Sleepy Time…World Sleep Day

March 12, 2024 ~ millennialmatriarchs ~ Leave a comment

We who sleep well, generally take sleep for granted. But it is when we cannot sleep that we begin to appreciate how important it is. As adults, at some point of time, we all probably have experienced short-term insomnia which can last for days or weeks and is generally caused by or a distressing event. But some of us suffer from long-term insomnia, also called chronic insomnia.

The necessity of sleep, and what the lack of it can do to us, cannot be underestimated. Doing research on this subject is difficult—after all, we cannot deprive people of sleep to check what happens to them. But the general observation is that after 24 hours without sleep, cognitive effects similar to having a blood alcohol concentration of 0.10% (which is higher than the legal limit for driving) can be seen. Anxiety and agitation set in. Performance on tasks declines, making people more prone to errors. There may be changes to visual perception. After 48 hours without sleep, people may begin to have blurry or double vision, which may progress into distortions of reality and hallucinations. After 72 hours without sleep, a person may begin to slur their speech or walk unsteadily. Hallucinations become increasingly frequent and complex. As people near 120 hours without sleep, they may experience a rapid and severe decline in mental health. This may include symptoms of psychosis, where a person becomes detached from reality and has complex delusions and displays violent behaviour. (https://www.sleepfoundation.org/)

So it is not at all out of place to have a World Sleep Day. This is celebrated on the Friday before the Spring Vernal Equinox, and falls on March 15^th this year. It is organized by the World Sleep Day Committee of the World Sleep Day Society, to emphasize the importance of sleep and address common sleep-related issues that many people suffer from.

Human beings generally need between seven and nine hours of sleep, but sleep requirements vary widely across species, as do sleep habits. The general trend is that herbivores who are the prey species not only sleep less in terms of absolute time, but they sleep for shorter periods at a time. Not surprising, considering predators may attack them anytime. And in general, larger animals need less sleep than smaller ones. This is because larger animals have to spend longer time in searching for and eating food.

And to lighten the mood, here are some interesting animal-sleep facts: Impalas specially male impalas hardly sleep, having to be vigilant about predator attacks at all times. Walruses can go for 84 hours without sleep. When they do sleep, they can sleep anywhere on land, on the bottom of the ocean, even floating. Elephants sleep only 3-4 hours per night. They sleep standing, leaning on a tree or termite mound, or lying on their side. If they lie on their side their sleep is less than 30 minutes, as otherwise their internal organs may get crushed.

An intriguing question is, do migrating birds sleep and if so how? Many birds are on the wing for weeks or months, and they fly day and night, day after day. Then what about sleep? Well, studies on frigate birds have found that they sleep even as they fly! Their power-naps can be as short as 10 seconds! They also have a technique whereby only half their brain sleeps while the other half remains functional. But not all migratory birds do this—many actually take pit stops to eat and sleep.

Well, these species are lucky to be functional with so little sleep, but humans aren’t. So on this Sleep Day, resolved not to take sleep lightly. Get the minimum quota. And if you can’t, talk to a sleep specialist.

Happy zzzzzz…

–Meena

A DAY TO REFLECT

March 8, 2024 ~ millennialmatriarchs ~ Leave a comment

It is March 8, and the newspaper pages are dominated by a plethora of “offers” especially for women. There is much on offer–from designer clothes to jewelry, from cosmetics and ‘make-overs’, to a day of indulgence at a spa or fancy restaurant, and even special health check-ups, all cleverly designed to “celebrate the woman in you!” This day follows on the heels of Valentines/Galentines Day which was all about ‘sugar and spice and all that’s nice’ to make every woman feel special. Tucked away between the gloss and glamour, are stories of ‘women of substance’ and women achievers who overcame many odds to get where they are today. These women certainly inspire a few, but they are quite out-shadowed by the ‘influencers’ with their countless followers.

In all the razzmatazz, not much is remembered about the origins and intent of the day that is today marked as International Women’s Day. The day, ironically had socialist origins and then became a marker of the movement for women’s rights to equality and dignity.

In its official history, the spark was ignited by a march in New York City on February 28 1908 by thousands of women garment workers who were striking to protest poor working conditions and wages. The march was spearheaded by the Socialist Party. However the history of the struggle for women’s rights can be traced further back to 1848 when two American women ‘activists’ Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott who were attending the World’s Anti-Slavery Convention in London, were outraged at the denial of official recognition to several women delegates because of their sex. On return to America they organized the nation’s first women’s rights convention in New York. The resulting Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions which detailed the inferior status of women, demanded civil, social, political and religious rights for women. This triggered the American women’s rights movement.

The concept of a day to register women’s voices crossed the Atlantic and reached Europe around 1911. Clara Zetkin, a German communist and advocate for women’s rights, including the right to vote, proposed that the day become an international event at an International Conference of Working Women in Copenhagen in 1910. She believed that if women across the world were synchronised in pressing for their demands, then their collective voice would be too hard to ignore. Her proposal was unanimously backed by the 100 women from 17 countries who were at the conference. The first International Women’s Day was celebrated in 1911, in Austria, Denmark, Germany and Switzerland with rallies campaigning for women’s rights to work, vote, be trained, to hold public office and end discrimination. At the time, celebration was not tied to a particular date.

It was in 1917, that on the last Sunday of February, Russian women, led by Alexandra Kollontai, began a strike for “Bread and Peace” in response to the death of over 2 million Russian soldiers in World War 1. Opposed by political leaders, the women continued to strike until four days later the Tsar was forced to abdicate. As a direct consequence of the marches and demands for universal suffrage in which thousands took part, the provisional Government granted women the right to vote in 1917. Thus Russian women got the right to vote a year before Britain and three years before the United States. Interestingly it was New Zealand that was the first country to grant women the right to vote in 1893.

The date the women’s strike in Russian commenced was Sunday February 23 as per the Julian calendar then in use in Russia. This day matched March 8 on the Gregorian calendar in use elsewhere. And thus the date became associated as a milestone marker in the movement for women’s rights.

In the years that followed, different countries embarked on different paths towards granting women their rightful rights, starting from the right to vote, and embracing equality of access to other opportunities and avenues for growth and development. Ironically, this day is not highlighted in the United States, because of its associations with its Socialist roots and later with communist Russia. However the United States marks the entire month of March as Women’s History Day.

It is only in 1975 that the United Nations marked International Women’s Day for the first time. In December 1977, the General Assembly adopted a resolution proclaiming a United Nations Day for Women’s Rights and International Peace to be observed on any day of the year by Member States, in accordance with their historical and national traditions.

Today, more than a century after the day was marked, there have been many more milestones in the journey of women for their rightful status in all spheres of life—personal, professional, social and political. Every generation has had its challenges and these have thrown up the challengers who have often made it their life mission to carry forward the torch. We have often written about these feisty women in this space.

At the same time, even as women are breaking new glass ceilings, it is still a far cry from becoming ‘a woman’s world’. Women and children are bearing the brunt of war in many parts of the world; women are the most directly affected by the ravages that climate change is wreaking across the globe; women in many countries are at the receiving end of extremist religious beliefs, and women are still fighting for the right to make their own decisions about their own bodies, and minds. There are many new avenues and media to reach out, raise voices, and come together. The same media have the potential to become toxic, to denigrate, to divide and even to destroy.

Perhaps today is a good day to reflect on this, even as we reminiscence about the women who have made our road to this point less rocky, who have led the first ascents to the seemingly inaccessible peaks, women who have led quiet revolutions at home, in the work place and in society. Let these true women of substance be our role models and inspirations, not just today but every day.

For the Matriarchs, this day marks the starting point of our own journey of sharing thoughts, angst, wild ideas, and laughter. It has been five years of a beautiful celebration with friends, known and unknown. We are truly grateful, and celebrate all our fellow travellers.

–Mamata and Meena

In the century since it was first established, International Women’s Day has come to be marked just as frequently with celebration as it is with protest, but the day’s legacy remains steeped in the struggle for women’s rights — an element that has gained renewed relevance in recent months, particularly as the #MeToo movement has taken on global dimensions.

Image: UN.org

The Shape of Words: Kiki Bouba

February 27, 2024 ~ millennialmatriarchs ~ Leave a comment

Do words have shapes? Or, in other words, are certain words or sounds associated with certain shapes?

Well till about a century ago, linguists did not think so. It was assumed that the connection between words and the objects they are attached to was arbitrary. For example, there is no link between the English word ‘dog’, or the French word ‘chien’, or the Hindi word ‘kutta’ and an actual dog. These are just names that people choose to give objects.

But in 1929 came an experiment by Wolfgang Kohler, followed by others building on this, which changed this thinking.

In the experiment, subjects were given these two words ‘bouba’ and ‘kiki’, and shown two shapes—one rounded and blob-like and the other spiky. Participants were asked to associate each of the given words to one of the shapes.

Over time, the experiment was carried out across regions and languages and ages—900 people across 25 countries.

And invariably, across countries and languages, the majority of people associated ‘bouba’ with the blob-like shape, and ‘kiki’ with the spiky shape. On average, more than 70% of the people tested confirmed the Bouba/Kiki effect– a non-arbitrary mental association between certain speech sounds and certain visual shapes

While this surprising phenomenon has now been accepted, there is no widely-accepted explanation of why it occurs, though several hypotheses have been put forward. One hypothesis is that the association is related to the shape of the mouth when producing the sounds—the more rounded shape of the lips when saying bouba, and the more taut shape when saying kiki. Another suggestion is that ‘the association is tied to the proportion of vowels and consonants and the phonemic qualities of the sounds in the words. It seems that people tend to base sound–symbol associations on the acoustic cues of the sounds.’ But exactly how they do so is yet to be explained.

Some researchers have extended these experiments to other senses. Professor Charles Spence explored the phenomenon in relation to taste. He asked his subjects to associate the words ‘ bouba’ and ‘kiki’ to the following tastes:

Dark chocolate / milk chocolate
Strong cheddar cheese / brie
Sparkling water / still water

Prof. Spence found that kiki was associated with dark chocolate, strong cheddar cheese and sparkling water by most people— in other words, the stronger, more bitter or sour tastes (similar to the spiky shape). Bouba was associated with more rounded, sweeter tastes (similar to the rounded shape).

While researchers are still trying to figure out the science, several interesting practical implications have emerged. Since these associations of sound/shape, sound/taste etc. are real, what happens when there is a mismatch in the image conjured up by a sound, and the real object? Well, people don’t like such dissonance!

For instance, people associate round names (“Bob,” “Lou”) with round-faced (vs. angular-faced) individuals. And they like targets with “matching” names. One study has found that senatorial candidates in an election got 10% more votes when their names fit their faces very well, versus very poorly! (Will we be seeing a rush of name-changes before elections?!?).

And obviously, these insights are very important in naming products, developing brands, etc.

There are several such kiki-bouba association tests that you can find online. Go ahead and check if your conclusions range with the majority!

–Meena

Hippo Day is a Thing!

February 20, 2024 ~ millennialmatriarchs ~ Leave a comment

February 15 is marked as Hippo Day.

And come to think of it, why not? After all, hippos are the third largest land animals on Earth (after elephants white rhinos). Males can measure around 3.5m long and stand 1.5m tall, and weigh in at up to 3,200kg. That’s a weighty reason to allocate a day for them!

On Hippo Day, here is an interesting story.

A hippo can eat up to 35kg of grass in one night. And it is this ability to munch down herbage in quantities, and their very bulk, that led to a strange development in the US in the 1910s. Senator Robert F. Broussard, who represented Louisiana, brought a House Resolution for large-scale import of hippos to the US. No, not as a curiosity or to keep in zoos. But to solve two problems that America was facing at that time.

The first was the widespread proliferation of water hyacinth. First brought in as an ornamental water plant from the Amazon, the hyacinth spread madly, and within two decades, had overtaken waterways across the South of the US, threatening water trade routes. Several ways to get rid of the weed were tried—from breaking plants up, to dredging them, to setting them on fire. But nothing stopped the weed.

The second problem was the steeply rising prices of meat, making it unaffordable for many. The fundamental reason is not clear—it could have been the rising prices of grain, cattle shortages or profiteering by meatpacking companies. Or a combination of all of these. But there were people in the US who seriously feared that they would be forced into vegetarianism which they saw as a disaster. (It was a different time, wasn’t it?)

Senator Broussard and some friends came up with the completely out-of-the-box and bizarre idea of importing hippos to solve this twin crisis. Their claim was that the hippos would happily chomp their way through the hyacinths. And that their flesh would be a great source of meat and protein for the Americans!

And so they moved the “American Hippo Bill” in 1910! Ex-President Teddy Roosevelt was among its supporters.

The House Committee before which the Bill was presented asked some very sensible basic questions: Could hippos be domesticated? Could they be contained? Would they eat the water hyacinth? Is their meat edible? Broussard and his colleagues answered with a resounding ‘yes’ to all the questions.

But the answers, we know today, are ‘No’ in each and every case. Hippos are not domesticable. They are known to kill about 500 people every year. They are extremely strong and heavy, and it would be almost impossible to contain them with even the strongest fences. And they are very unlikely to have made water hyacinth a serious part of their diet. They feed mainly on grasses and would not have taken to this weed which is very low in nutritive value. And though hippo meat is eaten, it is not widely consumed.

There would have been other serious negative ecological impacts of introducing hippos into the waterways too—their heavy treading in water bodies would stir up the mud, and their poop would add to the organic load in the water, and would completely disturb the dynamics and lead to algal blooms and other problems.

Fortunately sense prevailed in the House Committee and they vetoed the Bill. Else, who knows what the American landscape would be like today!

And now for some Hippo Trivia to celebrate Hippo Day

We think of hippos as African animals, but nearly 5.9 million to 9,000 years ago, India was home to the hippopotamus. These entered Eurasia from Africa, and later diversified into South Asia before going extinct.

They can hold their breath and walk under water for up to 5 minutes.

Hippos may look bulky, but they are quite athletic, and run at speeds of up to 30kmph!

A group of hippos is called a bloat. Other terms for a hippo group include thunder, herd, sea, school, pod, dale, crash, and siege.

Happy Hippo Day!

–Meena

Valentine’s-Galantine’s

February 13, 2024 ~ millennialmatriarchs ~ Leave a comment

Media are frantically trying to sell us everything from roses to chocolates to romantic dinner. ‘Tis the season—the Valentine season. The origins of Valentine’s Day as a day to celebrate romantic love go back a long time. But the commercialization is a phenomenon of the last century.

Fortunately, at least in India, the sellers have not fully caught on that it is actually Valentine’s Week celebrated from 7 February to 14 February, with the seven days including Rose Day, Propose Day, Chocolate Day, Teddy Day, Promise Day, Hug Day, Kiss Day, and finally, Valentine’s Day.

The origins of Valentine’s Day may lay in the Roman festival of Lupercalia which used to fall around the same time–essentially a spring festival which included fertility rites. A 5^th century pope banned the celebration of Lupercalia, but it came back with renewed vigour in the 14^th century and has been celebrated since then.

There have been many St. Valentines down history, and it is not quite clear after whom the festival is named. From a priest who was martyred about 270 CE by the emperor Claudius? According to legend, this priest who was incarcerated by the Romans, was friendly with his jailer’s young daughter, whose blindness he is said to have cured, and subsequently wrote her a letter which he signed off with “from your Valentine”. Or was it St. Valentine of Terni? Or a St. Valentine who defied the emperor’s orders and secretly married couples to spare the husbands from war?

At any rate, the festival is now celebrated world-wide on the 14^th of Feb as a day of love.

But another day which is of fairly recent origin, and celebrated on 13th Feb is Galantine’s Day. It is like Valentine’s Day, but for girl-pals! It celebrates the bonds between best friends, sisters, moms, grandmoms….

The origins of this one are quite clear—it all started with the comedy show ‘Parks and Recreation’. Leslie Knope, played by Amy Poehler used the term in the second season of the show in 2010. She kind of makes up this day and says ‘What is Galentine’s Day? Oh, it’s only the best day of the year. Every February 13th, my lady friends and I leave our husbands and our boyfriends at home, and we just come and kick it… ladies celebrating ladies.”

Guys of course don’t need to feel left out. After all, the term ‘bromance’ is much better known than Galentine’s Day. It was coined sometime in the 1990s, by Dave Carnie, the editor of the skateboard magazines Big Brother, in reference to the close bond that develops between skaters who spend a lot of time together.

Bromance is a portmanteau word, made up of bro (or brother) and romance. A bromance is officially defined as ‘a very close and non-sexual relationship between two or more men’. It is distinguished from normal friendship by a particularly high level of emotional intimacy.

Here is to Galentine’s Day! May we celebrate it in the true spirit of friendship and bonding, and not let it go the commercial way of Valentine’s Day.

With a shout out to all my girl-pals!

–Meena

PS: www.millennialmatriarchs is a Galentine initiative!

On A Musical Note: Of Earworms and Mondegreens

February 6, 2024February 7, 2024 ~ millennialmatriarchs ~ Leave a comment

Who hasn’t, at some time or the other, had a song or piece of music stuck in their heads, which just won’t go away! You get up in the morning, and suddenly you find yourself humming a tune. It follows you around the house, to the office, on the drive back home. It serenades you inside your head through dinner. And sometimes it is still there when you wake up in the morning!

This is what is called an earworm. Extremely irritating, but nothing to worry about. It happens to most of us at some time in life. A recent study of American college students found that 97% had experienced an earworm in the past month. Other studies have found similar results.

And don’t worry how long an earworm troubles you. Though the typical length is 10 to 30 minutes, research shows that for about 20% folks, the earworm lasts an hour or more. And some unlucky folks have been stuck with one for a year or even longer!

The term earworm comes from the German “ohrwurm,” which is defined as a “cognitive itch” or “the inability to dislodge a song and prevent it from repeating itself in one’s head”. Several terms have been coined for this, including stuck song syndrome, sticky music, musical imagery repetition, intrusive musical imagery etc. The semi-official term is ‘involuntary musical imagery’, or INMI.

It has been a serious area of study since 1885, and scientists hope to get insights into the functioning of the brain. Several major universities have been undertaking studies into the phenomenon.

Sufferers try various ways to get rid of an earworm– by thinking of another song, singing the earworm song all the way through to its end, or taking up other tasks that require focussed concentration. But trying to get rid of an earworm may be counter-productive. One study has found that the harder people fight to quiet an earworm, the longer it tends to harass them!

Something that is not irritating to you, but may be to others if you sing, is a mondegreen. A mondegreen is a word or phrase in a song or poem that you get wrong–the result of mishearing something recited or sung. Incorrectly heard lyrics are called mondegreens.

The origin of the word itself is from an instance of such mishearing. In a column by journalist Sylvia Wright in the 1950s, she wrote about a Scottish folksong The Bonny Earl of Morray that she had listened to. Wright misheard the lyric “Oh, they have slain the Earl o’ Morray and laid him on the green” as “Oh, they have slain the Earl o’ Morray and Lady Mondegreen.” And ever since, such mishearings have been referred to as mondegreens!

The scientific explanation goes as follows: Hearing is a two-step process. First sound waves make their way through the ear and into the auditory cortex of the brain. On receiving the signal, the brain tries to make sense of the noise. Mondegreens occur when, somewhere between the sound and the sense-making, communication breaks down. You hear the same sound as another person, but your brain doesn’t interpret it the same way.

Sometimes we may just mishear something because it is noisy, the phone signal is weak, or there are other extraneous factors. Or it may be because the speaker is speaking in an unfamiliar accent or is mumbling. So the sound becomes ambiguous and our brain tries its best to resolve the ambiguity—and gets it wrong.

Another common cause of mondegreens is the oronym–word strings in which the sounds can be logically divided in different ways. This is similar to what we call sandhi vichhed in Sanskrit—the process of analysing and separating compound words into their component parts. Oronyms result in a wrong parsing of sounds when context or prior knowledge is missing.

Yet another reason could be letters and letter combinations which sound alike, and without a context, we can go wrong, and one sound can be mistaken for the other. An example often given to illustrate this is, :“There’s a bathroom on the right” being heard as “there’s a bad moon on the rise”.

When we hear a sound, a number of related words are activated all at once in our heads. These words could be those that sound the same, or have component parts that are the same. Our brain then chooses the one that makes the most sense. In this choosing, we are more likely to select a word or phrase that we’re more familiar with. An oft cited example is that if you’re a member of a boat crew, you’re far more likely to select “row” instead of “roe” from an ambiguous sentence. If you’re a chef, the opposite is likely.

Some mondegreens become the word! For instance, the word orange was such a widespread mispronunciation of “a naranj” (from Persian and Sanskrit), that it became the official name of the fruit! One can think of any number of place-names which the English mangled, for instance!

Bollywood songs of course have their share of mondegreens. Though not systematically documented, some common ones identified include:

From the song Hawa Hawai (Mr. India): ‘Bijli girane mai hoon aayi’ being heard as ‘Bijli ki rani mai hoon aayi’; and from the song Banno (Tanu weds Mannu) ‘Banno tera swagger laage sexy’ being heard as ‘Banno tera sweater laage sexy’.

Raghu has these examples from his childhood (which he attributes to the poor sound quality of radio transmissions of those times):

Hearing ‘Yeh manzar dekh kar jaana’ (from the film Around the World) as ‘Yeh mandir dekh ke kar jaana’ (could be a jingle for a recent event!); and ‘Ahsan tera hoga mujh par’ (from the film Junglee) as ‘Ahsan tera ho gaa mujh par’!

The only request: If you have a mondegreen, don’t sing the song aloud. You may give someone a more than usually horrible earworm!

–Meena

Oh Sh*t!

January 23, 2024 ~ millennialmatriarchs ~ Leave a comment

The last few weeks have been peppered with cleaning cat-poop of the lawn. A particular cat has taken to using our garden as its favoured toilet. Now we are spraying the lawn with a suspension of coffee grounds and haven’t had an episode in the last few days. Fingers crossed.

But the whole trauma got me thinking about poop in general.

And I realized how many words there were for this. In fact, the number of synonyms for faeces is proof of human fascination for the subject.

There is wide variety of terms for poop, and though some of them are interchangeable, there are also very specific ones– for certain types of animals or species or used in certain circumstances. Here are some of them so our vocabulary in this area can go beyond shit and crap!

Faeces is the most generic term, and the word comes from the Latin word faex, meaning “dregs”. Excrement, Excreta and Stool are also fairly generic and mean the solid wast released solid waste from the bowels of a person or animal. bowels of a person or animal Ordure too is similar—the solid waste solid from the bowels of people or animals.

Here is a look at a few other terms:

Droppings: Faeces of animals.

Dung: Solid waste from animals, especially cattle and horses

Scat: Animal faeces, particularly of wild carnivores

Spraint: This is the dung of otters.

Fras: These are the droppings/faeces of insect larvae

Manure: Manure is organic matter that is used as fertilizer in agriculture. Most manure consists of animal faeces but may also include compost and green.

Guano: This is accumulated excrement and remains of birds, bats, and seals, valued as fertilizer.

Worm casts: These are the excrement of worms. Earthworm casts are prized as fertilizer.

Fecal Pellets: An organic excrement, mainly of invertebrates.

Fewmets: In hunting terminology, these are the droppings of deer and other quarry animals by which a hunter identifies his targets. Another term used in hunting is Spoor which can indicate a track, a trail, a scent, or droppings especially of a wild animal

Fewments: For science fiction fans, this is the term for dragon droppings!

Coprolite: Fossilised faeces of animals that lived millions of years ago.

Paleofaeces: Ancient faeces, often found as part of archaeological excavations or surveys.

Rabbits, hares and related species produce two types of fecal pellets: hard ones, which are the real poop; and soft ones or cecotropes, which are partially digested food which they eject, and eat again!

In medicine and biology, scatology or coprology is the study of faeces.

The study of such excrement is of course of use to doctors in the diagnosis of various medical conditions. It is also of great importance in obtaining an understanding of wildlife behavior, and the environment as a whole. Scat analysis can yield useful information on animal populations and their distribution across a habitat, how many males and females there are, what they are eating, their health condition and from all these, information on the health of the habitat itself can be deduced. Scat analysis is sometimes faster, easier and cheaper than many other means of studying animal populations, and it is possible to get a lot of information about animals non-invasively. It is also possible to extract DNA from poop and this has helped identify species characteristics.

So it’s not just 4-year olds who have a fascination for this subject. Many adults make it their life’s work, and their chosen tool in getting to know more about the world!

–Meena

Sun, Giver of Light and Life

January 16, 2024 ~ millennialmatriarchs ~ Leave a comment

Makar Sankaranthi is linked to the solar calendar, and marks the beginning of the annual transit of the Sun from the Southern Hemisphere to the Northern Hemisphere. Sankaranthi is also called ‘Uttarayan’—deriving from ‘uttar’—North, and ‘aayan’—movement. The Sun moves from the Tropic of Cancer to the Tropic of Capricorn that day.

Makar Sankaranthi is celebrated across the country, but in different ways. In Tamilnadu, it is a harvest festival, and three days of Pongal celebrations mark worship of the sun, the rain and cattle—all fundamental to agricultural economies. It is a wonderful occasion to remind ourselves of how much we owe Nature, and that without the energy of the Sun, we can do nothing. ‘Pongal’ itself means overflowing, and the pot with rice, jaggery and milk is allowed to overflow to calls of ‘pongal-o-pongal’—welcoming abundance in the coming year.

The fundamental importance of the Sun has been recognized by many ancient cultures, and in many of them, kings ruled by the power of the sun and claimed descent from the sun.

In ancient Egypt, the sun god Re was dominant among the higher gods. The sun was not one entity– he sets out on his journey in the East as the young god Kheper; he appears at noon in the zenith as the full-grown sun, Re; and by the evening, when he is in the West he is in the shape of the old sun god, Atum. When the Pharaoh Akhnaton (husband of the famed Queen Nefertiti) reformed Egyptian religion somewhere around 1350 BC, he took Sun worship to the next level by making it the official religion and the sun’s qualities as creator and nourisher of the Earth and its inhabitants were worshipped.

As far as Roman history is concerned, sun worship became fairly important in the later period.

Both Sumerian and Akkadian religions put sun worship at the centre of their belief system, and in Iran, sun festivals were celebrated as a heritage from pre-Islamic times.

In North America, the Plains Indians followed a solar cult with the Sun Dance as an important ritual. In South America, especially Mexico and Peru, sun worship was widely prevalent. The ruler of Peru was believed to an incarnation of the sun god, Inti. The Aztecs worshipped Huitzilopochtli, the Sun God who was one of their most powerful and most revered gods. In fact, Aztec people considered themselves to be ‘the people of the sun’.

The sun goddess Amaterasu played an important role in ancient Japanese mythology and was considered to be the supreme ruler of the world and the guiding deity for the imperial rulers.

In many of these ancient traditions, the Sun God rides in a chariot drawn by horses. In Hindu mythology too, he rides chariot drawn by seven horses—which are said to stand for the seven colours of visible light or the seven days of the week. There are different versions of the names of the seven horses. In some traditions, they are named after the seven meters of Sanskrit poetry: Gayatri, Brihati, Ushnih, Jagati, Trishtubha, Anushtubha and Pankti. In others, they are called Jaya, Vijaya, Ajaya, Jitapraṇa, Jitasrama, Manojava and Jitakrodha , which are different phases of light transmission through the length of the day.

The most traditional rangoli or kolam made in Tamilnadu for Pongal is the Ratham or Sun’s chariot. While there are 5×5 dot ratham kolams for amateurs, these designs can become incredibly complex and set off a competitive spirit across streets!

So let us rejoice in the spirit of Sankaranthi, and pray for abundance, peace and prosperity in the coming year!

–Meena

PS: The beautiful kolam is from the Net. I can claim no credit!

Kuldhara: Ghosts of the Past, Vandals of the Present

January 9, 2024 ~ millennialmatriarchs ~ Leave a comment

Kuldhara is on the tourist map of Jaisalmer district. On the way to Sam where the desert starts, is this ‘ghost town’ abandoned by its inhabitants about 200 years ago. The history of the town goes back to the 13^th century when it was first settled by Paliwals, people from Pali district. Over the centuries, it grew into a prosperous place, with about 400 houses and over 1500 inhabitants at the peak. It had a pond, Udhansar, excavated by one of the first inhabitants, and at least one temple dedicated to Vishnu, as well as several wells and a step-well. It is actually a planned city, with proper layouts and a place for everything.

Till it was suddenly abandoned. It is not clear why the inhabitants left, but many reasons are given. Was it dwindling water supplies? Was it an earthquake? Or, more dramatically, was it the unwanted pursuit of one of the beautiful girls of the town by a local minister?

Well, whatever the reason or combination of them, it is a fact that people started leaving the place, probably not fleeing overnight as the tourist guides will tell you, but probably in trickles.

The mud-brick houses, temple and various other structures still stand in fairly good condition. Local legend of course goes that the township is haunted, and visitors are assured it is a dangerous place at night! The legend also says that the Paliwals while leaving the place, placed a curse on it, saying that anyone who tried to occupy it would meet dire consequences. All this led to its attracting tourists.

The Rajasthan government decided to develop this as a tourist site around 2015. This is definitely a strategic move, given that it is just 18 kms away from Jaisalmer, and makes for a comfortable half-day trip, and it had already gained notoriety for its ghosts.

It is well-maintained by the Archeological Survey of India. There are of course guides. And importantly, fairly clean toilets. To this day, the neighbouring villages insist the gates be closed in the evening, so the Kuldhara ghosts don’t wander into their houses!

Of course, a lot more could be done—more signage, re-creation of a typical house, visualization of the town as it must have originally been, a more serious delve into the reasons for its abandonment, etc.

All of this will hopefully be done by the authorities in due course.

But an extremely disturbing incident that happened last week brings to fore the need for us as citizens and tourists to be more responsible. Newspapers report on a video that went viral. The video shows two tourists holding hands and kicking down the ancient brick wall of one the houses in Kuldhara. They were apparently doing this for putting up the video on social media.

The police are waiting for a formal complaint to be filed before taking action. Hopefully, this will be done fairly soon and action will be taken. The penalty for those who deface structures of national and historical importance has fortunately been enhanced in 2010 vide an amendment to the Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Sites and Remains Act. Now, such vandals will have to face imprisonment up to 2 years and/or a fine of up to Rs. 1 lakh.

Sadly, very few cases actually come to the stage where the punishment is given. Often, even the FIR is not registered—though in this case, the police seem to be ready to do this.

Kuldhara is just the latest example—from tourists knocking down pillars at Hampi to graffiti in Golconda, we have a long sad story of vandalism at cultural heritage sites. If our monuments are to have a chance, punishment in these cases needs to swift, exemplary and well-publicized. Maybe there needs to be a sign outside the monument as to how someone tried to vandalize and what punishment they got!

And of course our educational institutions need to instill respect for our cultural and natural heritage, and strongly din home the need to take the greatest care of them.

The responsibility rests with each and every one of us.

–Meena

Ring in the New!

January 2, 2024January 4, 2024 ~ millennialmatriarchs ~ Leave a comment

Welcoming the new year with the ringing of bells is an old tradition, immortalized by the lines from the familiar lines by Alfred Lord Tennyson.

‘Ring out the old, ring in the new,

Ring, happy bells, across the snow;

The year is going, let him go;

Ring out the false, ring in the true.’

Down the ages and across the world, bells have played an important role—from summoning people to a gathering place, to a role in religious rituals, to announcing danger, to attracting attention. And importantly, to summon children to school, and provide them joyful reprieve at the end of classes! I am talking of course of traditional metal bells which are rung manually. These traditional bells are ‘melodic percussive musical instruments usually made of metal (bronze, copper, or tin) but sometimes made of glass, wood, clay, or horn. When a bell is struck by a clapper (an interior object) or an exterior mallet or hammer, the bell, constructed of solid, resonant material, vibrates and produces a sonorous ringing sound’. Each bell is unique, depending on the material it is made of, how thick it is and its size and shape. Based on these factors, it resonates at certain harmonic frequencies and pitches.

A bell is usually suspended from a yoke– a cross piece that allows the bell to hang freely. The top of the bell is known as the crown and the middle portion is called the waist. The lower open section is known as the mouth, and the lower edge of the bell is called a lip. The part of the bell which is struck with a clapper is the thickest part of it, and is called the sound bow. Some bells are rung with clappers, a metal sphere that swings inside the bell Others are struck with a mallet or stick externally.

Gungroos represent a variation. Rather than being bell-shaped, they are orbs, with a few openings, which have small metal balls or even tiny stones enclosed within, which rattle and produce a tinkling sound.

With new technologies and means of communications, traditional bells and the traditional role of bells is diminishing. But interest in these bells and bell-ringing is alive. Many thousands of people around the world practice bell-ringing as hobby!

In fact, January 1 is observed as Bell Ringing in some countries. Many universities in the UK have bell-ringing clubs. When you join such a club, you first have to master the technique of pulling the rope attached to the clapper in a rhythmic way. Once you have mastered this, you can start “change ringing”–rhythmically ringing in a descending scale and then changing the order in which the bells ring in various different ways. Team bell-ringing is an activity which requires immense amount of coordination, and is a competitive event!

Bell Ringing Day not only sets out to encourage bell-ringers, but also to focus attention on the need to restore and maintain bells.

Our temples have beautiful bells which devotees ring as they go in. Most homes have small bells, and pujas are accompanied by the chiming of bells. Dancers wear ghungroos or rows of bells on their ankles. Cows are adorned with bells which chime as they move.

A cheery note to begin the year!

Happy New Year, and may the chiming of bells bring in good tidings!

Peace on earth, and goodwill to all.

–Meena