It's been a pretty significant length of time since my last post. A lot has happened since then. Benazir Bhutto has passed on. So has the year 2007. India are already 2-0 down, Down Under; a combination of the world champions Australia playing good cricket and umpiring that would suggest that the Indian team had committed some deeply unforgivable sins against Messrs Benson and Bucknor. As a matter of fact, there was even a small protest rally on the road outside my building. A pack of fifteen youths (probably on vacation and bored, just like me) burnt effigies of Ricky Ponting and displayed placards comparing Bucknor to the rakshasa Bakasura. The event was eagerly covered by the local cable news channel.
The beginning of a new year means a lot of different things to a lot of different people. Many look on it as a chance to start anew, to open a new chapter in their lives; hopefully a happier one. This idea was, to me, most poignantly expressed in the movie Forrest Gump. A prostitute partying on New Year's eve in a tavern, with Forrest, says wistfully, "Don't you just love New Year's? You can start all over. Everybody gets a second chance."
Personally, the beginning of a new year means a number of things. It is definitely the start of something new. It's like a partition in the cavernous building that is life. Each year is a new room added to this house; you are in charge of it. You hope and pray that the new addition to your house will turn out well. This, hopefully, will happen. But if you aren't paying attention or The Big Interior Decorator in the Sky decides that your house is coming along a bit too well and you'd learn from a few ugly rooms in it, it may well be so. So be on guard.
As I said, a lot has been happening. Plenty of media coverage about various unsavoury incidents around the state: molestation at Juhu, two rape-murders in interior Maharashtra. I am not apprised of the statistics but it does seem to me that our crime headlines are looking eerily Delhi-like. If we're not careful, India's economic engine might have to start downing shutters by 9 PM, like many areas of the capital. Policing: the non-moral kind, is the need of the hour. Where have the people who filed a PIL against Shilpa Shetty (for being pecked on the cheek by Richard Gere) gone now? I reckon even if they do come out, it'll be to file a PIL against the two NRI women molested at Juhu for obviously titillating a crowd of horny, deprived men, merely by the act of being female.
I had a pooja at my house. Properly, a Laghurudra is a religious rital performed by a team (indeed 11) priests. The priests chant various mystic
mantras in unison; this creates good vibrations for the entire home. It sounded like a very good concept and very impressive too. It isn't often that holy men gather in such large numbers to fight the dark forces on your behalf. Add to it the fact that this is a ritual rarely performed (at least amongst the people whom we know), the Laghurudra acquired a very mystical aura indeed. I must say that the chanting was impressive and would have been more so if ten of the priests weren't, in fact, students of nearby colleges of priestly studies (I use the term with all due respect, since I don't actually know what they're called in English). The trainee-priests were mostly younger than me, some barely able to raise stubble on their chins. Hardly the platoon of hand-to-hand fighters I expected.
And let me add just one more observation. Supply a priest with a few basic ingredients: a copper tumbler, some mango and betel leaves, coconuts, apples, bananas, water, rice, betel nut, fresh flowers, camphor, perhaps a gold ring or two, and he can perform just about any religious rite. Add in a ritual fire and he's even got weddings covered. I'm sure that there are rules about the precise configuration of the above mentioned items, but it appears to my untutored eye, to be pretty much random. Today there was another pooja, this time in my sister's house and the layout of all these implements appeared pretty much the same to me. There was just one additional ingredient, steamed rice as opposed to mere rice grains.
That's pretty much it as far as my thoughts on the New Year and recent events go. I will put up a few more posts soon, possibly tomorrow. Two will be reviews of books that I have read in this period (A Walk in the Woods and The Zahir). I will also outline my progress in the acquisition of a new computer, either by assembling it myself or buying a branded machine. I'm sure you're eagerly waiting for these posts. :P
The beginning of a new year means a lot of different things to a lot of different people. Many look on it as a chance to start anew, to open a new chapter in their lives; hopefully a happier one. This idea was, to me, most poignantly expressed in the movie Forrest Gump. A prostitute partying on New Year's eve in a tavern, with Forrest, says wistfully, "Don't you just love New Year's? You can start all over. Everybody gets a second chance."
Personally, the beginning of a new year means a number of things. It is definitely the start of something new. It's like a partition in the cavernous building that is life. Each year is a new room added to this house; you are in charge of it. You hope and pray that the new addition to your house will turn out well. This, hopefully, will happen. But if you aren't paying attention or The Big Interior Decorator in the Sky decides that your house is coming along a bit too well and you'd learn from a few ugly rooms in it, it may well be so. So be on guard.
As I said, a lot has been happening. Plenty of media coverage about various unsavoury incidents around the state: molestation at Juhu, two rape-murders in interior Maharashtra. I am not apprised of the statistics but it does seem to me that our crime headlines are looking eerily Delhi-like. If we're not careful, India's economic engine might have to start downing shutters by 9 PM, like many areas of the capital. Policing: the non-moral kind, is the need of the hour. Where have the people who filed a PIL against Shilpa Shetty (for being pecked on the cheek by Richard Gere) gone now? I reckon even if they do come out, it'll be to file a PIL against the two NRI women molested at Juhu for obviously titillating a crowd of horny, deprived men, merely by the act of being female.
I had a pooja at my house. Properly, a Laghurudra is a religious rital performed by a team (indeed 11) priests. The priests chant various mystic
mantras in unison; this creates good vibrations for the entire home. It sounded like a very good concept and very impressive too. It isn't often that holy men gather in such large numbers to fight the dark forces on your behalf. Add to it the fact that this is a ritual rarely performed (at least amongst the people whom we know), the Laghurudra acquired a very mystical aura indeed. I must say that the chanting was impressive and would have been more so if ten of the priests weren't, in fact, students of nearby colleges of priestly studies (I use the term with all due respect, since I don't actually know what they're called in English). The trainee-priests were mostly younger than me, some barely able to raise stubble on their chins. Hardly the platoon of hand-to-hand fighters I expected.
And let me add just one more observation. Supply a priest with a few basic ingredients: a copper tumbler, some mango and betel leaves, coconuts, apples, bananas, water, rice, betel nut, fresh flowers, camphor, perhaps a gold ring or two, and he can perform just about any religious rite. Add in a ritual fire and he's even got weddings covered. I'm sure that there are rules about the precise configuration of the above mentioned items, but it appears to my untutored eye, to be pretty much random. Today there was another pooja, this time in my sister's house and the layout of all these implements appeared pretty much the same to me. There was just one additional ingredient, steamed rice as opposed to mere rice grains.
That's pretty much it as far as my thoughts on the New Year and recent events go. I will put up a few more posts soon, possibly tomorrow. Two will be reviews of books that I have read in this period (A Walk in the Woods and The Zahir). I will also outline my progress in the acquisition of a new computer, either by assembling it myself or buying a branded machine. I'm sure you're eagerly waiting for these posts. :P
2 comments:
What a long post about lots of things.I gather you didn't have the patience to break it up.Very readable though.
And I didn't want to put up details about d prizes ive won so far cos it's mostly movie tickets n other insignificants.
hello!
I'm a big Paulo Coelho's fan and I don't know if you heard about his blog
http://www.paulocoelhoblog.com
I've started as a fan and now I'm collaborating with him and thought that you would like to enter his universe.
Check the blog.
if you want, or subscribe to his newsletter
http://www.warriorofthelight.com/engl/index.html
You'll see a community of warriors of light sharing ideas, dreams and most importantly following their personal legend.
QUOTE OF THE DAY:
The Warrior of Light knows that everyone is afraid of everyone else.
(Manual of the Warrior of Light)
Merry Christmas!
Aart
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