Wow. That body part beforehand is just insane. I cant remember much of the last funeral i went to cos of medication i was on causing memory loss. They brought the coffin in, opened it and u can smell the body. Not nice.
Then each person feeds her some blessed water and then sticks some rice on her forehead with that red stuff. A lot of ppl came and so this part took around 45 mins. It felt like hours. Its very strange and very disturbing to her loved ones. I was fine cos i wasn't close to her and i'm able to do things without thinking so i just did that. But some ppl who were close to her looked so damn shaken. Her 2 daughters (incl my mum) sobbed uncontrollably when it was their turn. It was just WAAAYYYY too much for them to handle. I thought my mum was gonna faint or something. But again i just tried not to think about it as it would have got me started. Her crying was back to normal levels about 5 mins later.
The other daughter wasn't even allowed to be in the room cos she's not very good with stuff like this at all. I wonder if its worth doing all this stuff when it causes so much distress. Having the body open is one thing, but having to actually touch the body is just too much.
One dumbass woman got her little daughter to do feeding and rice thing. She must have been about 7 or 8 yrs old. WTF. WHAT IS WRONG WITH SOME PPL.
Yesterday my aunt was saying how none of the women should go to the funeral at all. At the time i was thinking WTF. But i see now why. It can be very distressing for the closer ones. There's no way I'm having that kind of ritual with my parents. Luckily my siblings are less religious than me.
And then there's the weird practises afterwords. Like not allowed to touch any food or clothes before having a shower. And you have to leave the clothes you're wearing to soak in water. We were told to put our clothes & towel in the bathroom before we left for the funeral cos once you come back you cant go touching anything. Cant even touch your towel.
And 95% of ppl don't even know why we do these things. I still don't. I'm just assuming its to stop the spread of disease from the body which would obviously be applicable back when they started these practices, but not really now. But practises like these are never updated with the times. Even if disease was completely wiped out in a hundred years, i reckon this practise would still go on.
At the moment this stuff has to be done cos its for the older lot who believe in this kind of stuff but i wonder what I'll do when I'm older and have my own family. Can i make my own rules?
our culture has survived because they continue to do the things without asking. looks like our culture is going to make a huge transformation as the new generations ask questions and wont take up anything they cant understand.
ReplyDeleteAnd that's the way i believe it should be. If whole generations go through life without asking WHY, then the reasons behind (which is knowledge) it will be lost.
ReplyDeleteThe information age, with the internet and knowledge shared so easily around the world, I think will change the world in such a short space of time. I don't think people quite realise the impact the internet is having.
i guess the internet is like comparing it to when there was books available to the wider public. the 'knowledge shared' so easily from around the world really did make a huge impact on our religion.
ReplyDelete'the knowledge' was no longer exclusive to the learned Brahmins in India.
If similar trend follows then hopefully more mixture of cultures will take effect and a 'multicultural religion' will evolve.
But not before they argue and fight to death about it on the net. lol
we'll wait and see.