What a wedding is this?

by Padma Edirisinghe

When things are in pandemonium our "natives" at their wit's end or at the apex of wits go on to exclaim, "Me mona magulakda!" "What a wedding is this!" I just cannot remember what figure of speech this is, but it implies just the opposite of what it seems.

To conserve space, let me head straight towards certain states of India where there is a surfeit of rape and violence. If Mahadenamutta is consulted he would come up with a solution. "Give your daughters in marriage as soon as they attain puberty".

Girls going about unaccompanied lead to the devil's temptation. So, this is the cure, the panacea for all the evils. Why did I compare them to Mahadanamutta? He was famous for endorsing cures that lead to more chaos. By the way prior to reading the reference in the UN Report on girls I read a piece that informed that Mahadunamutta is a purely concocted character by the colonial masters to illustrate the idiocy of the "natives".

Anyway, let us divert to give an example of his well-known wisdom. A goat gone nutty had stuck its head in a narrow door and could not be retrieved. It was a milch and hence everybody was trying to get her out unharmed. Finally, Mahadenamutta, the all-knowing one, was summoned. Stroking his flowing beard he surveyed the scene for a long time and then gave some golden advice, decapitate the goat, break the wall and bring down the building.

Accepting the cheers of the crowd he got into his donkey cart and drove away smiling. Now where is the simile, readers may ask. It is obvious. Get the girls married at 11 or 12 just after getting them out of school to evade the lust of males. - In Asia including Sri Lanka the females supersede the males in number. So, we are fattening an uneducated maternal population. That in turn will breed more idiots. What a wedding is this!

Malaise

Some other Indian states, suffering from the malaise such as Haryana too have done their survey and more intelligently blamed it on vulgar advertisement, television commercials and teledramas that hot up animal or carnal desires. So, it all victimises the poor girls after the fantasising by the males and worse putting the fantasies into action.

I am not worried so much about Haryana but about my country to which this instigating cause of crime including rape seems to apply, at least as seen through a humble woman's eye.

The report "Because I am a girl. The state of the world's girls 2012" issued by the UN estimates that 75 million girls in the world are missing their classrooms and no doubt a good number of them hail from Asia and Africa, especially from India. But on the Indian screens there is so much of cavorting by young men and women, the women almost nude especially in advertisements on good figures achievable.

Isn't the scene being repeated here? I may be developing a gloomy outlook with advancing age but as I switch on the local channels, I must say that there is a resplendent wedding going on, on the screen always.

Well, not so much a wedding but very romantic scenes leading to the final union. Usually there is a couple running around a tree (the female half dressed or over dressed). Very pleasant to view. Pastoral beauty. And at least a few are having some fun asking the COL: to go to Timbuktu.

Romiel and Juliet

The female gets into a score of varied dresses in a matter of ten minutes and so does the Romeo.

One teledrama actually has the main characters named Romiel Aiya and Juliet Nangi who sing, embrace and stretch out their beautiful bodies in sexy postures that could titillate even a hermit! And finally they declare their eternal love on the thuththiri or love grass carpet.

Not enamoured I switch on to foreign channels as the CCTV and HNK and they are running the story of an enterprising damsel expanding her fruit market internationally or a paper boy trying to reach to the heavens via his rickety bicycle. Very unromantic and both are fully dressed.

In those countries, unlike in Sri Lanka and India, the youth have much more significant work to do other than run round trees. The scenes only serve to spark carnal desires of those waiting to pick the wrong end of the stick and watch the frolics and relieve all their roused up passions.

Then they move on and at the next bend of the road a girl is running to catch the bus to work. Her physical contours, the movements of her body are mingled in the pervert's mind with that of Juliet Nangi on the screen. Next day the newspapers run headlines, "Girl on her way to work molested and killed."

Ah, what a wedding is this! What a weird wedding leading to death and destruction! Read the UN Report!