Clothes make a man?

I can’t begin to count the number of times I have been asked the question – “Why is that Indian men are never seen in Indian clothes, but we can see Indian women wearing salwars and sarees quite commonly all over the world?”

I wonder about the same too…Why is that in any Indian event/function, its common to see women in Indian clothes, but rarely do we see Indian men wearing the traditional dhoti?

Why have we adopted the western clothes so casually for the male? Why are men wearing Indian clothes ridiculed? Maybe answering these questions will help us find answers for why women wearing jeans are ridiculed!!

'Love' Marriage?

“Ours is a love marriage, but his parents wanted me to convert. They said that I will have to give up Hinduism and become a Christian/Muslim.”

How many times have we heard the above argument? When he fell in love with her, he did not give importance to her religion or caste, but to marry and get his parents approval, he wanted her to change and adapt to his religious ways! Is that love?

“I was a Hindu by birth, but converted to Islam because my husband is one. I changed my name and started wearing burqua and saying the namaz five times a day.”

Two things that I wish to address with respect to this:

Does love require giving up your identity for it to succeed? If yes, then are you the same person he/she fell in love with?

Why is it more common to see Hindus giving up their religion for others? Is this a ‘fault’ of our practice of Sanatan Dharma that allows us to accept all religions as one, to actually make us so accepting of others? By being so liberal as to go to a church and still see one God push us to the extreme of converting to another religion and accepting Christ as lord above all else?