Mansi - ring

Karva Chauth - Devotion, Decoration and Drama

noreply@blogspirit.com () — Fri, 21 Oct 2005 16:55:50 +0530

When asked early on what I thought of Karva Chauth, I replied, I think it's romantic. Close to 9pm last night, after I had completed my fast, Deepan and I stood at the balcony. Few houses ahead, we saw a young family celebrate the last ritual of the fast. The lady bowed down to the moon and her husband. The family drank from a cup of sweet milk and the child laid claim for all of the sweets.
It was very romantic. It was very real.

All of a sudden, the rituals, expectations and media-dramatized versions of Karva Chauth dissappeared. I was looking at the moon, with an offering plate that had a small clay lamp burning bright, a few fruits and the glass with sweet milk. I had my husband standing by the moon and for a few moments, the world was ours.
Karva Chauth is probably the most controversial festival we have in the North of India. The premise of this special day involves a wife who fasts for a day for the long life of her husband. The festival really begins the night before when the mother in law gives the daughter in law all that she will require for her fast. This could include food that the daughter in law would have before daybreak. This could also include almonds, clothing, accessories and anything else that the mother in law feels the daughter in law would want. On the fast day, after fasting for the most part of the day, ladies gather and sit down for a puja. The puja revolves around the 'katha' or story. Each lady prepares a thali (offering plate) that contains a diya (lamp), some water in a glass and a gift for one's mother in law.

The story is around a queen and her many brothers who conspire to break her fast illegally out of overt concern for their sister. The result, her king loses his mind and mistakes her servant as his queen. The queen then persists for a year in service and prayer. She fasts on Karva Chauth and with the grace of God her King recovers and claims her as his Queen. In the spirit of that story and her devotion, all married women exchange each other's thalis in support and faith of one another and their prayers.

I am a believer of such stories. My grandmother used to tell me one where a Queen's King was wrongfully accused of stealing another kingdom's Queen's anklets. Without proper investigation even, that kingdom's King ordered his counterpart's execution. The bereft widow of the dead King came to court and questioned the investigation. She claimed that her anklets were filled with navratnas (nine gems) and asked for the stolen anklets to be examined. When they broke her anklets, the gems rolled out. The King realized his mistake and begged forgiveness. The grief of the widow was immeasurable. She ran out of the King's court, not knowing where she really was headed. The kingdom she left behind began to lose its prosperity, such was the purity of her love. Drought, famine, poverty all came. Of course here, the story takes a different turn. My grandmother said that while this Queen ran the streets, Tamilian women looked at her and scoffed. "Look at this woman", they spat, "running around with her hair open and her sari all improper". The bereft widow turned to them and cursed them. "You will", she said, 'be like this when you lose your husbands". Till date, my grandmother said, tamilian women grieve the death of their husband by relinquishing all their accessories. While the bereaving Queen ran through Kerala, the women there sympathised with her condition and said, "I wonder what terrible thing must have happened for her to hurt so much". The Queen turned to them and blessed them. She said, 'Even when you lose your husbands, you will not have have my fate'. Till date, malayali women do not have to break their bangles, or shave their heads, or even not wear only white upon the death of their husbands. Of course, the storyteller, my grandmother, would have to be a malayali!

Then there's the other story of Savitri who won against Yama, the God of Death, and succeeded in bringing life back into the body of her husband.

Besides these two stories that remain most obvious in my mind, there are countless others. There is immense power in devotion. Women, I believe, are naturally good examples of devotion. The women at the puja yesterday came in all sizes and colors. Yet all of them, despite being decked like no less than Queens and being filmed for the local news channels, were intent in their devotion for that day.

Sitting there, I came to ponder on a few ponderings... (as always)
1. The direct and indirect participants of this fast are driven by fear, just like the BJP government drove the people of Gujurat.
2. Divide and rule is as much a part of Hindu culture as it is part of anything else. (poor brothers!)
3. When men commit mistakes, it's always attributed to insanity.
4. Just when you begin to feel completely overpowered by all of the male worship, your mother in law will step in and save some booty for the feminist cause! (Go MIL!) Of course, if you don't have a son, you might not be able to do your feminist bit.

And now for the most ridiculous bit....
On one of the new channels, Deepan and I caught a special episode of Karva Chauth. The producers had come up with a novel idea. Since a certain Brigadier and his wife were not together for this special day, the TV crew with modern technology was going to ensure that the two of them celebrate Karva Chauth 'on the air'.

Contrast that with the quiet dignity of my neighbour who came up a little after we finished ( I was an eager beaver!) and performed her puja in silent prayer. She might not have had her husband in the flesh but she certainly had him in spirit.

Adoption

noreply@blogspirit.com () — Mon, 13 Jun 2005 17:38:27 +0530

There is something terribly amiss with society when couples and unwed mothers abandon children at a time when they need them the most. In a majority of unwed mothers(age 12 - 22), they are all treated as consenting adults by the men they associate with and by their own perception of themselves.
As per law, a man found having consensual sex with a woman below the age of 18 can be charged with statutory rape. This is lost to this part of the world. Least aware of this is the unwed teenager who is encouraged to abandon her child. Get her empty as quickly as possible. Private nursing homes can pull babies out of their mother's wombs when they weigh as less as 900 gms. Span your hand on the table and you've probably exceeded the size of these babies. Secret phone calls to the orphanages in the middle of the night is the last act of this hideous performance. Then there are those who endure the nine months and give birth to a child with no vision in two eyes, only to abandon him at a railway station. The orphanage retrieve this baby forty eight hours later. He's in ICU for two days and yet like most of the little troopers I saw today survived. The vision won't come back but this child's life is strong and willing. Sadly, we cannot say the same about his parents.
Orphanages don't hold out anger, disgust or even deep pain towards the guiltly life givers. Instead, in front of them, they see opportunities. For every child abandoned, even were it for a cleft lip, their goal is to locate the child in a family. First choice is given to Indian couples, but I'm afraid there aren't too many takers here.
Toddlers require equal amount of food and medicine. The government of India doesn't support infants. Orphans about five are provided a generous sum of five hundred rupees per month.
So in time, agencies look to beyond our seas. Unites States, Spain, Australia - to name a few.
The economics of inter-nation adoption is quite lucrative. Couples who've not succeeded in having their own child, others who missed the boat or some who've woken up to the need for a baby, from as far away & as exotic as India, Adoption becomes a very real road to walk down.
Money serves the purpose of the orphanage and meets the desires and needs of the parents to be. Some will even pay for their children to be escorted to their country. The first meeting for the child is in a foreign airport. Children (these very troopers) will survive anything.
I don't understand how parents adopt children who are from countries miles away from their own. Yet again, I think, adults exert their authority to displace, relocate and dramatically alter the experience of a child they bought, like they would have a car, a house or even a spouce.
Yes, the child has parents, ones who will support, love and offer it opportunities he/she mgiht not have had in an orphanage.
However does this in any way address the malaise that has adults abandoning their helpless & disadvantageous children? Does it justify the notion that we can buy and sell human lives?
There is a whole industry that lives off these sales, a larger one that fosters an environment of popular acceptance of such a value-less practice.
Were a foreigner to adopt an Indian child, it is natural to think ' wow, what a lucky kid - Is nark se toh bache!'
Who do we fool when we think the child will have a 'better life'? Who we turn to when we foster directly and indirectly the business of human lives?
Where in the budget can we find the government's revenues related to this business of human lives? And how does it juxtapose against a generous sum of Rs 500 per month per infant (> 5yrs)
There are mothers & fathers out there who are desperate to experience parenthood. Is it possible then for them to think of relocating themselves to their future child's country? How would that make as a statement for life and for every individual's right to choose, however small, handicapped or fragile?
Wouldn't adoption, the possession of an infant below the age of eighteen constitute for statutory kidnapping? Of course not, because the default guardian, the government is counting on keeping it's generous sum of five hundred rupees.
What constitutes a better life? The oldest child at the orphanage I visited is pursuing a Masters in Social Work. While her counterparts & children of the head in charge of the orphanage are studying in Australia with no plans to return to India. Children who are not abandoned and grow up in 'normal' families, who had the 'better lives' are ignorant perpetuators of this large malaise. Worser still they are the custodians of good morality when applied only to others. They refuse to let unwed mothers take a chance at motherhood, sans guilt and a deep sense of failure. They couldn't even imagine let alone put their lives & fortunes in front of another life.
In the US, I heard that some couples who are pregnant are just not ready for motherhood. They instead, if they play the game well, can have many 'parents to be' get into a bidding monetary game for the unborn child. Those who can't afford this game, instead turn to countries like India where for as less as quarter the original sum can get them a baby with just about everybody cheering them on (what I now call the 'better life' syndrome). The mothers in these cases are long obliterated from the picture. In India you don't have to worry about a mother showing up to claim her baby. It is just not an option. In a current issue of Frontline, the inter-nation business of human life has become so lucrative that babies are being stolen and then sold to foreign families. While some of the cases has been exposed, the adopted family are now worried that they might have to return 'their' child to it's natural parents. This child is now living the life of another nationality and yet, think back, on the plight of the natural parents and on every day of the 180 day gestation period.

A week end spent at an orphanage and it has been as intense as I initially thought it would be. While my role has been that of a supporter, the tolls of the business of adoption have exhausted me. Never having been an advocate of the spirit of altruism that everybody laps up in the context of adopted families, this trip certainly did add more to my understanding of the subject. While I don't go back with contempt, my value of human life has been recharged. I hope to draw from this energy in the years to come.

Marriage is...

noreply@blogspirit.com () — Fri, 15 Apr 2005 14:16:13 +0530

Not a day goes by without a friend or colleague asking me about how marriage feels. Each day, I figure that I will have a better answer the next day.
It doesn't really matter if the person asking is married or not, young or old, male or female: Everybody is naturally curious about marriage. It just reinforces the fact that marriages are big events, life changing events, even highly ranked than getting into college, breaking a leg, joining the army or becoming Indian Idol. There is nothing more rivetting than a marriage, even when most of us are having the most normal of marriages (if there is such a thing)
Perhaps marriage to an Indian is also in line with how he or she converses - More is UNsaid than spoken and it's all about reading the little and small nuances (all of them in your head only btw)

On the other side of the question mark, I am an absolute delight to the person who asks me about my marriage. I think that's because of two things:
1. I tend to send out a lot of signals : there is no mystery in this body!
2. When I do speak, it's more or less a 'like it is' statement.
The combined effect of all of this is quite magnetic. People who've 'popped' the question often find it hard to let it go. I feel like they are watching me like I am a character in their favorite soap.

It's not attention I like, let me tell you that. Often when I fantasize about other people's attention, it's because of something I did or didn't do. It's not because of what and how I am! Almost makes me feel like a piece on exhibition.

With the closer of my friends, I really fret for an answer. I try to speak of my in-laws, the things I do at home, the things I don't. Of course when it comes to Deepan, all I still do is just gush and giggle! That doesn't help. With everything else, it's very hard. I try and find things to talk about -but the truth of the matter is, it's hardly been enough time. I don't know what to feel or expect, and I normally don't do either. I just go along, give people a lot of space and hope I'll get mine too.

I do feel sad sometimes that my marriage has meant different things to different people. There hasn't been a celebration of what marriage can be and is often not. There hasn't been a humility that comes with love and acceptance. Instead, it's like a jigsaw puzzle where as a bride, everybody wants their hand at plugging me into my 'place'. Each person has a different vision of what that place is and hence the puzzle just doesn't ever get done.

There are times when it gets to me. I am sure there are far more times when it gets to them. I am not so easy to peg. So in more ways than one, it's quite an exercise for everybody involved.

In that sense, marriage is surely more about a team than an individual. While two become one (as that song goes), that one then is part of a whole team of ones (all the married ones of our combined families). Sometimes I wonder if the ceremony of marriage should address this issue, more thoroughly. That with the bride and groom for example, we also could have the married couples remarrying. Perhaps in that act, they would realize where they are pegged vis a vis the 'center' of what marriages are really about.

I dread the day I will be pegged - a point beyond which I just can't resist anymore. Then, were I asked the same questions, I'd probably have more concrete answers and witty replies.

Till then, I am doing good skipping about, and in no hurry to find my answers. (nor yours)

Mountain of light

noreply@blogspirit.com () — Wed, 06 Apr 2005 09:55:00 +0530

I believe that there is a large unconsciousness about us - one we tend to be afraid of. Perhaps because consciousness (whatever it is for you) is defined. We have means of identifying, categorizing and further defining all of that which is conscious. With the unconscious, the access path is our first hurdle. There is no clear path, tool or 'awareness'. Does that mean that we don't know it's OUT THERE?
It is there. We feel it.
For me, it's where all my fast and disappearing fat is being methodically being stored. So when I do finally get past the front door, I will be greeted by bottles of fat. But, no, let's not go into my weight loss program just yet.
Deepan and I were having trouble updating his blog on Rediff. The title, as most of you know, is 'Mind of the unmarried man'. Since he's been looking at moving to BlogSpirit and thinking of a name for his blog.
This morning, I asked him to stand in front of our bookshelf, close his eyes, think of his blog and move his fingers over the books. Having set him off on a little mission, I sat down at the table to type away at my blog. Deepan came back with 'Future Shock' and another title by the same author perhaps. I asked him if he had his eyes closed. He said, no, I don't really understand why we need to do that.
We then discussed some names in his mind - one being 'World and I' that we were both not so happy with.
So back to the study, we went, and I held him as I spoke the exercise outloud. Close your eyes, I said and then repeated about five times before he did close them and just not squint. Think of your blog and the title you will give it and then reach out to the bookshelf ( I was behind him now, raising his arms to the bookshelf) and move your fingers over your book till you feel that this is IT.
After setting him off for the second time, I stepped back and sat down on the diwan. At first, he stood there, moving his fingers over the top shelf, grumbling about how this does not make any sense. From where I sat, I went ahead and continued with my list of orders ( I can be such a general sometimes - sigh!)
Bend those knees - Don't stop at the first shelf - Explore the bookshelf - Keep those fingers moving till you find your book....
As long as I barked my orders, Deepan stood awkwardly, probably silently contemplating how he could get out of this predicament. And then I stopped, now through with the general phase, and back to being the observer.
Deepan quietened down too, moving his fingers tentatively up and down row after row. Coming back and forward, until he picked out one book.
It was titled 'Flashman and the Mountain of Light'.
Deepan opened his eyes, book in hand and asked me - now what?
I said that's it - Mountain of Light. And he stood for a moment, contemplating.
Are you sure? He asked me, I replied 'Yes, I am 100% sure' (all drama, god bless my soul)

There you have it then. Deepan's new blog at Blogspirit is called 'Mountain of Light'. I think that it's an apt name.
The Flashman series is Deepan's favorite. He's read almost all of them despite them being scarcely available here in India. Deepan's favorite vacation spot is up in the mountains. To me, he is like a beacon of light, spreading good cheer and strength of spirit whereever he goes. His blog entries sometimes are most insightful without ever being dished out as forceful advice or all-knowing wisdom.

And yes, he does have a wife who'll continue with these crazy exercises that she must have him take part in - and he will continue with the ordeals to see her all animated and smiles.