August 18, 2011
Perhaps it was the intense physical activity of the lorry unloading under the fear of union attack; perhaps it was the hospital visit; Somehow, I had a case of severe shivering and fever after midnight yesterday. It lasted for an hour. Plenty of folks around have been down and hospitalized with fever here. H1N1, dengue fever, rat fever etc are frequently referred to. Ominous warnings about lowered Americanised immune system that I had heard in the US before leaving drew away any last hopes of sleep.
Fearing the worst, I sat in darkness flipping through the TV channels. Big B and Tabu were pretending to act in Cheeni Kum in one channel. Rajnikanth was romancing Manisha Koirala in another.
Same footage in all the news channels!
May be I was hallucinating!!
I have been seeing the same images all day for the last couple of days under the title of "Nation-wide agitation" by team Anna. Has the nation shrunk to one intersection in Delhi?!
All of a sudden, I started sweating profusely and the fever was over. And for those with fertile imagination, the answer is no, I hadn't flipped over to FTV!
Amma telephoned at 6am to ask if I was sick! How do mothers know?! Told her that I had a small tryst at night. This revelation led to a long string of advice about what to eat, how to shower, what not to do etc. Deja vu!
I was planning to sit in the front porch all day, enjoy the weather and M.P. Veerendra Kumar's book when my second youngest uncle showed up. He was upset that I hadn't called him to help with the unloading. He wanted to make up for it by opening and arranging the boxes immediately. He went about it for an hour, got tired and sat down to talk. Hilarious family politics information flowed freely. Like all younger siblings (in their late 50s), he had much to crib about the bullying by the older ones (in their 60s). May be I shouldn't have gone all sentimental about well-knit families in the journal yesterday! "You must go back to US! You will go mad if you live here!" he summed up.
After he was gone, it was back to me, the book and the glorious afternoon breeze. Sometimes the coconut fronds resonate in the wind sounding just like rain. If there are clothes hung out for drying in the terrace, this startles me. I have regained that great Indian 'run-for-your-clothes' instinct.
The book mentions the Jain Mahapurana started by Jinasenacharya and completed by Veerabhadracharya. In a description of Hastinapur, this Mahapurana, besides all the gushing about the natural beauty, wealth and well-behaved citizens, considers it important to mention that the citizens are adept in grammar and pronunciation. It was meant to be an exemplary quality of any great city. We have swung in the opposite direction now as I can see from the numerous show hosts and newscasters on the various TV channels. Much of this wretched diction could be excused if at least good amount of information was conveyed. But no! This is just innane exchange of cliches in horribly mangled language!
Kumbhamelas, I learnt, are celebrated on the four locations where it is believed that Indra's son Jayanthan put the pot of elixir (Amrit) down while fleeing with it from the Asuras (demons). Soul-cleansing and sin-removing properties of visits to these places are because some of the elixir was spilled when Jayanthan kept the pot down. Common folk flock to these holy spots during the festival hoping for their share of salvation. I can't help but think of the parallel between this and modern India especially since the anti-corruption agitation hogs the limelight. The common man (despicable, dark Asura), considerably larger in numbers, works hard to churn the economic ocean and bring up elixir. The previlaged few dynastic Devas (powers-that-be) want to keep it all and pass it to their sons who are running away with it. Common man is primed by religion to hope only for the pittance that these sons might drop along the way.
While unpacking the boxes that came from Chennai yesterday, found the prose version, prepared by a team of contemperory experts, of the Malayalam translation of the complete Mahabharatha by the great poet Kunjikuttan Thampuran (b. 1868). He had invented around 10,000 new words in Malayalam while doing the translation from Sanskrit. That is nearly a quarter of the number of words invented in English by Shakespeare and it is in a single work which took Thampuran 874 days to finish. That is a rate of around 143 verses translated per day! The work earned him the title 'Kerala Vyasa'.
Will relish reading it slowly...may be in 874 days! These days new Malayalam words are most frequently created in the youtube comments section of unbearable new album songs!
Yesterday there was a report on 6 'immigrant workers' (from Orissa) in Thiruvananthapuram poisoned by drinking water boiled with Kanjiram (Nux vomica, poison nut) tree leaves. The one who prepared the water, kept it bottled overnight and shared it with others first thing in the morning, died. Someone had told them that these leaves were excellent health tonic for energy boost. Actually, six leaves chewed are enough to kill a person. Death out of ignorance is always more tragic.
My sister's officemates threw a bachelorrette party this afternoon: a tradition that certainly didn't exist in the India I left a decade ago.
I spent the afternoon reading and making up for last night's lost sleep.
The book had two chapters dedicted to Bhrthrhari who is one of my favorite historical characters. Bhrthrhari was a Shudra (4th caste of comman man)King of Ujjain. But his dad was an illustrious Brahmin scholar (1st class caste of priests) called Govindacharya.
Govindacharya was taught all the knowledge in the world by a Brahma-rakshas. A Brahma-rakshas is a zombie Brahmin who has to wander the earth in spirit till his curse for bad deeds or for not sharing his knowledge, is lifted.
Before teaching Govindacharya, the Brahma-rakshas gives him a potion that will keep him tireless and sleepless so that he can get the learning done quickly. After attaining all the knowledge, Govindacharya goes his way and Brahma-rakshas finally goes to heaven. Wandering into the nearby city, Govindacharya gets captivated by a maiden bathing in a pond as maidens tend to do in these stories. He rushes into the water and immediately collapses uncounscious because with all the blood rushing below the belt he had forgotten that the effect of the magic potion wears off if he touches water. He is doomed to sleep off all the magically postponed tiredness in one shot. I admire that his first instinct was to rush to the water on seeing the maiden if he had been sitting all those months without touching water. Nowadays the instinct is to reach for a spray of deodorant instead of a bucket of water.
Anyways, the maiden, who belonged to a rich shudra family, tended to Govindacharya in his days of coma. When he came back to his senses, he was thrilled to find that this gorgeous albeit low-caste lady had served him.
He wanted to reward her.
She said, "Marry me, You gorgeous, fair Brahmin, You!"
He said, "Yes, by all means, but first I have to honor tradition". As a Brahmin, he had to marry one woman from each of the upper castes before he can get to a Shudra. What a great tradition!
Govindacharya swiftly finds a bride each from all the top castes including a Kshatriya (warrior class) princess of Ujjain. All the four wives promptly deliver him sons:
Vararuchi from the Brahmin wife,
Vikramaditya (famous for the Vikram-Betal stories) from the Kshatriya wife,
Bhatti from the Vaishya wife and
Bhrthrhari from the Shudra wife.
Of these, Vararuchi comes to south India with his low-caste (weaver) wife and produces the 'clan of 12' from whom all the castes in Kerala descent!
Govindacharya assumes the throne of Ujjain after his father-in-law's death. Though he had a Kshatriya son, after himself, the charge is given to his favorite son, Bhrthrhari, the Shudra.
Needless to say, this was considered major revolution in those days of strict caste roles. Some historians believe that the same Govindacharya later became the guru of Adi Shankaracharya, the reviver of Hinduism and the proponent of Advaitha (non-duality) philosophy.
More about Bhrthrhari's astouding legacy and endearing personality tomorrow.
I'll finish up for today refering to a sigh of relief in the family. The good old postcard did reach Mohanan, the gardener. He called yesterday. The milk booth is still in business and his marriage is intact. The telephone was out of order. Like many friends and relatives who have been telephoning here, Mohanan also thought I was Achan just by my voice.
I guess it is this continuation of the voice, in the ancient days of unwritten records and only oral legacy, that lead to the obsession with the need for a son!
Perhaps it was the intense physical activity of the lorry unloading under the fear of union attack; perhaps it was the hospital visit; Somehow, I had a case of severe shivering and fever after midnight yesterday. It lasted for an hour. Plenty of folks around have been down and hospitalized with fever here. H1N1, dengue fever, rat fever etc are frequently referred to. Ominous warnings about lowered Americanised immune system that I had heard in the US before leaving drew away any last hopes of sleep.
Fearing the worst, I sat in darkness flipping through the TV channels. Big B and Tabu were pretending to act in Cheeni Kum in one channel. Rajnikanth was romancing Manisha Koirala in another.
Same footage in all the news channels!
May be I was hallucinating!!
I have been seeing the same images all day for the last couple of days under the title of "Nation-wide agitation" by team Anna. Has the nation shrunk to one intersection in Delhi?!
All of a sudden, I started sweating profusely and the fever was over. And for those with fertile imagination, the answer is no, I hadn't flipped over to FTV!
Amma telephoned at 6am to ask if I was sick! How do mothers know?! Told her that I had a small tryst at night. This revelation led to a long string of advice about what to eat, how to shower, what not to do etc. Deja vu!
I was planning to sit in the front porch all day, enjoy the weather and M.P. Veerendra Kumar's book when my second youngest uncle showed up. He was upset that I hadn't called him to help with the unloading. He wanted to make up for it by opening and arranging the boxes immediately. He went about it for an hour, got tired and sat down to talk. Hilarious family politics information flowed freely. Like all younger siblings (in their late 50s), he had much to crib about the bullying by the older ones (in their 60s). May be I shouldn't have gone all sentimental about well-knit families in the journal yesterday! "You must go back to US! You will go mad if you live here!" he summed up.
After he was gone, it was back to me, the book and the glorious afternoon breeze. Sometimes the coconut fronds resonate in the wind sounding just like rain. If there are clothes hung out for drying in the terrace, this startles me. I have regained that great Indian 'run-for-your-clothes' instinct.
The book mentions the Jain Mahapurana started by Jinasenacharya and completed by Veerabhadracharya. In a description of Hastinapur, this Mahapurana, besides all the gushing about the natural beauty, wealth and well-behaved citizens, considers it important to mention that the citizens are adept in grammar and pronunciation. It was meant to be an exemplary quality of any great city. We have swung in the opposite direction now as I can see from the numerous show hosts and newscasters on the various TV channels. Much of this wretched diction could be excused if at least good amount of information was conveyed. But no! This is just innane exchange of cliches in horribly mangled language!Kumbhamelas, I learnt, are celebrated on the four locations where it is believed that Indra's son Jayanthan put the pot of elixir (Amrit) down while fleeing with it from the Asuras (demons). Soul-cleansing and sin-removing properties of visits to these places are because some of the elixir was spilled when Jayanthan kept the pot down. Common folk flock to these holy spots during the festival hoping for their share of salvation. I can't help but think of the parallel between this and modern India especially since the anti-corruption agitation hogs the limelight. The common man (despicable, dark Asura), considerably larger in numbers, works hard to churn the economic ocean and bring up elixir. The previlaged few dynastic Devas (powers-that-be) want to keep it all and pass it to their sons who are running away with it. Common man is primed by religion to hope only for the pittance that these sons might drop along the way.
 |
| Kunjikuttan Thampuran |
Will relish reading it slowly...may be in 874 days! These days new Malayalam words are most frequently created in the youtube comments section of unbearable new album songs!
Yesterday there was a report on 6 'immigrant workers' (from Orissa) in Thiruvananthapuram poisoned by drinking water boiled with Kanjiram (Nux vomica, poison nut) tree leaves. The one who prepared the water, kept it bottled overnight and shared it with others first thing in the morning, died. Someone had told them that these leaves were excellent health tonic for energy boost. Actually, six leaves chewed are enough to kill a person. Death out of ignorance is always more tragic.
My sister's officemates threw a bachelorrette party this afternoon: a tradition that certainly didn't exist in the India I left a decade ago.
I spent the afternoon reading and making up for last night's lost sleep.
Govindacharya was taught all the knowledge in the world by a Brahma-rakshas. A Brahma-rakshas is a zombie Brahmin who has to wander the earth in spirit till his curse for bad deeds or for not sharing his knowledge, is lifted.
Before teaching Govindacharya, the Brahma-rakshas gives him a potion that will keep him tireless and sleepless so that he can get the learning done quickly. After attaining all the knowledge, Govindacharya goes his way and Brahma-rakshas finally goes to heaven. Wandering into the nearby city, Govindacharya gets captivated by a maiden bathing in a pond as maidens tend to do in these stories. He rushes into the water and immediately collapses uncounscious because with all the blood rushing below the belt he had forgotten that the effect of the magic potion wears off if he touches water. He is doomed to sleep off all the magically postponed tiredness in one shot. I admire that his first instinct was to rush to the water on seeing the maiden if he had been sitting all those months without touching water. Nowadays the instinct is to reach for a spray of deodorant instead of a bucket of water.
Anyways, the maiden, who belonged to a rich shudra family, tended to Govindacharya in his days of coma. When he came back to his senses, he was thrilled to find that this gorgeous albeit low-caste lady had served him.
He wanted to reward her.
She said, "Marry me, You gorgeous, fair Brahmin, You!"
He said, "Yes, by all means, but first I have to honor tradition". As a Brahmin, he had to marry one woman from each of the upper castes before he can get to a Shudra. What a great tradition!
Govindacharya swiftly finds a bride each from all the top castes including a Kshatriya (warrior class) princess of Ujjain. All the four wives promptly deliver him sons:
Vararuchi from the Brahmin wife,
Bhatti from the Vaishya wife and
Bhrthrhari from the Shudra wife.
Of these, Vararuchi comes to south India with his low-caste (weaver) wife and produces the 'clan of 12' from whom all the castes in Kerala descent!
Govindacharya assumes the throne of Ujjain after his father-in-law's death. Though he had a Kshatriya son, after himself, the charge is given to his favorite son, Bhrthrhari, the Shudra.
Needless to say, this was considered major revolution in those days of strict caste roles. Some historians believe that the same Govindacharya later became the guru of Adi Shankaracharya, the reviver of Hinduism and the proponent of Advaitha (non-duality) philosophy.
More about Bhrthrhari's astouding legacy and endearing personality tomorrow.
I'll finish up for today refering to a sigh of relief in the family. The good old postcard did reach Mohanan, the gardener. He called yesterday. The milk booth is still in business and his marriage is intact. The telephone was out of order. Like many friends and relatives who have been telephoning here, Mohanan also thought I was Achan just by my voice.
I guess it is this continuation of the voice, in the ancient days of unwritten records and only oral legacy, that lead to the obsession with the need for a son!
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