Sundar Narayanan : Desi Engineer in California married to a Desi Engineer. This is a log of my travel experience, food reviews and life's "little" quirks. . .
Disclaimer : My thoughts on this site are not intended to cause physical emotional or financial harm to any person or thing mentioned in this site or to the reader and I take no responsibiilty for the same.. So read at your own risk!! I also hope this font is large enough to be considered legal and small enough not to make my blog ugly !
Sunday, August 14, 2011
To each his own
One thing about the festival season in a south Indian brahmin family is the clothes.
Well, the guys get to wear their silk dhotis and the ladies come dressed like cute penguins in their madisaar saris!
It is an extra long saree (almost 50% longer) reserved for special occasions (usually red color) that they wear in a different way than the casual sari.
San will always be my hottie! She has always been cute to my eyes from the day she walked down the marriage hall and challenged me to be her husband. It was like a bull fightress with the red cape challenging a bull. To this day I am madly running around her, still unable to hit the mark!
To get back on track with the post, there is something about the madisaar sari that is a turn on. The casual San in her jeans and kurthi somehow magically transforms into a madisaar wearing hottie. It is possible that deep down somewhere the image of a madisaar mami is similar to how Hollywood movies portray the woman in her white wedding gown for desi boys like me!
Indian ancestors seem to have perfected the art of packaging. Cover almost everything, expose without really exposing, and let curiosity take care of the rest..
Well, as long as San keeps her "Koorai pudavai" in good shape and wears a madisaar once a year, she will still be my hottie when she is old and gray!
When we were in 9th or 10th grade there was a story in our English Non-Detailed textbook called "A table is a table" (forgot the author already) where an old man who is bored out of his wits decides to call his table a bed and a plate a spoon etc. and renames everything one day at a time. He is a loner and soon loses his mind as his warped language becomes out of tune with the rest of the world.. it is a sad story.
Well that was a side story just to put the title in context? Maybe not. Just writing that title reminded me of that old story. So if you have a link to that story on the web, do let me know.
This post is really about our one day trip to Allahabad from Varanasi during our recent India visit. We started early in the morning and went to the Triveni Sangam. Then went on to visit Nehruji's house which is now a museum and on the way back to Varanasi stopped by a place called "Sita Mardi" which according to our van driver is the place where Sita is supposed to have gone into the ground at the end of the Ramayana. There was nothing to indicate this at the site even according to religious propaganda people, but it was a cool place and a neat temple in a great setting. So it was worth it.
The kids were their co-operative best considering we had to stop at roadside tea stalls for breakfast and tea. The flies were buzzing by the 100's and daddy and grandpa were designated swatters as mommy watched the tea cups (mud cups of course). In spite of the swatting the little one ended up with gastro-enteritis the next day and we were dealing with doctor visits in Varanasi!
We made it to Prayag and saw the place where the Ganges in full flow met a relatively timid Yamuna river. There were many boats that were willing to carry us to the confluence so "we" could take bath (on the boat?). Let me just say that those ads by Aamir Khan on how to treat tourists in India are simply not working!
The boatmen were hell bent on conning us and our cab driver seemed to be in on the scam for his kickback. Finally after some bargaining we managed to get in one boat and the funny thing was the "exclusive boat for your family only" ended up taking two last minute extras. The boatman said "this is a priest who will go to the sangam and back many times, so he doesn't count against the exclusivity clause".
Off we went and this priest gets to the point and says he will offer a short prayer and it is not going to cost us anything since we paid for the boat. Our spider sense did not tingle and we said "okay". Then he started off and we followed and before you know it the dude is asking us to donate 10000 rupees for some religious charity as part of the prayer!
We told him as politely as we could that he gives the whole priestly class a bad name. Then the rest of the family backed out the "dip" plan because of the strong current and only yours truly decided to take a dip in the confluence of rivers. They had guys on either side of a platform created between boats to catch anyone who drifts off. It was nice and the water was definitely murky and muddy but super fast.
They tell you that when you take that dip at Prayag, you should give up something for the rest of your life. Well, I gave up trusting priests from the UP!
Just before taking the dip we put a few coconuts into the water and this was part of the deal but the guy who drops the coconuts added a 100 rupee note to the coconuts. There are people who go recover the coconuts and the notes and that is another story. But that guy was doing hard labor and I let it slide. So gave him a 100 rupees and told my FIL to give the priest also a token 100 rupees (in spite of his attempted con job) and guess what he says?
"Don't give that untouchable and me the same money! Don't insult a brahmin like this!"
At that point, wanted to just spit on his face and get out of there, but one cannot walk out of a boat that is between two fast moving rivers. So told him to return the 100 rupee note and when we came back to the bank of the river told him that I was touched by the untouchable while he disgraced me.
We have a long way to go and it is hard to believe this is 2011 after an experience like this.
Some pictures from the boats..
It is truly a humbling experience to let the river surround you..
With the exception of the con artists, everything else went well and we did enjoy the boat ride and the small temples on the river banks.
People say you should visit Prayag at least once in your lifetime..
Well, our "once" is done! It may be our "only once" considering the wife, kids and FIL all said "Not again unless we have our own boat!"
Has been a busy week, with more work, a conference in San Francisco and the usual happenings at home. I have been attending this conference almost every year for the last 13 years! This conference is usually a week long event. I get to attend it for two or three days every year. Ever since I started working, even those two days are marred by frequent phone calls and beeps on my pager. In spite of the interruptions, I feel so alive at this conference. I get to listen to the latest and greatest breakthroughs in my field of research, meet people who have similar interests, and get to overload my brain with all the information.
The hour long drive to and from San Francisco also helps clear my head and give me time to process the information. Yesterday I met an old friend and the conversation steered towards education. On the way back from the conference, my thought process was wandering around
education why I did not become a professor India Brahmins Importance to Knowledge Aaavani Avittam BHU Mandal commission reservations affirmative action research white LED's Nakamura % success in Research projects funding policy role of policy in education
and after going through a full circle I just realized I was just tired and the little hamster insdie my head needed some sleep!
But a couple of thoughts were stuck there for some time.
What Aavani Avittam ceremony is supposed to do for me and fails, this conference does! All Brahmin boys, renew their commitment to the learning process once every year at this ceremony. I do that ceremony mechanically because I am not well versed in Sanskrit or study Vedas and Upanishads for a living. I do love learning though! This week has been an extended Aavani Avittam for me! I get to meet the high priests of materials engineering, chat and debate with fellow researchers and realize the value of what I do for a living!
A second train of thought was that somehow in the back of my mind, I do always feel that the caste systems successful survival and stubborness to be eradicated in India has to do with how it makes people believe that they are special. More specifically Brahmins are proud of their commitment to learning or their belief of "knowledge is power". I am not discriminatory by nature and I am definitely not elitist or snobish because I am a brahmin. However, I have made statements in the past of how proud I am to believe that "knowledge is power" and that is somehow a very Brahmin thing to believe! I also realized that every caste tries to one up the others by making their speciality a secret. If brahmins believed that Knowledge is power, the right thing to do would have been to spread knowledge and empower everyone. Yet we know only a handful of people like Sankara, Ramanuja went along those lines. The vast majority decided to keep education to themselves and their clan and made the rest of the population dependent on them to even read and write! I could say similar things about all other castes except the poorest and lowest castes who by default got the shaft from everyone else.
I also keep thinking about how researchers are confronting politicians in faith vs science debates today, similar to the power struggle dynamics between Brahmins and the Kshatriyas.
It would have been great if everyone knew how to read and write, everyone was well versed in martial arts or had self defense skills, everyone knew how to trade and do business and of course everyone knew how to wash their own clothes, clean their own toilets or cut their own hair!! or at the least have a mutual respect for every other profession and professional!!
The hamster is on overdrive and needs to rest! Enough rambling....
