Tuesday, August 9, 2011 at 10:20pm
Thanks to the frantic wedding inviting process, I have managed to criss-cross Thiruvananthapuram city fully once already in these 6 days. In almost all the homes visited, there is a newfound fondness for Sri Padmanabha Swami idols and paintings. I have read through four chapters of the book on the temple’s history that was gifted to me yesterday. Fascinating stuff! It requires a dedicated series of blog post and multiple readings to digest all the info.
Dr. A.G. Menon (the author and my soon to be b-i-l’s granddad) had access to the unpublished “Mathilakom” records maintained by the temple on cadjan leaves thanks to the patronage he received from the royal family during the research. Unlike most history books I have come across in India (which completely avoid mentioning references and usually reflect the authoritative tone of a drunk, ex-military jawan starting his stories with “I tell you, man. This is all true….”), Dr. Menon’s thesis is choke full of footnotes and full length chapters dedicated to his various sources. And I am not saying this because he is my soon to be b-i-l’s granddad!
With 3 million cadjan (palm fronts specially prepared and tied together) documents, Padmanabhaswami temple has apparently the largest record collection in India dating back to 14th century. The book mentions many interesting recorded events.
An easily memorable one is the death of one Annakutty who fell into the temple well while it was being drained in 1627. When Annakutty died, the king asked the temple committee (more about this bunch later) to consult previous records to see what amends need to be done to ameliorate the karmic stink. But of course, first he did the standard cow giveaways for the Brahmins. In old India, any screw up could be fixed by prescribed amount of cow towing to Brahmin homes.
The committee found that 70 years before Annakutty, a temple priest had fallen into the well as well and the temple had suspended the performance of all but three rituals for the next thirteen years.
There is the incident of another temple priest who had a vision of Sri Padmanabha asking him to find some stuff for a ritual from a low caste woman’s house. I am pretty sure that vision appeared to him after he was caught coming out of the woman’s house.
Dr. Menon rightly points out that the highly conservative nature of the temple and life in the city is the root cause of the meticulous record-keeping.
I can already see a huge potential readership if this book is cleaned up a bit (manual typesetting supplies hilarious errors) and reprinted as a collectible edition. May be I should discuss business as soon as the marriage is over!
The city has lot more traffic but some roads have been widened, some traffic lights added and more are in the works. Superstar Mohanlal doesn’t have any movies running but his face is plastered on most walls. The poster markets the course in animation and graphics offered by his studio, Vismayamax. Finally, it must have dawned on him that shifting to education instead of entertainment makes better business sense. For reasons I cannot fathom, Tamil star Vijay has plenty of fan clubs in the city and outskirts who have put up several hoardings.
Most important activity this morning was hanging a ripening full banana cluster (I don’t know the English equivalent for the Malayalam word ‘kula’) from the kitchen ceiling. Now we can pluck and eat the low hanging fruit every time we walk into the kitchen. There is a primordial pleasure in this apish behavior!
Located the Eloor lending library near by. But it was closed. I am still showing up at places according to the American 8am opening time. Need to adjust to the local 10am start. A stern board hangs outside the library warning “Only Members. No relatives/friends”. It is a happy thought that nerds here are not loners but have a social life that features friends and relatives.
Lunch was bliss with fish head curry and drumstick leaves ‘thoran’. As I was working through the matsyamasthishka (fish brain), the Cisco set top box of the Asianet cable TV developed a Microsoft-esque problem of rebooting every 20 seconds. The box comes with a customer service number written on top of it: 9388800800
“Hello, Asianet customer service, this is Anjali”
“Anjali, I am calling from Elankom Gardens. We got a connection couple of days ago.”
“Entha Sir prashnam?’ (What is the problem, sir?)
“Set top box rebooting”
“Picture undo sir?” (Picture there, sir?)
“Und, pakshe only for 20 seconds” (Yes, but only for 20 seconds)
“Oh ok Sir, sorry Sir customer id number please.”
I gave her the details.
“I have noted the complaint. Technicians will contact you soon.”
As soon as she said that, Amma’s cellphone buzzed with a text message confirmation of the complaint filed. Half an hour later, another text message about the successful resolution of the problem.
This kind of service did not exist seven years ago!
Overdose of Padmanabhaswami trivia and Sanskrit transliterated in English (note the inspired use of matsyamasthishka above) put me to sleep in the afternoon. I think it had more to do with the fact that I had been up since 2:30 am. I woke up that early to check on the markets tanking in the US but stayed up watching the coverage of the London riots. What a mess!
It looked like the day was going to end without a single mention of my prospective wedding when Amma decided we should do some more local invitations.
A family friend aunty launched the assault:
“We must grab him and get him married.”
Amma smiles. I shift uncomfortably in the sofa.
“Well, may be not grab,” she relents, “but getting married is so important.”
More smiling. More shifting.
“At this age you may not feel like it, but you will regret when you grow older.”
“But they do feel like it,” Rema Aunty interjects.
“And once you are older, you will get only older women [laughs]” That was supposed to be a scary thought couched in humor.
“Since these kids these days grow up abroad, they don’t think marriage is important.” Toothy grins remain the only reaction she manages to elicit still, so she steps it up a notch, “Or if he likes somebody, we will happily conduct the wedding.”
Aha, Rubicon! There is a clandestine swipe at “character” hidden in that remark.
Amma jumps to defend my good “character” with her smile transmogrifying into an uncomfortable laughter, “But he has nothing like that!”
Me, apparently ‘the good, cultured, unspoiled, virgin boy from a dignified family’, can only smile!
Their own utter lack of physical intimacy must be the main reason why the older generation in India obsessively seeks the vicarious pleasure in getting their younger generation to mate. May be someone should conduct a psychological study along these lines. Someone who is willing to be shunned and socially outcast for even entertaining such an “uncultured” notion!
Late in the evening yesterday, we visited one of Amma’s old coworkers. She has aged considerably and has limited mobility. Yet she was very talkative. As usual, ‘the lives of others’ was the main topic. There was mention of a boy in the family who married a ‘Christian’ girl and a girl who married a ‘Konkani’ guy.
Millions of years of evolution, thousands of years of civilization and decades of a rich personal life go into the making of each unique individual.
Yet, in one fell swoop, they are dismissed as ‘Christian girl’ and ‘Konkani boy’.
The myriad facets of their personalities, their traits, their upbringing, their passions, flaws, talents, none of it matters.
The only sense of identity this society will ever value lies in a bunch of godforsaken ‘God-given’ labels.
Thanks to the frantic wedding inviting process, I have managed to criss-cross Thiruvananthapuram city fully once already in these 6 days. In almost all the homes visited, there is a newfound fondness for Sri Padmanabha Swami idols and paintings. I have read through four chapters of the book on the temple’s history that was gifted to me yesterday. Fascinating stuff! It requires a dedicated series of blog post and multiple readings to digest all the info.
Dr. A.G. Menon (the author and my soon to be b-i-l’s granddad) had access to the unpublished “Mathilakom” records maintained by the temple on cadjan leaves thanks to the patronage he received from the royal family during the research. Unlike most history books I have come across in India (which completely avoid mentioning references and usually reflect the authoritative tone of a drunk, ex-military jawan starting his stories with “I tell you, man. This is all true….”), Dr. Menon’s thesis is choke full of footnotes and full length chapters dedicated to his various sources. And I am not saying this because he is my soon to be b-i-l’s granddad!
With 3 million cadjan (palm fronts specially prepared and tied together) documents, Padmanabhaswami temple has apparently the largest record collection in India dating back to 14th century. The book mentions many interesting recorded events.
An easily memorable one is the death of one Annakutty who fell into the temple well while it was being drained in 1627. When Annakutty died, the king asked the temple committee (more about this bunch later) to consult previous records to see what amends need to be done to ameliorate the karmic stink. But of course, first he did the standard cow giveaways for the Brahmins. In old India, any screw up could be fixed by prescribed amount of cow towing to Brahmin homes.
The committee found that 70 years before Annakutty, a temple priest had fallen into the well as well and the temple had suspended the performance of all but three rituals for the next thirteen years.
There is the incident of another temple priest who had a vision of Sri Padmanabha asking him to find some stuff for a ritual from a low caste woman’s house. I am pretty sure that vision appeared to him after he was caught coming out of the woman’s house.
Dr. Menon rightly points out that the highly conservative nature of the temple and life in the city is the root cause of the meticulous record-keeping.
I can already see a huge potential readership if this book is cleaned up a bit (manual typesetting supplies hilarious errors) and reprinted as a collectible edition. May be I should discuss business as soon as the marriage is over!
The city has lot more traffic but some roads have been widened, some traffic lights added and more are in the works. Superstar Mohanlal doesn’t have any movies running but his face is plastered on most walls. The poster markets the course in animation and graphics offered by his studio, Vismayamax. Finally, it must have dawned on him that shifting to education instead of entertainment makes better business sense. For reasons I cannot fathom, Tamil star Vijay has plenty of fan clubs in the city and outskirts who have put up several hoardings.
 |
| The low hanging fruit from the kitchen ceiling that the resident apes have been relishing. |
Located the Eloor lending library near by. But it was closed. I am still showing up at places according to the American 8am opening time. Need to adjust to the local 10am start. A stern board hangs outside the library warning “Only Members. No relatives/friends”. It is a happy thought that nerds here are not loners but have a social life that features friends and relatives.
Lunch was bliss with fish head curry and drumstick leaves ‘thoran’. As I was working through the matsyamasthishka (fish brain), the Cisco set top box of the Asianet cable TV developed a Microsoft-esque problem of rebooting every 20 seconds. The box comes with a customer service number written on top of it: 9388800800
“Hello, Asianet customer service, this is Anjali”
“Anjali, I am calling from Elankom Gardens. We got a connection couple of days ago.”
“Entha Sir prashnam?’ (What is the problem, sir?)
“Set top box rebooting”
“Picture undo sir?” (Picture there, sir?)
“Und, pakshe only for 20 seconds” (Yes, but only for 20 seconds)
“Oh ok Sir, sorry Sir customer id number please.”
I gave her the details.
“I have noted the complaint. Technicians will contact you soon.”
As soon as she said that, Amma’s cellphone buzzed with a text message confirmation of the complaint filed. Half an hour later, another text message about the successful resolution of the problem.
This kind of service did not exist seven years ago!
Overdose of Padmanabhaswami trivia and Sanskrit transliterated in English (note the inspired use of matsyamasthishka above) put me to sleep in the afternoon. I think it had more to do with the fact that I had been up since 2:30 am. I woke up that early to check on the markets tanking in the US but stayed up watching the coverage of the London riots. What a mess!
It looked like the day was going to end without a single mention of my prospective wedding when Amma decided we should do some more local invitations.
A family friend aunty launched the assault:
“We must grab him and get him married.”
Amma smiles. I shift uncomfortably in the sofa.
“Well, may be not grab,” she relents, “but getting married is so important.”
More smiling. More shifting.
“At this age you may not feel like it, but you will regret when you grow older.”
“But they do feel like it,” Rema Aunty interjects.
“And once you are older, you will get only older women [laughs]” That was supposed to be a scary thought couched in humor.
“Since these kids these days grow up abroad, they don’t think marriage is important.” Toothy grins remain the only reaction she manages to elicit still, so she steps it up a notch, “Or if he likes somebody, we will happily conduct the wedding.”
Aha, Rubicon! There is a clandestine swipe at “character” hidden in that remark.
Amma jumps to defend my good “character” with her smile transmogrifying into an uncomfortable laughter, “But he has nothing like that!”
Me, apparently ‘the good, cultured, unspoiled, virgin boy from a dignified family’, can only smile!
Their own utter lack of physical intimacy must be the main reason why the older generation in India obsessively seeks the vicarious pleasure in getting their younger generation to mate. May be someone should conduct a psychological study along these lines. Someone who is willing to be shunned and socially outcast for even entertaining such an “uncultured” notion!
Late in the evening yesterday, we visited one of Amma’s old coworkers. She has aged considerably and has limited mobility. Yet she was very talkative. As usual, ‘the lives of others’ was the main topic. There was mention of a boy in the family who married a ‘Christian’ girl and a girl who married a ‘Konkani’ guy.
Millions of years of evolution, thousands of years of civilization and decades of a rich personal life go into the making of each unique individual.
Yet, in one fell swoop, they are dismissed as ‘Christian girl’ and ‘Konkani boy’.
The myriad facets of their personalities, their traits, their upbringing, their passions, flaws, talents, none of it matters.
The only sense of identity this society will ever value lies in a bunch of godforsaken ‘God-given’ labels.
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