The Conservative Liberal !

Hari was born in a pretty conservative Tamil Iyer family. Hari's parents were raised up the old fashioned way, and as they firmly held to a lot of their conservative beliefs, it was normal for them to pass it on to their kid. During his younger years, Hari did not know any better than to imitate his family and relatives. So he went to the temple religiously, smeared himself with 3 horizontal lines of holy ash, wore the sacred thread and followed the much cherished customs. Often times, this would be a source of pride for him, cause it would keep his near and dear ones pleased and happy with him.

However, growing up in a cosmopolitan city took its toll, and Hari spent his formative years amidst friends from different backgrounds which invariably gave him a broader perspective of different things in life. Influenced by his foreign educated cousins and friends, Hari were to later grow up breaking a lot of the much cherished family values. Taboo things like meat and alcohol were the first victims, but Hari did a good job keeping his parents unawares of the same. Even when they did become aware of it, they were ready to pardon such feats, as long as Hari performed them without their knowledge....like many parents they prefered to be in denial, than trying to deal with them.

Meat and alcohol were only the precursor to the beginning of Hari's "impious" life. Despite his parents staunch religious beliefs, Hari always nurtured agnostic beliefs. In many ways his parents learnt to become more progressive with age and travel, and came to accept many of Hari's waylay lifestyle and values. At the end of the day all that mattered to them was that their son still loved them and took care of them. In some ways Hari had managed to instill in them very liberal views.

But the word conservative and liberal are more often than not, very loosely applied, and it should never be used in an absolute sense while describing a person. Often our views regarding things in life are very topical, and the same person who is far left on a certain issue might be hard right conservative on something other. Hari's parents were probably no different. They were willing to overlook all of their son's profligate lifestyle in exchange for him being married to someone of the same caste. Like a typical conservative Iyer houseold, they could not imagine their son not being married to anyone other than an Iyer.

But they got the jolt of their lifetime, when years later, Hari came "out of the closest" and confessed his gay preferences to his parents. His dad nearly suffered a stroke and his mom moaned for months. Hari's mom had always fantasised getting him wedded in a wealthy religious Iyer family. An out of caste marriage by itself would have put them in great grief, leave alone the fact that Hari now planned to marry a guy and not a girl. Over the years his parents had managed to accept a lot of Hari's non-traditional behaviour, but nothing could prepare them for something of this magnitude. For 4 years they stayed incommunicado with their only son, almost to a point where they refused to admit his existence.

However, like most things in life, time is always the best healer. It was heart wrenching for their parents to disown their only son and slowly they started preparing themselves for the inevitability. Thanks to media and western influences, there was enough public awareness and acceptance of his kind, and his parents had to finally come to terms with the matter. After 4 years, Hari's parents finally called him to signal a change of heart,

"Hari, I know its been a while. But we finally accept your choice. We respect your gayness
and your decision to marry a guy. That is ok with me. But your mom had 1 question for you"

"Yes dad, put mom on the line, whats the question Ma?"

"Is the guy you are planning to marry a Tamil Iyer?"

.....Speechless, Hari hung up.