Loving Appreciation of Annapurna - Friend, philosopher and guide to our family. The Krishnamurthys & The Kannans

Ode to the Bangle Sellers (A Vanishing Tribe)

                                        “ Bangle sellers are we who bear
                                           Our shining loads to the temple fair...
                                           Who will buy these delicate, bright
                                           Rainbow-tinted circles of light?
                                           Lustrous tokens of radiant lives,
                                           For happy daughters and happy wives.”

                                                                                      Sarojini Naidu

As a child this poem came alive before my eyes whenever I saw the Bangle Seller, who used to peddle his colourful ware on the streets of our neighborhood. He carried them on a  rectangular wooden frame, arranged according to colour. The dazzling reds, greens, and all the other vibrant colours used to sparkle under the noon sunlight. My mother and her friends having finished their cooking would sit down to bargain for those lovely bangles which always adorned their wrists – a symbol of their married status. These bangle sellers used to have the gift of gab and used to convince them to buy the bangles with exotic names like Pakeezah, Anarkali and others. The Bangle Sellers were not just salesmen of a merchandise – they participated in the rites of passage like menarche, wedding and the numerous festivals and also acted sometimes as matchmakers.  The bangles they sold were not very expensive and needed to be replaced frequently because these women did all the housework themselves, so accidents were bound to happen and bangles had to be replaced.

Glass bangles brought not only beauty but also music to the house – the tinkle changed as the women went about their daily task sweeping, grinding, dressing up – each activity producing a different type of music and reassuring the children and others of the security that these hands provided. They encouraged creativity, with children using the broken bangle pieces to create indigenous games; to make chains to decorate the homes and make wall hangings – the scope was infinite.

The advent of the Plastic age dealt a death knell to these lovely glass bangles and slowly the bangle seller could not make his regular trips since replacements were not so frequent.  Slowly the bangle seller vanished from the urban streets and the bangles were dressed up in tissue paper and imprisoned in small cardboard boxes on the shelves of the so called “Ladies Shops” at atrocious rates. The dazzle and sparkle of the bangles have been dimmed since they are no longer on display in the open natural light, glinting at women with wicked glee and seducing them with their lustrous charm.

 There is no doubt that a wide variety of bangles is now available in the market and crafted beautifully from a vast variety of materials but they cannot hold a candle to the glass bangles  described by the Nightingale of India Sarojini Naidu 

   “Some ….Silver and blue as the mountain mist,
      Some .. flushed like the buds that dream on the tranquil brow of a woodland stream,
         Some .. aglow with the bloom that cleaves to the limpid glory of new born leaves
             Some …like fields of sunlit corn,
                  Some.. like the flame of .. marriage fire,
                      Or, rich with the hue of her heart's desire”
 

and it is not just wishful thinking that makes me say so...  My salutations to the few Bangle Sellers, who still adorn with their twinkling ware the shandies and fairs of the rural-scape of India.

Lighting a Lamp

Just as the greatest charm of Diwali are the rows of earthen diyas used to decorate homes so also a lamp lit with loving care is the greatest add-on to the spiritual vibes of a Worship Centre. The spiritual energy present in the Universe is literally harnessed by  the flame of the lamp. There are very many reasons for lighting a lamp according to religious texts but for me it is the means of disciplining oneself to perform it with regularity. It is the simplest of all spiritual practices.
While selecting a lamp, choose one that is easy to maintain and at the same time functionally beautiful. It may be of  any material except iron and iron related alloys like stainless steel, white metal etc. Usually brass, bronze, copper, silver and other similar materials are used to design the lamp. It may be plain edged or with five spouts to hold the wick in place.It is advisable to place the lamp on a plate of appropriate size to avoid oil drips that may add to the cleaning task. It goes without saying that this plate should be of the same metal as the lamp.
The oil, the material of the wick, the direction in which it is placed as also the number of jyothis affect our lives variously.
Oils - The simplest rule to remember is avoid groundnut oil since it is not beneficial to the family and  to use Gingelly or til oil which is easily available and suitable for all Gods.
Wicks - Though a variety of wicks made from a variety of materials like banana fibre, lotus stem fibre and cloth torn from different colored fabrics may be used the easiest and best are Cotton wicks which confer all variety of benefits. Twist together two wicks and light it as one jyoth  everyday worship.
Flame of the lamp should face ideally east or north but definitely never south.

Discipline yourself to light the lamp everyday (ideally twice a day) after your bath in the morning and at twilight in the evening. Say a prayer or just meditate on the flame for a minute or two.  When you are leaving the room or after a little while put the light off by pulling the wick into the oil or snuff it out using a flower.

If you do this for 21 days continuously, it will become a habit (as will any action of yours) and you will enjoy a lot of peace in your life. It will become a quiet time for yourself alone.  Continue to practice this small ritual of lighting a lamp until you are able to -
"Let your light shine. Be a source of strength and courage. Share your wisdom and Radiate love."                                                                              Wilferd Peterson
 


             


             

Worship Centre in your Living Space

When one considers the major religions of India like Christianity, Islam, and Hinduism, a very striking difference may be observed. While Muslim children are trained in their religious rituals by Madrassas and the Christian children are initiated into the necessary understanding of their religion by Sunday Schools and Catechism classes, there is no such agency for Hindu children. The children just imbibe and absorb Hinduism – its teachings as well as practice by following what their parents and other relatives do in homes. If these elders in the family are agnostic (non-believers of rituals) they have no role model and their understanding of the religion as well as its practices is sketchy at best.

As I entered the sixth decade of my life, I realized that my children have very vague and ambiguous ideas of what it is to be a Hindu and very hazy concept of even the minimum rituals required of a Hindu especially the women. This dismal state of affairs was partly due to my preoccupation with my profession and partly due to their absence from home during the crucial years of adolescence. This may be the case in many other Hindu families belonging to the present generation. It is true that a sea of information is available on the World Wide Web but very few have the patience to wade through the sea to find the pearls. So the next few items in this blog will be on the basic practices of Hinduism as perceived by me a Tamil, non-Brahmin who grew up in the North. I will refer some literature and try to present information – some of it may be a repeat from other sites but most of it from my personal knowledge gleaned from my mother, aunts and other women who were more pious than me. I will start with an important practice followed in most Hindu families all over India – Setting up a Worship Corner / room referred to in most languages as the Puja room.

It is very necessary to set aside a special area for worship in the home so that it becomes a centre of tranquility in times of stress or when one wants to be at peace. To those who say God is everywhere why do we need a special place, I would like to repeat what one Swamiji said about temple. He said “Air is everywhere but why do we go near a fan? Because the air near the fan is more intense and has a more relaxing effect.” So  though God may be everywhere in your house, create a centre where you can perceive and feel the spiritual energy better in order to experience rejuvenation of mind and spirit. A worship centre will help you to get charged with positive vibrations that will energize your body, mind, soul and the environment. Your work efficiency will increase leading to peace, progress and prosperity.

According to your capacity and capability, the Worship centre may be as small as  an image of Om on the wall; just a table mat with a lamp on it ; a small shelf with  an image of your favorite deity and a lamp or an elaborate room with all the paraphernalia needed for Hindu worship.

Worship centers located in North-east are excellent for getting peace of mind and prosperity in life; North and East quadrants also provide good results but the   South and South-west locations should be strictly avoided since they are harmful. Facing East or North while praying, is beneficial.

The basic requirements of a Worship centre is an icon (of your choice but do not clutter up with too many), a small lamp (of brass, bronze, bell metal or silver and avoid iron/stainless steel) and an incense stick holder. For other details and tips on setting up this corner you can surf the net for more information. I do not want to repeat it here. My objective is only to inspire you to set up a worship corner if you do not have one.

Make the corner as aesthetically pleasing as you can so that you are drawn to go near it regularly. Clean it regularly and change the decorations from time to time. Spend at least five minutes in this centre regularly in the morning before leaving for work and in the evening at dusk  to pray, meditate or just remain still and feel the presence of the Supreme Being.

   

Entrance Examination - A Rite of Passage

From Kapil Sibal, our honorable HRD minister to the kitchen maid everyone is worried about the students appearing for entrance examinations to professional courses. The society is worried that these students are stressed out unnecessarily because they have to appear for a multitude of entrance examinations.

            It is true that students passing out of XII class have to appear for a variety of entrance examinations – a minimum of three. Not only does this involve expenditure of energy but also money and time. It often involves long distance journeys and staying over.  There is a lot of tension but what is life without some stress, which can make or break an individual. Just as gold has to face high temperatures to be fashioned into exquisite jewellery; wood to face the unkind cuts of the saw by the carpenter and the stone the blows of the sculptor to emerge as a striking statue so also humans have to go through the fires of entrance examinations to succeed in life. This is a common practice all over the World and not restricted to our country only. The UMAT and GAT of Australia; NCET of China; NCT of Japan, USE of Russia, HAT, GMSAT and others of UK as also SAT and others in US impose the same stress on their teenagers leaving High School but no one gets as worked up about it as do Indians and the Indian Government.

            Parents have to realize that these examinations are like rites of passage in the olden days. In the past people while moving from adolescence to adulthood had to prove their physical strength and stamina by going through the rites of passage. In the modern World these examinations are being used to prove the mental ability of the youth to face the problems of the professional World. It is inevitable. The mother bears the pains of a child entering the World but the pains of the entering the professional World has to be borne by them. Just as the mother cannot be spared the delivery pains these children cannot be rescued from the entrance examination pains. What is needed is the right attitude – it should be faced a challenge and not as a drudgery or a punishment. The children have to be trained from childhood to acquire the right attitude towards these examinations so that they enjoy it and not dread it.
            Remember that in life stress is unavoidable whether one wants to enter professional course or otherwise. What matters is the way we handle it. The same can assume a positive force and become Eustress or a negative force and cause Distress. It is up to you as a parent and as a student how you manage it! 

Draupadi Hairstyle

Leaving hair loose, cascading down one's back is the in fashion for young girls of today. Every movie, every soap opera, every visual advertisement shows girls/women with  hair undone flowing down the back to different levels. It does not matter what activity the woman is involved in - cooking, attending a patient, playing with a baby, riding a two wheeler, running towards a lover or away from a villain - her long hair streams behind her like a flag and in some cases like a long banner. It does not matter whether the girl is a school-going child, an adolescent or adult the hair is always let down and it is only the "aunties" (an epithet for older women) who put up their hair in a knot usually a tight knot with not a tendril escaping from the demure coiffure. Oh! yes even widows are depicted with their hair in a knot preferably at the nape!

In the earlier days before the 1990s, it was considered inauspicious for women to let their hair loose. When young it was braided into two pigtails and tied up in a loop with a ribbon at the end of it, as one entered adolescence in most South Indian states, the twin pigtails were replaced by a single plait though Maharashtrians continued to spot two plaits even when they were older (Remember Lata Mangeshkar). Of course these plaits exhibited a lot of ingenuity - braided to resemble the kewra leaf, four stranded plaits, the French plait and of course the quintessential flowers being braided in for special occasions. 

Hair was never to be left loose since it was associated with Draupadi's vow in Mahabharatha. While Draupadi was being dragged by Dushasana to the court, where Yudhistra had lost her in the game of dice, her hair got undone and she vowed that she would not comb her hair and dress it only after  Dushasana's death when she could anoint it with his blood. Due to this tale in most South Indians it is considered inauspicious to leave the hair loose. Even after a head bath mothers used to dry the hair quickly using fragrant incense fumes and tie a small knot at the end of the hair.

When I first started my career as a lecturer in a missionary college, my Head of the Department warned me that if "your hair grows below your shoulder you have to knot it up". There was a reason for this rule - not only does long hair interfere with one's work, it is also uncomfortable in the hot tropical weather. Loose cascading hairstyle for a cook may result in contamination of food with hair, which would definitely be unhygienic as well as unappetizing.   Long hair left loose can also pose a risk as happened to my friend's daughter. She had gone to the Puja Pandal and during  Aarti her hair caught fire and not only did she lose a lot of hair but it was also considered a very bad omen and the family had to perform several rituals to appease the malignant spirits!

It is not to suggest that the elaborate coiffures of the past have to be followed but definitely there is a need to style one's hair according to one's task requirement. I am not against "letting one's hair down" to relax but that should be restricted to parties and other social events. Women should learn to be sensible and not follow fashion blindly.

Land for Security

“Land is the only thing in the world that amounts to anything,” he shouted, his thick, short arms making wide gestures of indignation, “for ‘tis the only thing in this world that lasts, and don’t you be forgetting it! ‘Tis the only thing worth working for, worth fighting for—worth dying for.” - Gerald  O'Hara in the famous American classic Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell echoes the sentiment of millions of human beings,  from all parts of the world .

From times unknown man has invested on land as a saving. In India as in other countries after roti and kapada, makaan was the  priority for most people. As soon as a person settled in a job, he or she would start saving money to buy that piece of land on which he/she would build the dream house.  Earlier the middle classes struggled very hard to get that "Do Beegha Zameen" though it has become easier for the present generation to invest on real estate due to increased earning capacity. There are many stories, real life incidents and films about the troubles faced by the common man to achieve his dream of owning a land.  As Bharathiar, the Tamil poet said  "Kani nilam vendum –Parashakthi, Kani nilam vendum-angu,
                                                Thoonil azhagiyathai –nan madangal thuyya nirathinathai –antha,
                                                Kani nilathidaye –Or maligai katti thara vendum......"

Once the land was acquired time was spent in building up stage by stage. Very often the house could not be built until the person retired from service but he/she would feel happy that he at least had a piece of land - his/her main asset. To acquire this the family was even ready to sell their gold, eat less and fore go many pleasures of life during the youth. In their old age they retired to this piece of land to enjoy the golden years of old age with contentment that they were under their own roof. Land provides not only a sense of security but represents stability as if one has grown roots to stay in one place instead of wandering around like nomad. Gold and precious assets may be lost or stolen; banks may be robbed or go under; companies may fold up and lose our investments; houses and buildings may be destroyed but nothing can affect land - this is the belief that people had.

Contrary to this belief, in recent years, land grabbers and encroachers have been making away with even land from thousands nay lakhs of people all over the country -- whether it be in East, West, South or North. Everyday the news papers are full of these snatchers of dreams. Real Estate dealers, industrialists and sometimes even the Government under the guise of development or recovery steal away land leaving the common man with nothing except a broken heart and sometimes in the case of Government a paltry sum. Everyone has heard of the Land Mafia that operates in the major cities and towns of India with no one to oppose them or question their right. The police, the judiciary, the authorities and the local administration are helpless or pretend to be helpless in assisting the common man in his battle to retain his rights of property.

 Though Tolstoy may have made a case that man needs no more than six feet of land, one has to disagree with him - man's physical body may need only that but his psyche need more because that is the asset he can pass on safely to his inheritors!

Enforced Earth Hour?

"Earth Hour is a worldwide event organized by the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) and held on the last Saturday of March annually, encouraging households and businesses to turn off their non-essential lights for one hour to raise awareness about the need to take action on climate changes. The event, conceived by WWF and Leo Burnett, first took place in 2007, when 2.2 million residents of Sydney participated by turning off all non-essential lights. Following Sydney's lead, many other cities around the world adopted the event in 2008. Earth Hour 2012 took place on 31 March 2012 from 8:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m., at participants' local time." - (Ref: Wikipedia)

In most parts of India "Earth Hour" is enforced by the Government every day during most parts of the year. If it is summer or the months leading up to summer, compulsory load shedding (as it is called) is implemented for 6-12 hours depending on whether you are in urban or rural area.  During rainy season, electricity is turned off in most parts of the country to avoid accidents due to uprooted poles, snapped cables and others. During winter electricity is turned off for maintenance works. So common  is the power cut or load shedding as it is called that jokes abound and even essential services like watering the field is scheduled to suit the power availability rather than the need of the crop.   Those, who do participate are the ones who live in urban areas, buffered by inverters, generators guzzling more electricity in a day than would the their rural and small town counterparts in a month. To  the average Indian, accustomed to managing without electricity for essential as well as non- essential activities almost everyday or night, "Earth Hour" organized all over the World has no meaning.

Even after six and a half decades of independence Indian is unable to meet the progressively increasing needs of its population with reference to electricity. Instead of electrifying the villages and getting them used to a comfort which cannot be sustained it would have been better to leave them to their natural resources and life styles. What is the use of proudly stating that "every village is electrified to enjoy power cuts". Even the enforced "Earth Hour" does not make the average Indians realize that they are responsible for this "powerless" state and only if they consume electricity intelligently can they have power supply without cuts!

Courting Courts

During my adolescence, I devoured the books by Erle Stanley Gardener's featuring Perry Mason. Perry Mason the suave criminal lawyer assisted ably by the elegant Della Street and the dependable detective Paul Drake opened a the whole world of Court and lawyers to me. I started to dream of becoming a lawyer when I grew up. This ambition was fueled by other masterpieces of English Literature like Harper Lee's "To kill a Mockingbird", Michael Connelly's series of books on lawyers, more recently the novels of John Grisham and others. The vivid imagery of the spacious courts where brilliant, handsome lawyers waged a verbal battle to protect the poor and downtrodden filled me with awe. I always felt that it was a zone of no-corruption where Lady Justice with her eyes blind folded held a fair and just reign to help the poor and downtrodden.

After sixty years of staying out of courts, I was very excited when an opportunity came to attend the court. The night before the hearing, I could hardly sleep with vivid visualisation of our lawyer engaging in witty repartee with the opposing lawyer and the judge.  The first shock I got was on beholding the dirty dingy buildings in which the court was located. There was a revolting all pervading  smell of a mixture of urine, unwashed bodies and the walls were abstract painted with red paan stains so ubiquitous in all public buildings of India. After seeing that the  lift doors had to be pried open to release the tortured souls trapped therein, I decided to go up the stairs to the third floor where the case was to be held.The staircase as well as the corridors were dark, with neither ventilation nor light. The whole place was squalid with absolutely no effort to maintain the physical structure with even a modicum of cleanliness and hygiene. The halls, where the cases were heard, were poky little rooms hardly worthy of the title "hall" They were like large drawing rooms that you would see in an upper class family in urban areas.

The lawyers who bustled about the court corridors were a far caricature of lawyers so famed in our literature and cinema. The torture they had to undergo with their black robes and tight white collar in the Indian summer heat was sufficient for us to say "Poor souls." They do not have to go to Milton's Hell  after their death - they are already in it in the Indian courts. The rush of the people, with anxiety writ large on their faces on one side and brazen men with a don't care attitude on the other side provided a palette of the human cosmos populating the courts.

After spending six hours in the overcrowded hall, there were no arguments to enable me to judge the brilliance or otherwise of the lawyers' wit since the judge just pronounced, "The case is adjourned to June 26th"  at the end of the day.

Why does no one talk about the physical conditions of the Indian courts?  How can justice be meted out under such horrible working conditions? Why the arcane dressing code for the lawyers not suited to our climatic conditions?

In Praise of Sleeping Late

“Early to bed early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise” is an axiom that I grew up hearing almost everyday. My father always went to bed by 9.15pm after hearing the English news on AIR and got up at the crack of dawn. Poor man struggled with a variety of health problems before he went into his early eternal sleep, was never really wealthy though he was wise. Not only my father but many of my friends and their parents believed in this adage but did not really benefit. I am a night bird and this saying bugged me all my life. First as a school child, as a college girl and later as a mother and a working woman. I did get up early though I could never manage to go to bed early with the diverse household tasks that had to be completed before I retired to bed.

Now that my children are grown up and flown away from the nest and I have been superannuated, I decided that I would go to bed late and get up late. The first morning that I snuggled deeper into the bed, my husband came and touched my forehead and asked very solicitously “Are you having fever?”  After two or three days of conditioning him I was comfortably lost in the limbo of half sleep- half wakefulness when the phone rang shrilly. My husband did pick it up but later when I returned the call, my aunt  said,” What is this Suguna, sleeping late like that? Don’t you know that it is inauspicious for a woman to be in bed after sunrise?”   On top of it all the self-help gurus from Robin Sharma to Shiv Khera advocate getting up early as an antidote to all the ills of the world. I found myself making excuses for getting up late while talking to my former Principal .It was finally my daughter who made me realize that I had no reason to feel guilty about getting up late if I felt like it. I realized that the societal inhibitions, taboos and customs were mainly responsible for my guilt feelings.

The wise saying was meant for a time when there was no electricity and people depended upon natural sunlight. In this day and age of technological advances it has no meaning for night owls like me. I am able to get as much done in the calmness and disturbance free nights as another person at dawn. There are studies to show that the urban Indians manage with less sleep because they go to bed later and later due to various reasons like commuting, work pressure, socializing and others. So it is perfecting justifiable to sleep late as long as it does not affect others.

Hurrah! I now sleep late with a clear conscience and find that I am more productive.

Common Compound Walls

In the olden days were independent houses with a garden around it in which would be found a lawn, a swing and of course a profusion of flower beds and the whole would be surrounded by a compound wall. This compound wall while being high on the outer perimeter would be a low one between the houses and would be the meeting point for the housewives in the adjoining houses. These walls did not divide people but helped in bonding them.
Very often the women from neighboring houses would cross over from their houses to a common spot and it would become a meeting venue for the housewives, whose husbands had gone to their work spots and children to schools or colleges. After completing the morning chores the homemakers would congregate to this compound wall and engage in animated conversation or some combined projects like knitting or other crafts especially during the winter months when the pleasant sun provided a warm ambiance. Younger women would learn from the older - these sessions were a good chance for counseling, teaching as well as gossiping. It lead to bonding between the women and strengthened the network of support so essential in an urban setting.
The present day scenario with stacks of flats provides ample opportunities by way of common corridors, balconies and others but sadly women hardly have the time to linger and enjoy each others company. They are either employed or if unemployed busy with the thousand and one errands so much a part of modern urban life.
Oh for a return of those days and sessions at the compound wall!