I heard this word being bandied about at a wedding last week. Sure, I had heard of it before, although recently it had been famously paired with another by now familiar word, “killing”, in articles splashed in newspapers, starring enraged parents and indignant community leaders.
As personal experience amply demonstrated, reading something in the newspaper and having it do the rounds at a wedding I was attending, are two very different things. One always tends to read unfortunate news with an admirable sense of detachment. Simply because “it will not happen to me.” If we were to employ this studied detachment in our daily lives they would be a lot more peaceful.
The wedding itself went off smoothly, but the venue rumbled that the bride’s younger brother was ‘opposed’ to her marriage to one outside her community. He famously walked around with a sword in his hand in the days leading to the happy event. I had only to surmise that he was waiting for the right time to kill himself. Here’s why: Imagine that I were to meet this visibly angry person, furrowed browed and thin lipped, a sword dangling at his waist, a possible escapee from the set of Bajirao Mastani.
Me: Hey, what’s up?
Angry Brother (AB): Nothing much, just took a selfie with my sword. Uploaded it on FB and got 110 likes already, see?
Me: Oh. That’s a cool sword. What are you doing with it?
AB: Apart from the selfie? Waiting to kill my sister, and the traitors who support her unclean marriage to an outsider. She has destroyed my honour and that of the family!
Me: I see.
AB: No, you don’t see. You don’t know the meaning of honour and how important it is to us, men. Women are supposed to protect it by behaving with discretion and respect. When they commit such sacrilegious acts they bring shame upon us! They don’t deserve to live and neither do the other traitors!
Me: Yes, you have mentioned that already. Um, can I ask you a question?
AB: Sure, sister. Anything.
Me: So you say that your sister has destroyed your honour?
AB: Yes.
Me: And honour is undoubtedly the most important thing to you? Because you are ready to kill for it?
AB: That is correct.
Me: Would it be fair to say, brother (it seemed fair to return the favour bestowed to me), that a life without honour is not really worth living?
AB (removes his sword from his waist and holds it towards the sky with a fierce cry): Haan ji, haan!
Me: Great. So then shouldn’t it be you who should be killed?
AB: What? Kya bakwaas hai yeh?
Me: Yes, see it’s perfectly logical. (I count the points on my fingers under his glowering eye.)
One, honour is the most important thing to you.
Two, honour is irreversible. Once it’s gone, it’s gone.
Three, a life without honour is not worth living. You said so yourself.
Hence therefore, you should be killing yourself. Your honour has been irrevocably removed and cannot be gotten back now that the dirty deed is done. And let’s face it, it’s easier to kill yourself than so many people, right? I hear that the groom’s father has five siblings. So that’s five into two plus two children each on an average, twenty plus the groom and his parents twenty three.
(I eye his slim sword skeptically.) Did this come with a warranty?