed because this poojari is quite well known and very old man..So even if these things are there am happy we have ppl to oppose them also..

its still practised in some vilaages..nd dis is jut so unkind....poor girls...infact der r many more rules...i dnt knw if sugna will also follows dat..

well in some small villages it still happens .....young or old .....

Maybe in remote areas like that but the villages my parents are from do not practice these things anymore.  Definately in US none of my families practice at all. 

im frm nepal where the more orthodox form of hinduism is still followed esp by the older gerenration. my parents are pretty openminded but my grandmother (daadi)is a vaishnav and very orthodox.

she was married when she was 7 and had her gauna at the age of 10 so she was mostly raised up at her inlaws. like jamuna in the serial she also faced many miscarriages but eventually had 9 children. she had her eldest child when she was 15. her character is sort of like daadisa in the sense that she loves her own blood... her childern  her grandchildren and her maika ppl to death... but to her daughter-in-laws she is extremely strict. she choose all her bahus frm family less rich  than my dadas and frm villages. thats why she choose my mum too  but unfortunately for her my nanas family were actually quite well off and educated. my mum had studied in a convent in patna. till date of all the bahus my mum is the only bahu my daadi cannot bully (others still cower in frnt of her).

in her house when the girl has her first period she wasnt even allowed to see daylight... she is kept locked in a room for seven days. though this is no longer done even now  during those days (in that house) no one can touch u esp the cook.. ur food is also given to u seperately. it feels so horrible (thats why when i go to visit im carefull of the dates).when i saw was anandi had to go thru i completely understood how she felt (but my mum told me that for some reasn achar does get spoilt if made my a woman in her periods..something to do with hormones)   even on normal days the food is cooked without onions and garlic.. and  noone can enter the kitchen once the food has been cooked until she has eaten.

when my granddad died as per the custom dad , his brothers and daadi had to sleep on the floor on chatais and eat food cooked by themselves for 13 days..no salt , masala, nonveg, etc. and could only wear clothing with no stitches like dhoti or saari. daadi also follwed eveything that daasisa in the serial ahd said.... for a year she wore white and had her own seperate kitchen. she slept in her own room but the bed was changed to a hard charpai bed with a straw mattress and a thin cotton one on top of that. she did all this for a year till the barsi. now she doent wear red or veyr bright colors but everthing else is like before.. there r  no rules here like widows being apshagun at functions or widows having to shave their heads. but till the one yr barsi a mourning period is observed in all the childrens houses. for a yr the immediate family (barring grand children) doesnt go to functions like weddings etc.  for the rest of the relatives its just 3 days i think. and here the brahmin families follow this. the funny part is the ppl who keep this 3day mourning thing could be upto ur eight cousin!! after that u rnt considered related. we actually have a family tree book that gets updated  every 10 yrs and can trace our family back to 17 generations!!! last yr when someones wife died during the hols my daadi took this book out to check if he had to follow the custom... thank fully only my  granny had to .. hers was the 8th generation!!

my daadi isnt a bad person at heart but yes i guess it would be very diff to change a lifetime of conditioning esp at her age. she does tell us to follow the reeti reevaz but she also loves and spoils us grandkids to bits.
 

Thanks ellesmera

It was an interesting bit from you

Wow ellesmera.  It is both good and bad to have people like your granny in the family.  Good because u get to learn so much about hinduism in general and with all the experience she has gone thru we seldom make mistakes when she is around to guide u, but on the other had the old rigid traditions are difficult to adhere to in these times.  I sincerely think people should change with the changing times, but for a generation like your grand mother's it is very difficult to get that point across.  I know as I too have a grand mother even though not as rigid as yours....

I think this is still prevalent in rural Rajasthan, as my uncle once said there is no local panchayat to intervene into this....  there.  He has travelled widely and does a lot of social work in rural India and he thinks rural Rajasthan is still very much adhering to all these.
Edited by MonMad - 15 years ago

wow, this thread is interesting!! women have come a very long way quite fast. i am from maharashtra, and i have seen some old ladies following the traditional 'touch me not' policy during their periods.

In gujarat where my parents are from they shave off the widows hair to before and they never grow it back but that has been done away for the last 20 years.  When we would go to India to visit we would not go by my moms' mom because she was bald and wore these really bad black maroon sari and that would scare us to death.  I feel bad now but we were around 2,4 and 5.