It was friday in the lunchroom at work that I first read about this case. Although it dated 4 years back, the recent sentence that was passed reopened it enough to make front page news a few days back.
To sum it up, rich Indian girl from Canada fell in love with poor Indian boy in India. He was a rickshaw driver. Not a prestigeous job by any means. With the whole caste system still firmly in place, this presented a problem for the family of the said girl.
So then the mom and uncle of this girl, Jassi, arranged for her to be killed.
An Indian friend of mine tried explaining how it works, but it still blows my mind how a mother could practically kill her own daughter. And for nothing more than falling in love.
While instincts tell me to criticize this (hideous) act, something tells me to respect the age old system of their culture. Often we, from the outside, are too quick to judge the beliefs and actions of people from cultures other than our own. Just because we do not understand these beliefs does not make them any less real.
This reminds me of a saying from sometime ago about not judging anyone because under the same situation and circumstances, we ourselves might behave in the same way.
No comments:
Post a Comment