On social issues of Indians...

Recently, there have been a few high profile cases involving Indians (from India). There was this suburban 24-year-old woman who recently married but was so unhappy that she ran away, leading extensive police search in Chicago. And then, there was this 57-year-old father-in-law who burnt down the apartment of his daughter, son-in-law, and grand-children, simply because the husband was from a lower caste.

It's really sad, to see that these people are still so much molded and subjected to the rigid traditional belief, even after making it in a new land and a new life. I suppose it shouldn't come as any surprise at all, since we are a product of the culture that we're brought up in. When we're transplanted to a new place, some people can assimilate and morph with the new culture faster and better, but most people still remain who they are.

The caste system is so outdated and unfair, and I see it as one main reason still, that India is unable to pull its larger, rural population further ahead of China, simply because it cannot let go of that old belief. To that end, Chairman Mao might have committed cardinal sin of destroying much culture (including the sophistication in the complex Chinese characters), but he single-handedly destroyed the feudal system that had been in place in China for thousands of years. So, these days, all that is remained to defined the have's and have-not's in China is money.

Coming back to the stupid father-in-law, I hope the law here will punish the father-in-law the harshest it can.

As to the runaway wife, I guess she has probably brought about enough shame on the family both in US and back in India, that simply moving houses in Chicago will not free them of the guilt. If only the free-spirited young woman have the courage or wisdom to stand up for herself before the marriage, she might not have found herself in such predicament. The Indian community prides themselves of the ability to still being able to arrange marriages for the younger generation even in the West. While there might be wisdom in maintaining harmony (and I certainly know a lot of "successful" marriages among my Indian friends who become loving couples and parents), I'm not sure if it's a tradition that should be accepted without any challenges.