USELESS RITUALS:

 USELESS RITUALS:
                                                          Some of the Odiya Brahmins who are away from India and are unlikely to come back to their mother land, once in a while to show-off their status, come to Odisha to perform the thread ceremony (upanayana) of their sons.
                        Subrat Babu happens to attend two such functions in recent past which made him very sad and angry. In the first case after a couple of months neither the father nor the son had the scared thread on their body. The other case the grown up boys had already circumcision because they were born in a Muslim country. They eat beef, pork and camel meat.                                     
                                  Ages are specified in Manu-smriti as 8 for Brahmins, 11 for Kshathriyas, 12 for Vaishyas.Ideally the thread ceremony should be over by 8 years. But now a day’s it’s more of a comedy show then a very important rituals of a Hindu family, performed at marriageable age or during marriage. The three stands signifies one for the teacher, second for the parents and ancestors and third one for the sages and Rishis.Bachlorhood Brahmin has three strands, married ones have six strands and senior citizens have nine strands. The other day Subrat babu satirically said now each strand stands for money, mobile and militancy nothing else!
                                        Subrat babu is of the opinion that if someone does not know the basic idea behind a thread ceremony then he or she should not spend so much money and time to show-off that they are Brahmins. On many occasions Subrat babu does not attend the birthday and thread ceremony functions which according to him are type of business rather than a Hindu ritual. This show-off business is killing the society.
Sanjoy Kumar Satpathy