I recently watched Bend it Like Beckham with a dear friend when I got back to life on the other side of the planet. Was telling her about the rituals of weddings in India and was pointing out some commonalities among our myriad practices. One of them was 'bidai' or the traditional sending off of the married daughter to her husband's home. The bidai sequence of any Indian movie chokes me up. I'd imagine it goes into the list of cathartic scenes Bollywood could play with to create a blockbuster hit. Meanwhile though, I kept wondering if my friend who was watching the movie with me felt cathartic too. Now that I think of it, I should have asked, but you know how it is...you're all teary eyed and want to avoid any conversations during this time, you hide your face with your hand..."opp..my eye..damn this dusty room!" She probably did though, right? Its hard not to put oneself in the place of someone who is crossing thresholds and experiencing the becoming of someone more. Its pretty much why I think it'll make such a good Blockbuster movie addition.
Again last weekend I watched another movie with a wedding in it! Not a blockbuster hit, far from it actually, called 'Babul' . It was among the collection of cds I brought with me from home to generate the home-away-from- home feeling. It had its moments but for the most part it was really annoying and gave me the hiby-gibies. I was furious at the women's role in the movie and would have gone on a shooting spree had it not been for that fact that it didnt do so well on the box office. But seriously, even this movie made me cry during the 'bidai' scene which is probably why the newspapers gave it three stars out of five!
This got me thinking about rites of passage and how this sending off the daughter is one of the oldest traditions in Indian culture. I like the symbolism and it certainly is a rite of passage that is in essence very therapeutic because of the ingrained ritual, if you come to think of it. It brings us out of our liminal stages and supports our movement toward an integrated self. Barring the dogma and power dynamic that feeds into family lineages about upholding traditions, it can be enduring and very supportive, this process of noticing and being mindful of individual rites of passage. But obviously, even during my wedding, there was such righteous belief about leaving parents forever and becoming a part of the husband family that I was annoyed and pissed about the whole ritual itself.
However, much after my wedding, sitting far far away from all the bigots and dogmatic up keepers of traditions, I began to make peace with my own wedding and my three year long marriage. I came to see how naming ceremonies, birthdays, celebration of womanhood and manhood, graduations, weddings, anniversaries, childbirth, sixtieth and eightieth birthday, and death celebrates the circle of life that interwines itself with every other childbirth, naming ceremony, birthday, womanhood, graduations, wedding, anniversary, sixtieth birthday, eightieth birthday and death.
And what do you know! Bollywood knew this all along. Its precisely why mixing and matching any of these phases and the liminal stages within each of these phases totally creates a blockbuster movie!
Again last weekend I watched another movie with a wedding in it! Not a blockbuster hit, far from it actually, called 'Babul' . It was among the collection of cds I brought with me from home to generate the home-away-from- home feeling. It had its moments but for the most part it was really annoying and gave me the hiby-gibies. I was furious at the women's role in the movie and would have gone on a shooting spree had it not been for that fact that it didnt do so well on the box office. But seriously, even this movie made me cry during the 'bidai' scene which is probably why the newspapers gave it three stars out of five!
This got me thinking about rites of passage and how this sending off the daughter is one of the oldest traditions in Indian culture. I like the symbolism and it certainly is a rite of passage that is in essence very therapeutic because of the ingrained ritual, if you come to think of it. It brings us out of our liminal stages and supports our movement toward an integrated self. Barring the dogma and power dynamic that feeds into family lineages about upholding traditions, it can be enduring and very supportive, this process of noticing and being mindful of individual rites of passage. But obviously, even during my wedding, there was such righteous belief about leaving parents forever and becoming a part of the husband family that I was annoyed and pissed about the whole ritual itself.
However, much after my wedding, sitting far far away from all the bigots and dogmatic up keepers of traditions, I began to make peace with my own wedding and my three year long marriage. I came to see how naming ceremonies, birthdays, celebration of womanhood and manhood, graduations, weddings, anniversaries, childbirth, sixtieth and eightieth birthday, and death celebrates the circle of life that interwines itself with every other childbirth, naming ceremony, birthday, womanhood, graduations, wedding, anniversary, sixtieth birthday, eightieth birthday and death.
And what do you know! Bollywood knew this all along. Its precisely why mixing and matching any of these phases and the liminal stages within each of these phases totally creates a blockbuster movie!
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