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!

Communication in the Family - II - Relational Names

My mother, used to being addressed as Didi , Mausi, Peddamma, Kaaki and even the generic "Aunty" of the present day, was aghast when she reached US because no one younger than her had dared to call her by the first name until she reached Boston.

Everyone who has been abroad will attest to the fact that people address each other by the first name once they have crossed the formal stage of relations. Slowly we Indians have begun to imbibe this practice. In the past the husbands were always referred to by wives as "munni ke pithaji" or "avanga'' ; elder brothers were referred to as Bhaiyya or its variation in North and Anna in South while younger brothers were referred to as bhai or thambi respectively. The first name may be attached to the honorific title and someone may be referred to as Raju bhaiyya or Sonu Bhai. These titles were available for every relationship in the family and elders in the family used to insist on their being used. A little sister calling her elder brother by first name can surely not have as much respect for him as when she is trained to call him Bhaiyya and the very title implies a privilege and a responsibility. In our country we were trained to address even our servants by titles like Maasi, Kaka and so on and taught to respect them for their age and experience.

Unfortunately the dropping of these titles in our daily conversation slowly erodes the respect due to elders in our communication. Children should therefore be trained from childhood to address each other by honorific titles in order to help them understand the limits of etiquette in communication. Once these respectful titles are used, communication will automatically improve. A husband who is called by his first name by his wife may be easily bullied by her as shown in the Reliance advertisement. The title alerts both 'caller' and the 'called' about their role and responsibility in the communication process.

So let us revive the tradition of addressing each other by the honorific family titles to improve bonding and communication in the family.

Communication in the Family - I

We live in Information Age and communication is the moola mantra of relations with others in public life. Everyone from the chaaywala on the pavements to the CEO of the Corporate Organization works hard to improve their communication skills but forget all those tips and techniques when they enter their homes. Why does this happen?

Every one of us has a 'private face' that we wear at home and a 'public face' that we wear outside the home.We take it as our birth right and prerogative to behave “naturally” and not"hypocritically" when at home. We rarely stop to think about how this affects the family members and our relationship with them.

Relationships in the family are the most important bond in one's life. They provide meaning to our life and inspire us to reach higher levels of personal and professional success. Family members of all generations support us and help us to move forward and onwards. They protect us from loneliness and provide an oasis where we can be ourselves. "Being ourselves" does not mean that we show only our negative side. Effective Communication skills help to lubricate relationships and strengthen them while poor communication hurts people and breaks relationships isolating individuals.

The first step to improved communication in the family is to show that we are concerned about our family members. Here are a few tips to improve communication in the family.

• Address each other by relational titles like anna, bhaiyya etc.
• Cultivate patience and tranquility
• Yield when someone is angry
• Exhibit pleasant behaviour and personality
• Trust each other
• Co-operate with all family members
• Demonstrate empathy for each other
• Avoid retaliation when someone blames wrongly
• Avoid nagging
• Accede to elders and men

Complaints about Complaining

"Namaskar! Bharathiya Rail ki Pooch-taach seva meh appaka swagath hai!
Welcome to Indian Railways Inquiry System!
Hindi meh jaankari ke liyw ek dabaye; for English press 2; veru mozhiguluku mundrai azhuthungal; telugu kosam rendu nokkandi
For information regarding PNR number press one-for arrival/departure press two - for seat availability press three - for information regarding charges press four........"Whenever one rings up an organization for assistance whether it be for information or complain or any other reason one has to go through this rigmarole of listening carefully and pressing one or the other button according to instruction from a mechanical voice - usually female. If you manage to go through the whole series of listening and pressing the button you are still liable to reach another mechanical voice with a fresh set of directives. Most often you may reach a stage where your particular problem does not fit in their set of options and then you have to start all over again. This is if your phone is a good one with new press buttons that listen to you and obey you as you obey the instructions meticulously. If the instrument is an old one (as is mine) the chances are that the phone will refuse to cooperate with you and you have to start "at the very beginning, a very good place to start". I shudder when I have to use this system and try to avoid it as much as possible.
When I was growing up there was always an operator (usually female) at the end of the line who would address your problem instantly. This tribe of operators were usually very helpful and would even lend a shoulder to cry on if the problem merited it. I salute that tribe of operators and wish they were back - I am sure they will wave the magic wand and set things right at the blink of the eye!

Strawberries in Visakhapatnam

Two weeks ago I nearly fell out of the auto rickshaw I was travelling in when I spotted strawberries for sale on the pavement of Visakhapatnam main road. These exotic fruits are not usually seen even in the regular fruit market and the only shops to stock it used to be the uptown departmental store Karachiwala at really high prices and here was this vendor selling it so casually along with guava, apples and grapes. I could not resist asking the price because I had never ever tasted them earlier though my imagination and English reading experience had led me to have an exquisite expectation of the taste of this exotic fruit much celebrated by the characters of Enid Blyton and all the novels published by Mills & Boon. I did not bat an eyelid when he quoted one hundred rupees for ten tiny strawberries hardly larger than the zizypus or ber that we are used to buying for a few paisas. I decided to get it though the same amount would have fetched me one and half a Kg of seedless black grapes, at least a dozen red luscious apples, two dozens of bananas, twenty green guavas....Oh the list is endless - butI stuck to my resolve and decided that strawberries were worth their weight and not to be compared with these lowly fruits.
My husband raised his eyebrow at the cost and the fruit but decided to humour me. I washed each of those strawberries very carefully in water and discovered two damaged ones to my dismay. I arranged them on an elegant white china plate - no a saucer was enough - with a golden rim. I offered my husband one and took one and very elegantly bit into it. Eeeeek! It was sour ! My husband very gently inquired "Is it supposed to taste like this?"
I did not know how to answer him so I just pretended no to hear the question. Two days later an old friend a Cosmopolitan who had travelled extensively in the West came home. I offered her the strawberry and asked her to taste it tell me whether it tasted like the ones she had tasted abroad.
That is when I realized that native fruits are best eaten in their natural habitat. May be these strawberries would taste exotic and exquisite in their home land. There is no doubt that in Visakhapatnam they cannot compete with the taste of Jamun, Mango, guava and and other local fruits like rose apple, palmyra fruit to name a few. So I am sorry to say, "Good bye Scarlet Strawberries! You will never again tempt me!"

Canes for Support

When my doctor suggested that I use a walking stick to prevent further deterioration of my knee joint I was aghast and rebelled at the idea of using a stick even before turning 60. Three years later after quite a lot of damage was done to my knee, I realized the error of my ways when a young friend told me “When you did not hesitate to wear spectacles why are you hesitating to carry a stick both are aids after all!”

Inspired by the wisdom of that little girl I began to use a walking stick and from the word go there was no dearth of reactions. The shopkeeper, who had known me for long, refused to sell me the usual orthopedic sticks with tripod or quadri-pod support. Instead he convinced me to buy a foldable stick, which would not make me look too disabled. Everyone from my family members to acquaintances was shocked, and continue to be shocked, when they see me with the stick. I did appreciate their concern but it also made me feel a bit depressed and wallow in a bout of self-pity. Once I emerged from the trough of despair my academic curiosity was kindled and I decided to research the walking stick or cane as it is often called. It made a very interesting study and made me realize that behind the lowly cane rests a saga of glory and grandeur unmatched by other aids used by human beings.

The history of walking canes or sticks, as we know it today started when humans walked the earth. The use of walking stick or "cane" has its roots in the "big stick" wielded by prehistoric man as a weapon of self-protection as well as belligerence. To the Ancient Egyptians and Greeks staffs, carried by rulers and gods, symbolized their authority and during the Middle Ages these staffs became the scepters of kings. While the pilgrims used the cane as an aid to travel; shepherds and cowherds used theirs as support as well as a device to herd the animals under their care. Travelers usually used heavy wooden sticks about five feet long with secret compartments on the top for carrying valuables or for smuggling contraband. Records show that silkworm eggs were smuggled into Europe in a hollow staff as were the first tulip bulb introduced into Holland.

The walking stick evolved into a dress accessory in the 11th century France, where women carried slender sticks made of apple wood but it was not until the end of the 15th century, however, that the walking stick was adopted as a general accessory to dress, this time as a masculine rather than feminine fashion. From the 18^th to the early third of the 20^th century, cane was an indispensable part of the Western gentleman's formal attire. It was popular not only among the old but also the young who used it as a means of defense or as functional support over uneven terrain since paved roads were not very common.

While in the West they were presented to the oldest member of the town in India it was commonly presented at the time of superannuating from a career or at the time of shastiabathapurthi. Canes, necessary for ceremony and ritual are usually ornately decorated with insignias, symbols, or life events of important people. “Bragging Staffs” intricately carved with details of the life of its owners are coveted by many museums for their historic value.

My advice to people who need support to walk is the Japanese proverb that says “Depend on your walking stick not on other people.”