Discovering Hinduism bit by bit

One of the reasons I gave up writing as much as I used to is the lack of substance in what I was writing. However, it does finally look like I will progress beyond writing about changing cities, moods, strange nightly walks and such.

My family has always subjected me to all manner of pujas. If you are a Hindu (and even if you are not), you would know that people are subjected to pujas for two main reasons: One, they are dead. Two, they have performed unthinkable acts that have violated all manner of tradition. Now, if the dead had any sense of humor at all, they would be writhing at the scores that get leveled at their door but that is for another day (Perhaps, in a post called “What the dead think when they are dead?”)

So this puja, naturally was for reason no. 2. It was an interesting experience though because the Pandit performing the puja was extraordinarily insightful about everything that he was doing. Of all the pujas, I have been through in my life, this was the only one that actually added to the sum of experiences I have had. Now forgive me, if I sound like a dope junkie but I do feel that if something does not add to your knowledge or experience, it probably is not worth doing it. It does help me to decide on how best to spend my time though.

The Pandit gave some interesting examples from the Bhagvad Gita. I have only read parts of it but the book is amazing, in that it possibly tackles a lot of interesting situations. I hope I get to read more of it and that is going to be my resolution for the new year. I have not suddenly turned devout just understood a bit more about the world around me.

The worst part in the puja, however, came during the havan or homa. Hinduism believes that the homa (fire) is the ideal way of communicating with the Gods. Mantras are chanted and the influence is supposed to be inspiring. My role in this was to add oil to the fire, very literally and say “Swaha”. I experienced immense performance anxiety at this point because I can not add oil to the fire and say Swaha at the same time. I am not great at multi-tasking anyway but when you are sitting around a homa and trying to put oil in a full blown fire, it is hard to focus on your words. At that point, the puja was stopped and I was told sternly to do the ‘needful’.

Voices in the head

Every time it rains here, I would rather be up there in the sky, floating among the clouds rather than down here, negotiating a puddle of muddy water.

Half knowledge is a good thing:
I find the everybody’s sudden desire to know everything about somebody rather disconcerting. I do not wish to share basic details about myself with the world. I am unsure whether any kind of time line about my life serves any purpose except to reinforce the fact that I am old with a fair number of Facebook status milestones. I am disappointed that even WordPress wants to know basic details about me. Well, the only reason I exist on this forum is to rant. I do not care if anyone reads this rant. If I wanted anybody to read this, I would have had a www.priyanadkarni.com.

The only thing I want to do when I sit on my doorstep is to get drenched in the rain. This is a thought that has persisted since the day I moved into this vinyl flooring-less house. I like mosaic, not vinyl.

Basically, I have always shunned people. I prefer to be by myself because there are at least 2 voices in my head and several, according to somebody I know. I was told once that as I grew older, these voices would disappear. This was not a shrink, just some body I once spent an entire night talking.

I like cooking yellow dal with tadka. I like the brownish patterns that the tadka makes on the dal’s surface. It reminds me of a river in spate, spreading slowly but insidiously across the bank.

The next house I move into, will have a balcony overlooking an orchard.

I have contemplated erasing my presence from the internet for a while but that other voice in my head tells me that I am social. It is amazing that you can never be fully sure about what you are doing, especially if you have voices in your head. At any given point in time, there are few things that you are fully in control of. Your life, is one of them.

on changing cities

I have been living in Bangalore for over a year now.

It suddenly occurred to me on Wednesday that if I could do an MBA just to leave Bombay, I must have had a pretty strong desire to leave that city. I had grown up and lived in Bombay till then, barring one eventful year in Chennai. I always thought Bombay was the only city for me, instances of which you will notice if you go back to some of my earlier posts in which I end up sounding sappy and sentimental.

I have realized over the last few months that I like being an immigrant, casually looking around and watching people without comprehending much of the language but a reasonable amount of the intent. I like traveling in the big red buses, whose destinations roll off my tongue even before I can fully comprehend the meaning of my words.

I like buying vegetables mostly at the local vegetable vendor and at times, in Johnson market near the Masjid-e-Askari. The other day, I even discovered a fish stall inside the market. Mr. Pasha sells everything that a Bombay person would want, except for that fish in a duck’s garb: Bombay duck. Interesting, that the Shiv Sena could not change that one, just like it couldn’t the IIT.

I like the shady, tree-lined roads that look like they have seen much, despite having been around for only a few years. The trees over here are very different from those you see in any other city. For starters, they are big and spread-out and if you look up at the sky, you will see them forming an unending green canopy with patches of blue thrown in, like a reminder that you are in urban India.

There isn’t much of culture happening here, at least for me. There are concerts and plays and the like but I avoid those, given my aversion to crowds of people, especially young and yuppie Indians dressed in their arty best. The women have golden brown complexions with kohl-lined eyes and long earrings. The men look nice, some of them, but are almost inevitably dressed in Fab India kurtas. Overpriced shit.

I have given up shopping for anything but formal wear. I mostly wear stitched kurtas in Bangalore, not because some latent conservative streak has surfaced but because all the women dress similarly, almost to the point of boredom.

I have been reading interesting books the last one year, largely a function of being left to myself in a strange city. I just started on Pico Iyer’s “The Lady and the Monk” and I am loving it. Japan seems like a strange enough place for me to visit. I am going to save up to go there.

On an odd night, I have this knot forming at the base of my stomach because I miss my mother. The next day morning though, it is gone. Bangalore waits for me, with its infinite, timeless patience, not trying to change my habits and re-fashion and remold me till I refuse to recognize my own self.

I realize I am getting old.

Santi Niketan

Last weekend’s quick trip to Santi Niketan did a world of good to my mind. It was almost like the little town of Bolpur-Santi Niketan welcomed me in a heart-warming fashion when a defiant storm broke out the minute I landed there. It was beautiful as my little cycle rickshaw rolled on, on the only road in Bolpur-Santi Niketan. The leaves fell in waves, realizing quickly that they were no match for the storm. I felt a pang of regret as young leaves dropped to the ground, never having lived their full life.

The little shops lining the street quickly downed shutters and before I knew it, there was a huge bolt of lightening dividing the sky in a neat quadrangle. I stayed at Bona Pulak, a guest house run by Mr. Subir Adhikari and his family. As I entered the house, Mr. Adhikari’s grandson was squealing in excitement and wanted to accompany his father to the meat shop. Santi Niketan is a wonderful place for an 8-year old boy. It is almost like an experiment in moulding a mind; perhaps cruel but interesting all the same.

I went for a walk soon after in Tagore’s town. On my walk, I saw Subarnarekha, the bookstore of the Visva Bharati University. Two old Bengali men stared at me balefully, as I entered the shop, feeling almost like I was invading a sacred and private space. I have always felt that Bengalis are perhaps one of the most parochial people in India. Most people in India are looking to appropriate icons, symbols, Gods and religions but Bengalis have a lot to appropriate. And here I was in Tagore’s town. So everything had to be Tagore-sque, to a point, where Tagore would have laughed at his own people.

After much asking, I managed to pick up a few publications of Visva Bharati with the distinctive logo etched on them. On my way back to Bona Pulak, I saw a giant banyan tree. This is the same tree, Tagore’s father meditated under and it was almost 200 years old. I don’t know about you, but an old tree,especially one that has managed to stand still for 200 years old and has survived the wrath of the kalbaisakhi alongside so many other manmade things, commands a lot of respect in my heart. Well, I just love old trees, I think. As a child, I was fascinated by the fact that you could tell a tree’s age by the number of rings in its trunk.

The next day, I went around the Visva-Bharati campus as well as the museum. The museum at the Uttarayan complex was full of proud, overweening Bengalis peering into the exhibits of Tagore’s photos and the beautiful 193 Humber that stands within the Uttarayan complex.

The campus is beautiful though with its old, leafy trees and spacious grounds.Classes are held under some of the trees, in line with Tagore’s philosophy of imbibing learning through close contact with nature. Usually, I do not engage guides, preferring to wander off on my own, but this time I decided to engage one because I did not have too much time. Sculptures of Nandlal Bose and other artists of the Bengal School of Art are fairly common. So are pieces of History as I saw Viswa-Bharati’s open air convocation hall where Gandhi was the guest of honor in one year.

Creation is such a funny thing, especially when it is a by-product of a larger, more focused process. A young student of textile designing was dyeing a fabric green in a place that (I think) was reserved for students of textile designing who wanted to dye fabrics. Directly under the stone vat, there was a bunch of shrubs that had grown and were thriving on the water that fell from the vat.

I had to leave soon after to go to Siuri, the district headquarters of Birbhum. It was fascinating though to see a university built from an idea to transform education and infuse it with humanism.

Parallel lives

I am not so sure it is such a nice thing to have a life and then to have another simultaneously; to tailor appearances and words for different people. Someone once told me that he tailors his words depending on the person he is talking to. Fair enough. That is possibly the best way of getting by reasonably successfully in an otherwise minefield of a world. However, what I am not sure of is if I could do that. Not to say that I am getting by reasonably successfully in the world. Far from it. If there is a mine, I must walk over it. Story of my life.

Interestingly, that has been the case ever since I remember. I have always been extremely combative about small things that probably don’t matter in the larger scheme of things. I like winning arguments, regardless of the consequences. Again, not a great thing and possibly an outcome of losing all those random debate competitions I was sent to by my misguided principals (I am very tempted to use principaux and indoctrinated teachers. Unfortunately, I picked up the wrong kind of lessons at school.

I have lied quite a bit in life. So much in fact that it has become tough for me to keep an account of the different versions of the same story. Thankfully enough, I NEVER lie about work, only about myself, where I am, what I am up to. So much so that it comes naturally, much more naturally than the truth. I am also really good at convincing myself about things that may not have happened. While I understand that this is an alarming trait, I can do little about it. It is like kleptomania, except that I don’t know of a single word for it. I have considered writing a diary and then another one just so that I can keep up with all the lies. Then if I die suddenly, the world will be pretty confused about what I did at any given point in time. There will be two versions of everything. Sounds pretty neat, doesn’t it?