God Goats Humans Kids

B takes his son to St.Thomas mount. That's a small hillock in chennai where St. Thomas was allegedly killed. There is a church built by the portuguese at the summit. And there is this tall, fiarly imposing statue of a Golden colored Jesus. So B's son sees people praying to the statue and asks B if he could too. B agrees. So the kid apparently brings his palms together, in standard Hindu prayer style, and tries to reach out to Jesus with a non-silent 'Gajaananam Bootha ganaathi saevitham'* shloka**! :). Funny and profound, no?

I don't know if Jesus or Ganesha had gotten confused, but adult humans are certainly a confused lot. In the context of the above incident, the basis of a lot of recent ill happenings seem ridiculous.In 'The unbearable lightness of being', Milan Kundera says that how someone treats those weaker to him/her determine's his/her niceness. He goes on to say that the human race is pretty much screwed up going by the way it treats animals. He talks about a more powerful species (hypothetical) coming in and treating us the way we treat, say, hens and goats and rats and guinea pigs, or something to that effect. 'Half a kilo boy meat, preferably thigh piece', someone from that species could say. Or use 20 year old women as 'guinea pigs' for untried drugs. Their biology classes could include dissection of 3 year olds to understand the human digestive system. Morbid, no? But we have Darwin, Survival of the fittest, Food cycle, Food web et al to explain the whole thing. OK, i could use some LSD now.

Anyways, all trash aside, the image of a kid saying 'Gajananam' to Jesus atop St.Thomas mount seems idyllic, and brings a smile. On that note, happy 2009 people.

*Shloka - A sanskrit hymn...
*Gajaananam - A shloka on Lord Ganesha...

Haridwar...

Dear River...


Saffron...


The girl in pink...


Ganga-mayyaa ki jai ho!...


Haridwar. Another place i fleetingly dipped in, in transit. There are so many places like that. That i managed to pause, take a look, before moving on (When you are on a highway, and you see these narrow lefts with jaded signboards announcing obscure names, do you wonder about that place and the people there, and have the urge to take that turn?). And almost all of them have left indelible marks behind. Because of the brevity, maybe. Had a day to kill and i had to choose between Taj Mahal and Haridwar. Laziness and the Delhi-heat helped me settle for Haridwar.

I wanted to take a dip in the Ganges(Har-ki-paudi) and witness the Ganga-aarathi. When i go to a place of prominence for the first time, i always do the things people typically go there for. Explorations of 'beynond the typical' would happen on future trips. So i took a Rickshaw to Har-ki-paudi. I would've normally walked.But walking was all i had done for an entire month. So decided to pamper myself a bit.

I got off at Har-ki-paudi. Saw the Ganges rushing by. Wandered around aimlessly. A 'Sadhu' walked upto me, put a Tilak on my forehead, chanted something in Sanskrit. Then he asked me for money. I smiled at him in response. He had a very serene face. He smiled back and walked on. I regretted not having parted with some money. But i wouldn't have liked it if i had paid him either. So it was alright. Then i decided to take a dip. The water was quite cold. But not unbearably cold. What hit me was the speed, the swiftness of the flow. Was in the waters for a while, letting the Ganges cleanse me(for me, only in the literal sense)...

And then it was time for Ganga-aarathi. Happens twice a day. At 7 am and 7 pm. It was a frenzied affair. I was unprepared for the kindof collective energy being vented out. It was impossible to keep myself from feeling one with the things around me. There was a moment's envy when i saw people whose faith was so nakedly visible. There were uniformed guys hawking wishes from Ganga-Mayya, 100 bucks per wish. There were quite a lot of buyers. There were a couple of firangs capturing Indian mysticism for other firangs. And then there was this little girl in pink, holding a pink and green camera. She was a darling. She befriended me with an array of curious questions. And then she asked the firang about his camera. And for every response of his, she claimed her camera could do that too. I actually felt paternal. Took me by surprise. The actual aarathi was a visual treat. The darkness and the fire. It ended with the entire crowd singing a Bhajan on Ganga-mayyaa in chorus (the tune was that of the Bhajan 'Om Jai Jagadeeshahare', which i love). I got a high.

I sat by the river for some more time. I walked back to my hotel room rather slowly. Original plan was to go to a bar, get a drink and then crash. But i wanted to stay in a totally conscious state. Didn't want the blur of alcohol at that point. So i went to a restaurant instead, ate, spoke to M (who was on vacation in Delhi), and got back to 'English August'...

This experience increased my resolve to see Allahabad's Kumbh Mela atleast once...

Uttarkashi..

I like small towns. Touristy ones. Quaint ones. Rameshwaram, Hampi, Mahabalipuram, Pondicherry, Gokarna, Yaelagiri, Manali... They're filled with people from far and wide. People of different kinds. Some, energitically running around to squeeze in all the places they had read about, in a 2 day span. Some, sitting back sipping tea and drinking words out of a book. The hippie kind. Without a fixed agenda. Sitting in exotically named eateries that prefer white-skinned customers to brown-skinned ones. You could walk around. Taking in all this. Putting stories to faces. Wondering if India is the only place where the natives are racist against the natives. Wondering a lot of other things. But the air is very holidayee and it is generally nice. The obvious reason is probably that you would be there on a break, and you are predisposed to feel holidayee...but still..

Happened to spend some time in Uttarkashi recently. While at NIM hostel, we were allowed two 3 hour slots in Uttarkashi town for 'shopping'. The objective was to buy essentials before going to the higher altitudes. I was not inclined to shop. So generally walked around town. Ate veg momos in multiple shops. Drank multiple teas. Took random pictures. Sat by the Bhagirathi. Gaped at beautifully arranged coconut slices, arranged against a bright red plastic sheet. Did not take a picture cos i thought i might offend the shop-keeper (i dint want him to go, 'here comes another fkin tourist taking pictures of ppl trying to make a living!'). Bought a slice of coconut and ate though. Then there was this long suspension bridge across Bhagirathi. And the omnipresent Sadhus. Quite a few of them smoking what i beleive is ganja, on a terrace by the river. Pseudo-nirvana. Temporary suspension of reality. Not that it is bad. Quantum smokes of heaven? Tried it once in a far away land. Gives a weird kindof high. Then there was this small temple by the river. Sat there watching faces. Faces earnest in prayer. It is nice to watch people pray no. Whatever they're they'll probably be more inclined to be vice-less at that point in time. Not sure though. At length, my 3 hours got over and i reluctantly walked back to our bus, to resume the brief regimental life. Not before Uttarkashi firmly added itself to the list of small towns i would gladly go back to.

On the way back from Uttarkashi to Chennai, managed to spend a day in Haridwar..will keep that for some other time...

Thadiyendamol

Peak-a-boo


Pooja (Mani's wife) minutes before she fell off the edge!..

The trip didn't get jinxed as i had feared in the previous post. But if you head up to the Thadiyendamol peak assuming that you'll find water in the forests close by you're fucked. Myself and Mani had to do go down half the way to fetch pails of water (for vodka, noodles/soup, plain consumption, in that order of priority). Should've listened to Aroon (http://www.arunwho.com/). He had asked us to fill water supplies on the way up...Anyways alls well that ends well (assuming that the nagging pain in my knee would go away in time!)..

Went with friends from college and some others they knew. The crowd had people that covered the entire gamut of the 'talking' spectrum...one extremely garrulous kind...one extremely silent kind...and others somewhere in between. Was good fun...Camped at the peak, ate, drank and made merry...Spoke late into the night...conversation strewn with 'profound' statements like "Hinduism is a way of life"(contributor - Gaurav, if you know him you'll also know that only alcohol can make him say things like this), "Evolution is bullshit. Someone should've created all these things" (contributor - Aroon, i know he'll say this even now)...

On the way back, Aroon helped the cause of future trekkers by making the huge boulder beside the trail to the stream, conspicously spell out (a little wrongly) the magic word "WATR". The meticulous Mani, in his blog (http://freevudu.blogspot.com/), as expected, has written a checklist for future Thadiyendamol visitors.

My camera ran out of batteries, so couldnt take too many pictures. Aroon has posted some pics he took here

Happy? New year

It is a little late in the day. It is all manufactured anyways, so whats the big deal...for whatever it is worth

new year wishes to anyone who drops by...

 

New year eves were so much fun back in Trichy, when i was a school kid...Dad was this social butterfly...

some 7-8 neighbouring families would get together at my home (ofcourse i chipped in for the PR work, but Dad

was the prime mover)...there were quite a few kids who were kindof peers, and we managed to have some real

good fun.

 

Back then festivals were fun as well...one of the first things i used to do every Jan was to check how

far away Diwali was. During Diwali, we had this undeclared contest in our street for bursting the 1st cracker of the day.

Almost every time, it was won buy this school senior of mine called Jayashree, who lived in the last house in our street.

Her standard cracker-time was 2:30 am...cant beat that. I never made a real effort to win it, but even i used to be up by

3:30 or so. During the day, everyone went around everyone else's houses eating free sweets (we had to offer sthing different,

dad was an out-of-the box thinker..so we would give visiters salted-boiled peanuts...and that would be such a relief for the

sweet-weary tongues).

 

And Pongal (Shankranthi) meant getting up early to walk the streets of Bhelpur (the colony where i lived) to have a look at the

rangolis (entries for Bhelpur's rangoli contest, we never won it). There would be this colony-wide competetions. Mom used to

sing (and some of use used to cheer for her, she was good, and won it a couple of times)...Dad used to sing too (and i would

be embarassed...he wasnt particularly good, but was a good sport)...and at times Sis used to sing too (she was good). I was

never anything more than an onlooker, except the one time when i came 2nd in the musical chairs contest:)...

 

Coming back to now...festivals have ceased to matter...sometimes it is good to be part of a whole, to celebrate when everyone

else celebrates, and not question it or reason it out...except that i cant get myself to do it...at times i envy people who have

managed to retain the idea of festivals and celebrations...ppl who, on Diwali day, get up early, bathe, wear new clothes, and pray

and eat together. I am not sure if i can ever be that again.

 

It is not just about festivals. As a kid, i used to go to this temple in our colony daily, and it felt good. Even in college i used to

go to our college-temple almost daily. Now, i think of God as man's creation, as a replica of some kindof external conscience. So

prayer and God have ceased to appeal to me. I dont find it reasonable to go to a temple or pray or do anything that involves delegating

your problem to someone besides yourself. This is surely the right way to live, but this has taken away a pseudo-crutch that i could've

used at times.

 

Like that guy in 'Matrix' says, sometimes, ignorance is bliss.

Sadly, the path from ignorance to realization is one-way.