The mixture of the heritage and the feeling is strongly felt in the Karnataka family’s advertisement in which they are looking for a groom for their daughter who died 30 years ago. This quirky request is not for the living but for the spirits, since the family wants to do a ‘Pretha Maduve’ or a ‘marriage of spirits’ to bring the daughter’s soul at peace.
The family, coming from Puttur in Dakshina Kannada district, thinks that the misfortunes of their daughter caused by her unmarried status in the afterlife may still be happening. The local cult is based on the idea that the, the loved ones of the dead are still with them, thus feeling their happiness and pain.
The family’s emotional search is the proof of the traditions in the Tulunadu that have lasted for a long time and the ancestors were given food and arranged the marriages for them instead of the ‘Vaikunta Samaradhane’ and ‘Pinda Pradana’.
This case has raised the curiosity and the debate, which is to say that the culture, grief and the tradition are all intertwined.
