Honour Killings... What a Shame!

Today morning as usual the news was on. My husband has the habit of putting on the news at full volume when he is getting ready to go to office. because of his habit, poor old newspaper-less me also remains updated about the current happenings of the world. (miss reading the newspaper though... especially the Delhi Times, such gossip it used to have!) So in the morning, while i was doing something or the other, i could hear the news in the background, but today amidst all the grains being destroyed by the rain, the floods in rajasthan, the killing of some woman by amit shah, and the sex scandals of sports world, there was a news snippet about hoshiarpur. i heard hoshiarpur and turned to listen. Hoshiarpur is a tiny town in punjab and i had been there a lot of times. Why? you might ask? i was organising a wedding there. One of my big bucks clients had a huge / humongous farmhouse in the town and his daughter was getting married there so had to shuttle a lot between delhi and hoshairpur. what i remember about hoshiarpur is that it was a tiny sleepy town which ended before it begun, area wise i mean. so i was wondering what could happen in that minuscule little town to make it on the national news. when i heard that something had happened i admit i was surprised, but when i heard what had happened there i was shocked and disgusted. honour killings (notice the plural)... that's what had happened. a father had killed his 20 year old daughter and a 20 year old guy had killed his own sister! why? because they had made the huge mistake of falling in love... idiots! didn't know that it was a crime to experience the most beautiful feeling in the world (Sarcasm... for those who didn't get it.)
First of all i don't understand the term honour killing? how can you preserve your honour by killing? what kind of honour is there in murdering someone? taking someones life can never be honourable or even a means to restoring honour... but who can explain it to those who have been taught since the time they were born to uphold family's name and aan, baan and shaan! who is to explain to these uneducated population of our beloved motherland that killing is not the answer. well, i am wrong... its not only the uneducated that are only responsible, the educated population is not far behind either. Recently, many such cases have come out into the open when couples have been murdered in the metropolitan because they had dared to fall in love outside of their community! remember the student from IIMC, who was allegedly killed by her mother (!!!!) as she was in love with a guy from another caste.
i just want to ask why is falling in love and wanting to marry someone who doesn't belong to your caste is such a big deal?! I am a punjabi and I am married to a Kayastha, we get along just fine. I mean yes, there are somethings that are different... he says bandhagobhi, i say bandhgobhi, he says chola, i say cholle... but there is nothing that cant be worked out?!
Okay, granted... parents know best. they have been around longer, they have life experiences that the kids don't have but can they take guarantee that a same caste / same community marriage would work out fine sans any problems? they cant... if a marriage or a relationship has to work, it depends upon the people who are in it rather than what caste they belong to.
i just wish that people would get over such petty things and let people decide for themselves what they want and who they want to be with. there are many bigger problems in our country that need some serious attention... love is the least of it. In fact, it might be the answer to many of them.  what do you think?