Skip to main content

When Love Trumps Tradition


We live in a world which continues to lay undue emphasis on certain traditions, especially those which have their roots in religion.  Religion being regressive by nature, its traditions will continue to be in force even when the world will have evolved far beyond them scientifically and technologically. Most religious traditions are like the gargoyles erected on magnificent edifices: they may serve some supposed purposes hideous as they appear.

A still from the movie
Tevye, the protagonist of the movie Fiddler on the Roof, faces the painful dilemma of having to make a choice between tradition and love.  Three of his nubile daughters break the sacred traditions of their religion by falling in love with men of their choice.  Tevye is shocked and infuriated each time.  He asks his God, Yahweh, what to do.  In doing so, he is breaking a sacred tradition himself: he is unseating the Rabbi from his sacred position as the mediator between Yahweh and his creature.

The hotline connection that Tevye has established with his God helps him understand his situation better.  Each time a daughter of his breaks a tradition and his heart, he learns the lesson that the heart is far more powerful than any tradition however holy the latter may be.  Love is more sacred than anything else.  It is those who never learn that great lesson that convert religion into a weapon against communities of people. 

The Jews were particularly targeted again and again by people who placed religion and its holy cows above people.  Fiddler on the Roof ends with another Jewish exodus.  The fleeing Tevye will ask the Fiddler on the Roof to join the refugees because metaphorically the plight of the Jews was no less precarious than that of the fiddler who balanced himself delicately on the sloping roof.

The movie was produced in 1971.  I watched it for the first time in the early 1980s.  I watched it again a number of times later and wouldn’t hesitate to watch it again if the opportunity turns up.

What fascinated me the most is Tevye’s childlike trust in his God even when he questions that God radically.  I lost my trust in gods long ago.  The protectors of holy cows today widen the chasm between God and me.  Tevye is one movie character who remains deeply entrenched in my consciousness, maybe because his trust in God has something Romantic about it. It is untouched by the usual contaminations of religion.  Love reigns supreme in Tevye’s understanding of God, in spite of the traditions of that religion which are deeply entrenched in his consciousness.

PS. Written for Indispire Edition 119: #Movies


Indian Bloggers

                                                  

Comments

  1. And this is why I look forward to your posts. I was sure you would provide me a movie which I would, for sure, like. :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It's a classical movie which won a number of awards. You'll definitely love it.

      Thanks for the nice words :)

      Delete
  2. It seems the war between love and tradition has been in vogue from time immemorial.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. At least from the time people established certain things as sacred traditions :)

      Delete
  3. Hi Matheikal.
    Hope you are doing well.
    Fiddler on the Roof was a beautiful movie, loved it.
    Great review you have written.
    Please do stop by at our blog
    And kindly leave a message at our latest post we wrote.
    Would appreciate it.
    Best wishes and regards.
    Vee N Ric

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Best wishes to you too. I'll visit your blog soon.

      Delete
  4. Protectors of holy cows have no frigging idea about religion. They are just using it as a stick to control.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Absolutely. Our country has a lot of examples from politicians to godmen.

      Delete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Ghost of a Banyan Tree

  Image from here Fiction Jaichander Varma could not sleep. It was past midnight and the world outside Jaichander Varma’s room was fairly quiet because he lived sufficiently far away from the city. Though that entailed a tedious journey to his work and back, Mr Varma was happy with his residence because it afforded him the luxury of peaceful and pure air. The city is good, no doubt. Especially after Mr Modi became the Prime Minister, the city was the best place with so much vikas. ‘Where’s vikas?’ Someone asked Mr Varma once. Mr Varma was offended. ‘You’re a bloody antinational mussalman who should be living in Pakistan ya kabristan,’ Mr Varma told him bluntly. Mr Varma was a proud Indian which means he was a Hindu Brahmin. He believed that all others – that is, non-Brahmins – should go to their respective countries of belonging. All Muslims should go to Pakistan and Christians to Rome (or is it Italy? Whatever. Get out of Bharat Mata, that’s all.) The lower caste Hindus co...

Tanishq and the Patriots

Patriots are a queer lot. You don’t know what all things can make them pick up the gun. Only one thing is certain apparently: the gun for anything. When the neighbouring country behaves like a hoard of bandicoots digging into our national borders, we will naturally take up the gun. But nowadays we choose to redraw certain lines on the map and then proclaim that not an inch of land has been lost. On the other hand, when a jewellery company brings out an ad promoting harmony between the majority and the minority populations, our patriots take up the gun. And shoot down the ad. Those who promote communal harmony are traitors in India today. The sacred duty of the genuine Indian patriot is to hate certain communities, rape their women, plunder their land, deny them education and other fundamental rights and basic requirements. Tanishq withdrew the ad that sought to promote communal harmony. The patriot’s gun won. Aapka Bharat Mahan. In the novel Black Hole which I’m writing there is...

Romance in Utopia

Book Review Title: My Haven Author: Ruchi Chandra Verma Pages: 161 T his little novel is a surfeit of sugar and honey. All the characters that matter are young employees of an IT firm in Bengaluru. One of them, Pihu, 23 years and all too sweet and soft, falls in love with her senior colleague, Aditya. The love is sweetly reciprocated too. The colleagues are all happy, furthermore. No jealousy, no rivalry, nothing that disturbs the utopian equilibrium that the author has created in the novel. What would love be like in a utopia? First of all, there would be no fear or insecurity. No fear of betrayal, jealousy, heartbreak… Emotional security is an essential part of any utopia. There would be complete trust between partners, without the need for games or power struggles. Every relationship would be built on deep understanding, where partners complement each other perfectly. Miscommunication and misunderstanding would be rare or non-existent, as people would have heightened emo...

The Adventures of Toto as a comic strip

  'The Adventures of Toto' is an amusing story by Ruskin Bond. It is prescribed as a lesson in CBSE's English course for class 9. Maggie asked her students to do a project on some of the lessons and Femi George's work is what I would like to present here. Femi converted the story into a beautiful comic strip. Her work will speak for itself and let me present it below.  Femi George Student of Carmel Public School, Vazhakulam, Kerala Similar post: The Little Girl

The Circus called Politics

Illustration by ChatGPT I have/had many students whose parents are teachers in schools run or aided by the government. These teachers don’t send their own children to their own schools where education is free. They send their children to private schools like the one where I’ve been working. They pay huge fees to teach their children in schools where teachers are paid half of or less than their salaries. This is one of the many ironies about the Kerala society. An article in yesterday’s The Hindu [ A deeper meaning of declining school enrolment ] takes an insightful look at some of the glaring social issues in Kerala’s educational system. One such issue is the rapidly declining student enrolment in government and aided schools in the state. The private schools in the state, on the other hand, are getting more students. People don’t want to send their children to the schools run by the government systems. The chief reason is that the medium of instruction is Malayalam. The second ...