Practicing Caste System In Own Kitchen?

With all due respect, there is no comparison between indulging the idiosyncrasies of an older person and practising a mild form of untouchability. Chalk and cheese.

A comparable situation would be a mixed group of white and black/brown-skinned people (let's say upper caste brahmins, otherwise the point will be lost again) visiting a white person's house for dinner, and their traditional old white parents refusing to seat ONLY the brown-skinned people at the same table. The other white friends are welcome to sit at the table, but the brown-skinned ones aren't. Is this a situation any rational human being should tolerate? It is not the same as the WHOLE group behaving in a certain way so as to not upset the cranky old people in the house. The point here is that some people are singled out for discriminatory treatment, while others are not. And that is something that has absolutely no place in a civilized world.

When a person is in a relatively privileged position where they are not directly influenced by the "traditional" pratices of oppression, it is easy to turn a blind eye or minimize the import of such actions by saying that that's just the way it is, so you have to live with it. No. Evil, even in small measure, is still evil. It can't be whitewashed to make it look like the personal idiosyncrasies of old men and women.

People who still hang on to such despicable ideas even in 2018 must be suitably mocked and chastened. What laws can't change, mockery might.

 

@Rihana its unacceptable behaviour to confine the close friends who had free rein over the kitchen in the past to the living room. It seems like you are good friends with the lady of the house. have you mentioned it to your friend about it? I mean, not your side of the story as you are OK with it but your husbands side? If it were my own mother, I probably will restrict her to the bedroom if she even dreams of discriminating based on caste. If it were the old-lady's home, then i understand, its her home, her rules. But certainly not when she herself is a guest (ok ok, family but still doesn't own the house).

Now, she is old and has her own ways. Having said that, how in the world does she know which caste each person is? Honestly, I still dont know what caste some of my very good friends are. Of course we know the religion but caste?? How does that even come to light...

It would have been interesting to see how she would have behaved if a white or an Afrian American showed up to her dinner table. Would she let them walk into the kitchen.

 

I am not being flippant because this is exactly what I would do. (Plate lena hai tho lena. Arey, glass bhi lekar jana.) After which, I would pop this inquiry in the kindred and charming lunatics around me who are playful more than troubled by such observances. If the ostracized friend (OF), another friend (AF) and me are in the gathering and we noticed this....

I would start off a playful and innuendo dialogue in front of the chaste MIL:

Blinky: Did you notice the Pauli's exclusion principle of the migrant atom? (why is she differentiating OF)
AF: I too was confused about the s-orbital and p-orbital differential levels by the migrant atom? (higher caste and lower caste)
OF: How was the Schrodinger's cat decided (which caste I belong to) by the migrant atom? Too bad such Bell's inequality still prevails.
Blinky: No hidden variables there just missing quantum eraser of the surnamed orbital. And what about De Broglie's offspring, will the standard model hold good? (duality: upper caste + lower caste)
OF: Tsk ..tsk ...such an Endemic Prejudiced Retrograde paradox, when will beta decay begin in this migrant atom? (when will people change?)
AF: Well, isn't the symmetry supposed to break?
Blinky: Do you propose weak interaction with the migrant atom (should be wary of her?)
AF: No, no, no fission, let's go go with fusion (chal yaar, she is only a dotty woman)
Blinky: Are you Heisenberg's uncertainty or Matrix Mechanical to play by this Copenhagen interpretation of fusion over fission with the migrant atom? (are you okay?)
OF: I would love a quantum leap in the migrant atom but then won't we miss out on this photoelectric fun at her expense.

We would simper at the befuddled mother/mil and forever recount this incident less for its offensive discrimination but for its attendant amusement. That's me and the kind of people I recruit as friends who are prone to work out spontaneous amusement than slighted awkwardness in such situations. We just see life and the world differently, not as idealists or iconoclasts but just goofy interlopers amidst the rigid.

 

I can just imagine all of you bursting out laughing and the old lady not at all pleased with this cryptic exchange . That would be such a great response.

 

what happened?! I could spot your style of writing from 50 miles away. You lost your password for the old account ??

In order to understand this exchange though, you will have to buy the old lady all the seasons of Big Bang Theory.

 

Mera bus chale, I would invite Sheldon himself to one of these gatherings.

mom/mil: Beta Shelloo, are you considered higher or lower?
Sheldon: I grew up in a duplex house till age three. Then my father was posted in El Djem ..you know that El Djem in Tunisia with the third largest colosseum in the world which is near Medenine with those mud houses which look like two-storied but are actually ..
mom/mil (puzzled): Beta, what caste or prayer are you?
Sheldon: I don't know what you are asking. I was raised by my mom as a Christian, then at age three I convert to Gnosticism. At age four I got bored and adopted Agnosticism. Then I dabbled with Scientism. Then I ..
mom/mil (puzzled): No, beta, I mean what (winks) caste are you?
Sheldon: Oh that caste? You mean each of the hereditary classes of society, distinguished by relative degrees of ritual purity or cultural intervention in the anthropological marker of social evolution.
mom/mil: (shakes and faints)

 

This is a kitty party, and OF, AF are Ostracized Feline, Another Feline.
The question by the migrant atom is about Schrodinger's cat, i.e., that OF, whether she is confined in the living room or kitchen. While all other cats may wander about all over, i.e., be in hybridized state, OF is confined to stay put. Isn't this the duality ? One cat in a kitty party is asked to stay put, while others may go where they want....

I understood the whole conundrum as something initiated by the host cat who told her mother the pedigree of each of the cats she had invited to her kitty party. If the host cat had hidden (or pretended not to know) the pedigree of the assembled felines, none of this would'a happened. Schrodinger would'a been shut out of the party, sitting outside wondering exactly what happened to the cat, i.e., the OF. Like he ought to.

Who is De Broglie ? Daddy of one of the invitees? And how would that matter ?

 

I don't believe in following caste system in kitchen even though my in laws are very traditional..here the maid enters kitchen to wash utensils and wipe kitchen slab etc...also she enters and mops the room where the Pooja Items and God idols are kept..( I don't question her when she gets "those days of the month" n all..) so I don't see what the big deal is..
I feel that sanctity is in the heart and mind which should be pure..
But I know of very orthodox families where the ladies should enter kitchen or puja room only after taking bath and and during menstruation the kitchen , puja Room And certain areas of the home are not allowed for family member or any other lady during those days of the month till head bath is taken for purification..
If many ladies are visiting the house, then irrespective of caste n all there is no way to know which lady is mensyruating and who is not..so this maybe a precautionary measure to preserve sanctity of kitchen..
One more practice followed on traditional household is to wash only cooking utensils in kitchen sink..those "jhoota Bartans" such as plates, spoon, cups etc used for eating or drinking purpose for any of family members are not directly washed in kitchen sink..these are rinsed and washed in separate sink or wash basin with separate soap and then kept in kitchen..so if someone has sipped tea in tea cup and directly trying to put that used tea cup in kitchen sink it would offend the sensibility of the elderly woman in the house..this thing is followed in many tradiotnal and orthodox households and quite common..in fact if I got to anyone's home for tea or coffee I personally ask them where cup should be kept....and I follow as per instruction and do not rush to sink to keep my cup or plate used for snacks..
in above cases , there is no need to get offended and just to comply with the elderly of the home..by taking permission before entering kitchen and offering to collect used cups of all...
But if it's an obvious caste discrimination that only some ladies are allowed to enter kitchen and some not allowed, then better to have the meet up in some other place not the home...or in a common area like verandah or something that doesn't have access to kitchen..

 

"It is quite ok?" No wonder India is not progressing.
Even in the most conservative families, inter caste marriages are now very common. The same class conscious people seem to be accepting it. If you let the discrimination perpetuate you are no better.