Keeping Tradition Alive

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July is here. And along with it, the festival season. Pujas—a time for festivities, fun, enjoyment with the family. A time to get back in touch with our traditions. A time of solemnity and also gaiety.

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But also today, a time for stress! Who knows what the auspicious grass for Ganesh Chaturthi is? Or the prasadam to be made for Thiruvadarai? What is the rangoli to make for Rathasapthami?

And how to answer questions from the kids? Why is Naga Panchami celebrated? Who is Ekadashi? Why do we make sundal for Navaratri?

“Follow the Hindu Moon: A Guide to the Festivals of South India’, by Soumya Aravind Sitaraman, will answer all these questions and more. Brought out by Random House about 10 years ago, this magnum opus is in two volumes, totaling to over 800 pages. But don’t be put off by the weight and the bulk. The publication is erudite and comprehensive, but extremely easy to read and refer to. The text presentation is clearly organized and simple.

What really brings the book to life are the more than 400 colour plates. Beautiful, un-posed, real—they bring alive the beauty of our traditions. Whether it is the decoration of Varalakshmi or the photographs of the delicacies made for different pujas, you wish you could be there in the photo, living that moment. The photographer is Usha Kris, Soumya’s mother!

Volume 1 is called  ‘Celebrate’. It covers: “Puja Basics’—everything from aartis to vastram; ‘Embracing the Almighty’—a guide to pujas;   ‘ Getting organized’—pooja checklists to annual festival planner; and ‘Celebrate’—detailed walkthroughs for every festival of South India, including procedures, observances, rituals, sankalpams, stories, etc.

Volume 2 called ‘Understand’ has sections on everything from ‘Reading the Panchanga’ to shlokams, to naivedya recipes, and festival-specific rangoli designs.

The books work at several levels: as a ‘Do-it-yourself’ guide for novices; as a reference book on details for experienced mamis; and as a fascinating browse for anyone.

At first look, Rs. 3500 seems a bit of an investment. But this book is bringing to you almost those many years of tradition!

So whether you are an experienced puja veteran, or a student in the US who wants to celebrate festivals the traditional way, or an ‘armchair cook’ like me, you are going to enjoy this book. So buy it for yourself. Or share the joy of a festival and gift it to a loved one!

–Meena

129 Pages Open Up a World

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‘The Buddha in the Attic’. What an innocuous book title. And such a pretty cover.

But the world it opened for me was neither innocuous or pretty.

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A confession first. I am pretty ill-informed of historical migration to the US. I knew about Italians and Irish going. And other Europeans—like the Polish. But I never thought of Asian migration as significant. Hence the very moorings of the book were an education. ‘Oh, Japanese migrate to the US in numbers in the 1880s?’ was the question that struck me. I had to do some little surfing and reading to give myself a context.

Just a quick wiki-glimpse of the highlights of this for those of my readers who may not be familiar with the issue:

 

Coming back to the book, it traces the stories of ‘picture brides’ who came to the US from Japan. And therein lies the brilliance. It is not the story of one woman or family. The technique that Julie Otsuka uses is such that through a tiny 129-page book, I begin to understand the history of the whole Japanese community in the US in the pre-WWII period, and get powerful insights into what might have happened to a whole set of picture brides.

Read it to understand history from the perspective of immigrants; read it to understand history from the perspective of women; read it to understand xenophobia is not new and that history does repeat itself; to learn that the stories of some women are the stories of all women; to learn that the stories of one diaspora are the stories of all diaspora; to learn how so much can be conveyed with so few words.

Bottom line, READ IT!

–Meena

P.S: Feel really ill-informed. I never knew about this book or Julie Otsuka till recently.

Needs, Wants and Luxuries

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So the ultimate in luxury seems to be “Make Google Do It”! As the ads remind us your little Google Assistant will do it all for you—Play music, Cast videos, Control your lights, Get step-by-step cooking recipes, Stay updated with news and sports, and anything else that you shall wish for—Just Ask and your wish is its command. This is the new age Aladdin’s Lamp, no less!

Not so long ago, we still remember walking back and forth from the Black and White television set to change the channel (from the limited selection available). Then came the Remote! And its fallout—a generation of couch potatoes! And more recently, the Fitbit and Gym generation that needs to burn the calories collected courtesy the hard-working Bot!

It is the age of too much, an age of choices galore. For those who can afford it, the choice is no longer ‘Keeping up with the Joneses’, but staying ahead of ‘Those who have Everything.’

But what are the choices being offered, and what are we choosing?

I am reminded of a simulation exercise that we often did as environmental educators. We would ask participants to imagine that they have to leave their home due to a sudden disaster in the area. Before they leave they have time to take just 20 things that they can carry with them. They are not allowed to take money. They do not know where they are going, when they will reach, and if and when they will be able to return. They must make a list of these 20 things. Once they had done this, they were told that the truck that was carrying them is overloaded, and they have to drop 5 of the 20 things they were carrying. What would they choose to leave? Once they have done this, they were further told that the truck has broken down and they will have to walk. Which 5 of the 15 items will they discard? Now the list has 10 items. As they go ahead they are stopped by a gang of dacoits who demand five items from the ones they are carrying. Which ones will they give, and which ones will they keep? Now they are left with 5 items.

At the end we would review each one’s list, and think about the choices each one made, and the reasons for these. We would, perhaps for the first time, review our own belongings from the perspective of Needs–those that were essential for survival; Wants–those that were desirable but not indispensable, and those that were things we owned because we could afford to—Luxuries.

This is not simply an abstract exercise;  in news reports every day we see heart-rending  scenes of millions of refugees—ousted from their countries and homes by natural calamities, political upheavals, social and cultural persecution. People with nothing to their name. People for whom simple survival is a luxury.

For those of us fortunate enough to have choices, and the luxury of more than we need, it may be worth sparing some thought to our personal List of 20-5-5-5. How much do we really need?

“He who knows he has enough is rich.” (From the Tao Te Ching an ancient Chinese philosophical poetry.)

–Mamata

Justifications Believers Could Give

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In the old days, it seems from all reports,

That Gods of all faiths performed many, many miracles

 

THEY would save believers from the jaws of death

THEY would heal lepers and give sight to the blind

THEY would grant riches and victory to the righteous

And take the time to wipe the tears of widows and orphans

 

But it seems THEY are slipping up badly these days

I can see no miracles around me

In fact, THEY are performing ‘Below Expectation’ (a term from my appraisal process!)

Even in their core function

Which is to reward the good and punish the bad

 

Well, when you think about it

I can find some excuses for THEM

How do you expect THEM to cope

With the kind of rise in population

The world has seen from the good old days?

So many billions of souls

Calling out to them for

Miracles big and small

 

Agreed THEY are Gods

But even THEY, surely

Must be stressed and over-worked

Poverty, hunger, AIDS

Terrorist attacks, the War on Terror

Nuclear proliferation

Stock market booms and busts

Dictators and trolls

Floods, droughts, tsunamis

Child trafficking, porn sites

Violence against women

 

In between sorting out all this

Do you seriously expect THEM

To make the time

For a personal miracle for you?

 

Get real!

 

–Meena

 

A Special Week

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Last week was special for the Matriarchs. A week of reunions and catching-ups. Meeting old friends in new places. A week to celebrate friendship, and be grateful for good times, and even bad times, savoured and shared.

Sharing some thoughts that capture the spirit.

“We trust our friends to tell us what we need to know, and to shield us from what we don’t need to discover, and to have the wisdom to know the difference. Real friends offer both hard truths and soft landings, and realise that sometimes it is more important to be nice than to be honest. That too is knowledge that comes only with age…. In other words friends are what we have in addition to, or in lieu of therapists.”                Anna Quindlen

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Source: Google

–Mamata

Things That Got Our Teachers’ Goats

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A few weeks ago, I wrote about something that had our teachers and school management paranoid—so called ‘contraband books’. We had a well-stocked school library, but obviously we had an urge to read something beyond—like comics and M&Bs! Which our teachers and the nuns were determined to stop us from doing. One of the things that used to happen irregularly regularly were surprise checks. Suddenly about four teachers would walk into the classroom, and order us to open our desks and bags, and would riffle through them. Anyone caught with any book other than textbooks or school library books was sent off to the Principal, and had the book confiscated.

I marvel at those days of innocence, considering that as far as I know, no one was ever caught with anything more wicked than an Archie comic. Or yes, a Barbara Cartland. While Georgette Heyers were completely kosher and in fact, in the school library lists, and even M&Bs were tolerated (which meant we were not too nervous if a teacher heard us mention them), for some reason BCs really got the teachers paranoid.

They were also paranoid about what our hair was fastened with. It had to be black ribbons. Rubber bands, even black ones, got them. What to talk of ‘love in Tokyos’!

And socks. They had to be plain white, and NO DESIGN! The faintest sprays of flowers or creepers, even white on white, would get them on a trip.

Skirts had to be just above the knee. Anything shorter and there would be consequences. The girls with more oomph and guts found their way around this. They used to roll up the waist band of the skirt two or even three times, so that the skirts were at a daring mid-thigh. And roll them down, oh so innocently, when any strict teacher happened by.

All this was at Carmel Convent Delhi. But I am sure that readers of my generation would all relate to this.

I thank my teachers for the discipline they dinned into us. For the values they made a part of our lives. For the seriousness with which they taught us. For how earnestly they took their mission of making something of us.

–Meena

Word Play

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I am a logophile. Before you leap to dangerous conclusions, let me explain! I am a lover of words! Words fascinate me, excite me, and intrigue me—the sound of words, the use of words, and the play with words. While I run scared from attempting a Sudoku puzzle (I guess that makes me Numerophobic or Arithmophobic!) I cannot resist any kind of word game or puzzle. Scrabble is the only board game I enjoy. I feel insecure without the presence of my faithful dictionaries on my table, even when I can Google up a word with a single click.  I enjoy the act of turning the pages to find the word I am looking for and, in the process, discover at least a few new ones while browsing.

Perhaps the first word that got me hooked was supercalifragilisticexpialidocious from the film Mary Poppins. It sounded as wonderful as it meant. It took many hours to learn how to say this, and much longer to even dare to spell it out! Though an invented word, it later found its legitimacy in the Oxford English Dictionary. But it could not lay claim to being the longest word in the English language, the title of which is claimed by—take a deep breath—pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanokoniosis! (a lung disease caused by inhaling very fine ash and sand dust.)

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Source: Google

Over the years I have been noting down interesting words and word-related things.

Sharing some fun and games with words!

Palindrome

These are words or phrases that read the same in both directions. According to language experts palindromes are the most difficult kind of phrase to create.

The best known example: Madam I’m Adam.

An interesting one: A Man, A Plan, A Canal, Panama.

And a very clever one!

Doc, note, I dissent. A fast never prevents a fatness. I diet on cod.

Lipogram

This is a literary work in which one or more letters of the alphabet are excluded. The term lipogram comes from the ancient Greek leipográmmatos, which means ‘leaving out a letter of the alphabet’.

As far back as the 3rd century BC, Greek poet Tryphiodorus wrote an epic of 24 books, each one omitting one letter of the alphabet.

One of the most famous lipograms of more recent times (1939) is a 50,000 word novel called Gadsby. The author Ernest Vincent Wright makes no use of the most frequently used letter of the English alphabet—E.

A tiny extract illustrates how: ‘Upon this basis I am going to show you how a bunch of bright young folks did find a champion: a man with boys and girls of his own; a man so dominating and happy as individuality that youth is drawn to him as is a fly to a sugar bowl.’

From selective exclusion to all-inclusion—that is the Pangram!  This is a short sentence containing all 26 letters of the English alphabet. All the worthies who learnt touch typing on a manual typewriter will be glad to learn that the one sentence they pounded out, in endless practice, is the most famous Pangram: The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.

Cheers to all fellow logophiliacs, wordaholics, word fanatics, word nuts, logolepts, verbivores and, the even nobler, epeolatrists (worshipper of words).

May our tribe increase!

–Mamata

 

Starry, Starry Village

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Last week, I was in interior Andhra Pradesh. We were felicitating high-performing Std. 10 students from government schools of villages in our project area.

All was routine, till they announced one of the winners as Keerthi Chawla. I wasn’t sure I had heard right. It was too North-Indian a name for a village in AP. So I asked again what the child’s name was, and she reiterated that it was Keerthi Chawla. And she was speaking Telugu. I asked her if she belonged to those parts or her family had moved there. She told me she was very much from Dosari village. And also told me her full name, which was Vangapudi Keerthi Chawla.

I couldn’t wait for the function to finish to catch hold of my colleagues to ask what this was about. They told me that the trend in Dosari village was to name children after film stars. That is not an unusual trend—we all know that many a Rajesh or Dilip or Aishwarya were named about the eponymous stars. What was unusual of course was the adoption of the name—lock, stock and surname!

We thought we should get a little more into it. A very quick count in the primary school and Bala Badi in the village threw up 81 children who were named after stars: from Trishas to Tamannas to Anushas (these ladies don’t use surnames, I think). From among those who do use surnames, we found apart from Keerthi Chawla, also a Vidya Balan. Among the boys there were Nageswar Raos, Ram Charans and Prabhas.

(I have met many a Jhansi, Jhansi Rani and Jhansi Lakshmi from AP/Telangana. Not sure why these names are so popular here.)

I thought mine was my Keerthi Chawla was the most exciting find. But I was deflated when my colleague told me that in her previous job, where they used to provide education support for children from Tamilnadu slums, they had one child called David Beckham (Muthu David Beckham).

With what dreams do parents name their children?

How we look up to the stars!

Do they know?

–Meena

The Sounds of Silence

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When we were children and started becoming overly excited or noisy, our aunt would say “OK time for Shantini Ramat!”(the game of silence). All we had to do was to close our eyes and stay still and silent. This was not in the form of a “fingers on lips” punishment, but rather always had the most calming effect. Even as young children it made us aware of the many sounds that even silence was made up of, and sensitized us to the power of Quiet.

Many years later, as environmental educators, one of the exercises we often did in our workshops, with teachers or children, was to ask everyone to close their eyes and sit silently for just 5 minutes. After that we would ask them what sounds they heard / how they felt. It was interesting to note that they found this hard to describe or pinpoint. They were so unused to distinguishing individual sounds—even if they were obvious and strident like the honking of horns, the rumble traffic, the hum of the fan; or less obvious like the chirping of birds or squirrels.

We all live in a continual clutter of noise. Most often our ears are so tuned out of the subtle sounds around us, we can hear only the loudest, glaringly harshest and strident noises. We no longer know what silence sounds like. In fact we are almost afraid of the Quiet. Yet there is much to hear in silence. Even amidst the clamour of urban life, there are sounds that we can hear if we really listen—the early morning call of the lone bird, the rustling of leaves in the breeze, the buzz of the bee, the plop plop of the first raindrops and the steady gush of a downpour.

There is magic in silence, in being quiet. There is great power, beauty and creativity in silence.

This is beautifully captured in The Book of Quiet, a wonderfully sensitive children’s book by Deborah Underwood. Each page, lovingly illustrated by Renata Liwska, is dedicated to a different Quiet moment, beginning with “first one awake Quiet” and ending with “sound asleep Quiet.”

Some excerpts

ALL KINDS OF QUIETITUDES

Best friends don’t need to talk Quiet (Comfortable)

Trying not to hiccup Quiet (Embarrassed)

Last one to get picked from school Quiet (Nervous)

Sleeping sister Quiet (Tender)

First look at new hairstyle Quiet (Shocked)

“Silence is itself the stuff of substance; the moments it fills are not the in-betweenery of life but life itself — rich and nuanced and irrepressibly, if quietly, alive.” (Maria Popova)

–Mamata

 

A Magical Walk

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I remember it well—a mere 400 metre walk on our office campus in Ahmedabad. That day we were walking along the path that all of us took regularly; walking along with us was Professor HY Mohan Ram, a member of our Governing Council, who was there for the Council meeting. As we walked, Professor Mohan Ram talked—gently, softly, but with passion and excitement, pointing out plants that we saw every day, but, as we realised, we never really ‘looked at’.

“Look at this one”, he pointed at a plant, “this is Aduso. Its botanical name is Adhatoda vasika which means ‘that which the goat will not touch’. This is what is used for making medicines for cough and cold.” Going just two steps ahead, “You know the cactus, but did you know that there is not a single native cactus in the whole of Asia and Europe? All cactii are from the New World—Mexico, North America and South America.” ”Look at this magnificent neem tree.  Its botanical name Azadirachta indica comes from the Arabic for azad meaning ‘free’ and drakhta meaning ‘tree’. This is thought to be a tree indigenous to India, but there is some doubt if it is originally Indian. It may have originated on the Burma border and come to Bangladesh from there.” “Did you know that Lutyens, when planning the landscaping of Delhi’s roads, planted only native species. Each avenue was planted with one species of fruit tree.” Three steps ahead, we come to the white flower commonly called Chandni. Professor tells us, “Have you noted carefully the arrangement of petals of flowers? Most flower petals are usually in multiples of 3 or 5 (except in the case of the mustard flower).” “Many high school students know this as the shoe flower that they got for dissection in the exams. But why the name shoe flower? Because it is used to polish shoes! Its other name is hibiscus, and is believed to have originated in China.”

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Professor HYM had a fascinating story for every step that we took, drawing attention to the tiniest of flowers that we carelessly trampled underfoot, to the towering culms of bamboo. The path that took us 5-7 minutes to traverse became a magical mystery tour that took close to two hours. Through his eyes the blur of vegetation turned into a veritable treasure trove, with each plant glowing with its own special attributes.

Not long after this visit, Meena and I invited Professor HYM to contribute to a collection of tales of ‘Nature Heroes’ that we were putting together. He graciously agreed, and shared with us some of his journey, experiences and inspirations in a piece titled Reflections of a Botanist.  He writes “I have not pursued any single course. I have done what interests me and not what is in style. I have a deep interest in Indian classical music and photography.”

He concludes the piece with this, “What enlightenment have I received as a student of plant biology? I wish I could be like a tree: deep-rooted and firmly fixed, bearing a lofty bole and a broad canopy, continuously absorbing, synthesizing and renewing, unmindful of stresses and insults, resilient to changes and perpetually giving.”

In the passing away of Professor HY Mohan Ram the world has lost not only a botanist par excellence, but a much loved and respected teacher, researcher, and writer. For us, the Matriarchs, Professor Mohan Ram will always be remembered as a gentle, unassuming guide with a twinkle in his eyes, and a life-long inspiration whose visits to the Centre were like the Open Sesame to a fascinating world of flora.

A page from my notes on the Walk!  (Date 22 August 1998)

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–Mamata