April 3, 2012
The Trivandrum Observatory that was established in 1832 under self-taught and lesser known astronomer, John Caldecott under instruction from King Swati Thirunal is gearing up to celebrate its anniversary. Here's a neat page on this astronomer who is buried in Christ Church, Thiruvananthapuram: http://indicatorloops.com/caldecott.htm
The venerable Lewis Black has a classic stand up routine that can be titled the "end of the world". He talks about being in Houston, walking down a downtown street and seeing a starbucks by the side. The last thing one would expect when looking across the street from the front of a starbucks would be to see another starbucks. Yet, that's precisely what Houston offers. This, for Mr. Black, is a time-space warp and the end of the universe.
Let me tell you a local Thiruvanathapuram version.
There are two ways to get from our house to Ajith's house. One, I can walk down the pedestrian-only narrow alley right behind our house that progressively widens towards Idapazhinji and from there on to Kochar road till I reach Pullekonam lane. The other route is to take the wide royal Vellayambalam-Sasthamangalam road till Sasthamangalam and then head to Pullekonam lane by the side of the Raja Keshavadas High School.
Since I had gone via the latter the last time, I descended down the alley this evening. Since yesterday, devotional and film songs could be heard at our house. It is temple season and there are so many in the vicinity with more springing up by the day, I wasn't sure about the source of this latest round of round the clock, unasked for musical entertainment. As soon as I had walked a 100 meters today, the nearest source manifested itself, hung on an electric post right next to a small apartment building.
As I walked further pitying the folks who live in the area under the onslaught, more and more heavy duty black box speaker cousins of the first source revealed themselves on more electric posts. The number of speakers in each cluster grew incrementally as I got closer to the mother source: a relatively new temple in the ThampuranKunnu colony.
A grand red cloth and bamboo arch with gold confetti fringes and gilt fonts announced the temple name and other event information at the turning where the colony road joins Kochar road. This arch neatly framed the multicolored plastic cartons that bring tonnes to fish to the Idapazhinji market every day, stacked up like a really bored giant's lego set in the evening.
Now as one gets onto Kochar road, with at least 20 speakers of around 400 W each, adjusting to the full fledged blaring of some Yesudas devotional number, the last thing one would expect, like Lewis Black, is to see another temple festival across the road.
Yet, my friends,...there it was!
It is a comparatively smaller shrine, but they too are having a large enough festival.
They too have 40 MW speakers...at least half as many as the previous temple.
They too are blaring another Yesudas song.
The speaker sets alternate between the electric posts and the make-shift support poles freshly erected.
Song plus song creates pure bewildering noise!
Two high octane devotional music streams in head on collision.
The steady flow of vehicles on the road can add precious little to the situation.
This may never come up in your life; but if you are ever asked what 8 KW of Yesudas's grand voice when added to another 8 KW Yesudas creates, confidently say something unimaginably obscene.
I am dumbfounded but I want to scream at the same time. And I end up smiling.
Because I don't know how to react anymore.
The usually plentiful stray dogs in the area have totally vanished under this onslaught. But ardent devotees and even more enthusiastic organizers are actually going about performing their "deeply meaningful" rituals in this absolutely multiple-building-blocks-busting chaos!
Can human beings be so mindlessly numb and stupid? Which deity is thus satisfied? What purpose is served?
It is beyond my comprehension. But isn't that precisely what religion and belief systems are all about?!...being beyond comprehension?!
I accelerate my walk wondering how people have the confidence of having more babies in such a society!
Perhaps, having a baby is the precisely the inoculation against all such worries.
When you hear about global warming, forest incursions, carbon foot prints, shifting rivers, rising sea levels, vanishing species, deforestation, plastic accumulation, lifestyle diseases, unmanageable garbage situation, incorrigible corruption, stupendous superstition, fundamentalism, sectarianism...look at that cute baby's immaculate toothless smile.
They have no idea what a hellhole we have prepared for them!
They don't have a prayer in this society.
In fact, what they have instead is 16 KWs of prayer simultaneously emanating from opposing speaker systems....
This is the same city that once inspired men like Caldecott....divine comedy!
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