This morning a bunch of Priests visited our house. Two of them seemed to be grihasta’s (householders), and one seemed to be a Sanyasi - he was wearing the saffron of renunciation. They said the shloka’s, blessed the family and left. They didn’t ask for dakshina, but we gave. This is a yearly routine.

Saffron connotes renounciation. The real sadhu’s and sanyasi’s - people who have renounce the world to focus on the atma (soul) and the paramatma (the translation would be God but it is an inadequate translation).

Sanyasi in Kathmandu - Pashupatinath Temple

There is a general respect towards people who wear saffron. It is assumed that they are Sadhu’s or Sadhvi’s (good people). But, in a land where religion is so much a part of everyday life, it is easy to fool people with saffron vestments. However, the act of wearing saffron means that you have renounced everything including family attachments, formal religion, including hate, including anger, including involvement in day to affairs of people ….. you belong to all, none belong to you, You have in effect renounced samsara…..

Sanyasi - Pashupatinath Temple, Kathmandu

In most temple towns you see lots of people wearing saffron robes, not all of them are genuine. Most genuine Sanyasi’s and Sadhu’s will ask for nothing. Will not bother you. If you wish to offer food or shelter it is your prerogative. A Sanyasi and a Rishi are two different things. A Rishi is a learned person, not necessarily a Sanyasi. (s)He can just as well be a householder. A Sanyasi is not necessarily a learned person.

Both men and women can take renunciation. It is recommended that you renounce the world only after you have fulfilled all your duties and responsibilities. It is not meant to be a method of running away.

The Smiling Sadhvi - at Pashupatinath, Kathmandu

Sadhu’s and Sadhvi’s (sanyasi’s and Sanyansin’s ) are supposed to be calm, and even tempered. They are supposed to be at peace with themselves and the universe.

Sadhu outside the Kizhaperumpallam temple, Tamil Nadu

And maybe that is why the involvement of sadhu’s and sadhvi’s in planting bombs causes me so much anguish…. They are desecrating the religion and the Gods by their actions….

Tags: Hindu, India, Photographs, temples

… actually have been back since Friday, but was recovering from the mother of all pith/migraine attacks…how did it feel ? like i went 20 rounds with Mike Tyson without the sense to give up in round one..

lots of things have happened in the week that i have been out…

Things that made me smile:
O-bam-a … I caught the coverage in Nepal with a goofy smile. i had tears in my eyes at some parts - especially when i saw civil war vetrans with tears in their eyes….. I guess that just as we were all American after 9/11, we are basking in their triumph for this one…. i don’t know why, but this victory feels good and reinforces that the vast majority of people in the world are good and act mostly with decency. Hats off to the American voters…..

Kumble Retiring - it was more a sense of my own mortality. He is my age and he has retired. What a career and i respected the fact that he was one of the true unselfish players…….Maybe we should start the chant ‘Kumble for coach’

2-0 - India v/s Australia. Never thought that it would me give greater pleasure to see India beat Australia than India beat Pakistan. The Australians needed a serious lesson in humility and they got it. Goodbye Saurav….

Indian Airlines - the craft may be old, the air hostess maybe my mom’s age — but boss are they efficient and helpful. I think that it is about time that we start looking beyond the packaging - and look at quality. IA has professionals ….

Stuff that made me Proud
Maharashtra Anti Terrorist Squad. It cannot have been easy to go after Hindutvadi’s who planted bombs, let alone sadhvis. So i won’t even comment on how hard it must have been to arrest a serving Army Officer - or how strong your evidence must have been. The concept of Hindutvadi’s planting bombs does not at all surprise me, nor does the involvement of those who have supposedly renounce life and ties to life. What saddens me beyond belief is that an Army Officer sworn to lay down his life to protect the citizens of this country - will be involved in a bombing campaign against citizens.
so officers and wo/men of Maharastra ATS - stand up and take a bow. you have done well !

Stuff that made me Scratch my Head and Say WTF

The silence in the Sangh Pavar on the Hindu Terrorists - it actually hurt me to write Hindu terrorists. is this what we have come down to. The Nation is supreme and anyone who indulges in terrorism against citizens is a terrorist. Why is this concept so difficult to understand for a constitutional party like the BJP or a nationalist organization like the RSS ?

Legal representation for those who arrested - again it is a constitutional right . they have the right to be represented - whether it is Geelani or Kulkarni ….

And finally, stuff that made me forget to breathe …

behold the mighty Himalayas…..

Tags: Australia, Cricket, Kumble, Maharashtra ATS, Nepal, Obama, Sangh Parivar

There is a film to be made…. am off to Kathmandu till the sixth…..
a few predictions for when i return
a) Bush will not be the President of the USA :). I hope that it is Obama, but i fear it will be McCain. and i wish that hope trumps fear !
b) it will be colder in Mumbai when i return, but i will feel warmer !
c) I am sure that i have forgotten to pack something….
d) SR & SK will scream at each other, quite a bit, over the next 4 days. i wish NS would record it
e) The Sensex will go up, prices will go down and the whole country and its very idiot cousin will forget the trauma of the last month and go back to their wild spending ways !

diwali @ lonavala -
used up a whole lot of candles, JD and i had fun fiddling with our respective cameras.
the folks chilled, the dogess played … and i was at peace !

coming up next, battle stations ….

Spent a peaceful and quiet Diwali in Lonavala, catching up with reading, approach notes, the world and myself.

One of the themes that fascinates me, is the entire battle between Good and Evil, especially as it is represented in various mythologies. For the last year or more, i have been revisiting some of the ancient narratives - both the epics, and then the Bhagwat Purana, the Shiva Mahapuran. I began reading the Devi Bhagwatam‘, quite sometime ago, I finally finished reading it over the weekend

The Devi Bhagwatam is the story of the Devi - the supreme female goddess, the mother of the universe, the origin of all that lives including the Gods. She is beyond space and time and along with her mate Shiva are immortal. There are many Brahma’s, Vishnu’s and other Devas, but these two abide. She is the Goddess that even the Gods pray to - and her various manifestations - be it Uma, Lakshmi, Tulsi are the female Shakti’s that complete the male Gods. Without her the universe will be inert. It is for Shakta’s - the follower’s of Shakti - the single most important book of their faith, equivalent to the Shiva Maha Puran for the Shaivites and the Bhagwad Puran for the Vaishnavaites. The thing to undertand about ‘Hindu Gods’ is that they are an inter connected family who more or less live in peace with each other, help out each other and clean up each others messes.

The theme that runs through all the three purans is simple - devotion - God & Goddess are terribly devoted to their devotees - and the triumph of good over evil. What is also very clear is that mistakes can be made. Just because someone is a ‘God’ doesn’t mean that they can’t get it wrong, or commit ‘adharma’ or do plain wrong things. The purans are fairly matter of fact in describing these transgressions, and the atonement that various characters perform to undo their ‘adharma’. What is interesting is that anyone can be a devotee. The Asura’s are just as devout as the deva’s, and htey can be just as noble - if not more noble.

God’s - even the great God’s can be fairly irresponsible and amoral. Check out Brahma’s boons to a variety of Asuras’ which plunges the whole universe into chaos; or check out Soma’s seduction of Tara - the wife of Brihaspati, the teacher of the Gods - and her refusal to go back to her husband’s home; or read Indra’s behavior on a variety of things - from the seduction of Ahalya to the killing of Virat; or even the legend of Tulsi and Vishnu’s behavior to get her husband to lose the battle. All these are addressed in terms of right and wrong and the ‘prayaschit‘ that has to be performed to undo the sin.

if the books were written for the first time today, I am fairly convinced that the religious right will burn them and their authors. Hindutva’s absolute views on ‘Hinduism’ will defintely be at cross purposes with the Purana’s that take a more tolerant view of both Gods, Men & Women. When Tara - the wife of Brihaspati runs away with Soma, the Gods almost come to war. And when Tara personally refuses to go back to her husband and chooses the Moon God (Soma) - the Gods back down and tell all that the Tara has made her choice.

which brings me to the second part of my musings. If religion tells the story of the triumph of good over evil, or the triumph of ‘faith’ over ‘attachment’ - then how would the Gods & Devi deal with those who have appointed themselves as ‘defenders of faith’?

When i read about the rape of nuns, the burning of prayer areas, the torching of innocents in the name of God or Goddess , it is identical to the kind of stuff that is described in graphic detail in the Puranas. it is the tactics and the actions of Asura’s. And, it is scary that the so called defenders of Hinduism are adopting the tactics of those whom the Gods have traditionally destroyed….

Am in Lonavala till Wednesday.
Happy Deepavali - and may there be peace and prosperity in your lives.

Stuff that made me - in no particular order - think, chortle, smirk, snigger , slurp, nod my head wisely, with sorrow, and in a wtf mode. I shan’t identify which is what …coz it will be fun a year later to figure:

I have been following the economic crisis - you would have to be on mars if you didn’t. ‘emperor’s new clothes‘ anyone?. Keynes must be looking terribly smug and superior at the economist’s table in the great beyond. Friedman is possibly drinking himself to oblivion !

Stephen Dunn’s piece in the Hindu on Galbraith has a brief summary of bubbles that burst, making me wonder how stupid we are as a species….

Starting with the tulip bulb mania in the 1630s, bubble after speculative bubble has been erased from the popular memory: the South Sea bubble in the early 1700s; the Mississippi bubble, which caused a stock market crash in 18th-century France; the Florida real estate bubble in the 1920s; the stock market crash of 1929; the stock market crash of 1987; the Nikkei bubble, which began in 1991, and the Nasdaq bubble of 2000.

There is Christopher Hitchens in ‘Vanity Fair’ on Banana Republics - the anger at a situation where political parties and politicians across the world have colluded with big business to bankrupt the system is very apparent ….

But welcome to another aspect of banana-republicdom. In a banana republic, the members of the national legislature will be (a) largely for sale and (b) consulted only for ceremonial and rubber-stamp purposes some time after all the truly important decisions have already been made elsewhere.

in a related area of tech and media companies Mark Evans writes:

What’s amazing is the “Hey Mom, no business model” model was allowed to exist. You would think after the dot-com boom went bust that entrepreneurs and investors would have a better focus on fundamentals such as, say, how to generate revenue.

I remember meeting an old colleague who had joined a company that makes mobile video content. And in a circuitous conversation he admitted that they haven’t figured out revenue model as yet and that currently, and for the foreseeable future, there wasn’t enough bandwidth to make video content available to customers, even if they wanted it….. i saw it happening before, and i am seeing it happen again, which leads me to question how stupid are we as a species…

Also on the same track, check out Shefaly’s ‘only the monetising survive‘.

Survival may be easier for a small niche business, focused on, say, tailoring services, than it may be for a Web 2.0 firm with lots of VC money but no clear monetisation model.

of course, the assumption is that the next round of funding will happen - i have friends in VC funded companies in India, who are seriously nervous. they have families, mortgages, EMI’s, …

John Kay in the FT looks at the difference between fraud and ‘innocent fraud’ and asks,

Is the deception of others more or less venal when one has also deceived oneself?

And, there was this cartoon at Truthdig, which kind of encapsulates the entire problem of the disconnect between politicians and ordinary voters (anywhere)

Other stuff that was interesting :
Madhukar on Alternatives to Singur - with the agitation moving to Gujarat along with the Nano factory, maybe it is time to relook at the way agricultural land is acquired for industry…

MJ Akbar on why for the vast majority of Indians secularism and religion are both ways of life and go hand in hand.

Ram Puniyani on the Nanavati report. Until Justice is done and seen to be done, there would be injustice …

i will end this with a quote from Hitchens again, this time on the reasons for his choice for President :

A candidate may well change his or her position on, say, universal health care or Bosnia. But he or she cannot change the fact—if it happens to be a fact—that he or she is a pathological liar, or a dimwit, or a proud ignoramus. And even in the short run, this must and will tell.

which is possibly my issue wtih Mr.Advani…

Tags: global financial crisis

… in the current economic crisis, it kind of seems silly to speak out against government intervention, but this is not about economics. It is about rights & choices, and Mr. Ramdoss is beginning to get serious delusions of grandeur.

“On weekends in cities like Bangalore and Chennai even women are going on smoking and drinking binge. It’s a dangerous trend. We’ll have to intervene and regulate the system,” and Alcohol consumption poses a grave threat to India, the nation with 600 million people less than 30 years of age,
“The Constitution mandates all states to exercise prohibition but except J&K and Gujarat none of the states follow it. Prohibition is a state subject, I would urge all state governments to enforce to total prohibition.”

i remember voting for a Government 5 years ago, not choose parents or life long guardians.

After Smoking and Alcohol let us take a look at all the other things that can Mr.Ramdoss can regulate in India, to protect our ‘health’ :

a) sex - if you didn’t have sex you won’t get AIDS, or increase population or become anemic through repeated child birth. let’s regulate sex
child birth - if you aren’t born, you won’t get diseases ! and, the woman delivering the baby will not have possible health related issues….
red meat - associated with thickening of arteries, cholestrol , and god knows what else (tape worm>). let’s regulate !
food, -Let’s face it, most desi’s get into trouble because of the ghee and sweets that they have; the meat and the fish that they have; the milk and the nuts that they have ( i am severely allergic to peanuts). Other desi’s get into health trouble because of the food that they don’t eat. Let us regulate food, and send daily receipes to every household to enusre that the remain in good health.
Cars - pollution leading to mass breathing difficulties, asthma, let’s regulate vehicles
Industry - see above
work - i have been seeing a spate of articles on stress caused by work. maybe we ought to regulate work. people have to be in at 9, have to clock out at 5 and have a compulsory one hour break
religion - seriously damages health. look at Orissa, Kerala, Dhule, Delhi …
Men afterall,

Violence against women is a widespread phenomenon. So widespread that, globally, women aged 15 to 44 are more likely to be maimed or die as a result of male violence than through cancer, malaria, traffic accidents or war together.

pretty soon, everyone & everything will be regulated.
do add to this list of things that Mr.Ramdoss can regulate !

and, while we are compiling the list, Mr.Ramdoss can take his eyes away from the urban middle class who are smoking and drinking in weekend binges - but who have private health plans - and look at the rest of India - most people don’t get one square meal a day - and are more dependent on public health systems - may be sorting that out can be a better way of improving health in India…. If he doesn’t want to look at the rest of India and just focus his attention on cities - then maybe improving the government hospital system within the country would be a good start.

If Mr.Ramdoss is interested in health, maybe then he should stop grandstanding and start addressing issues !

Last weekend was at Nangargaon, Lonavala. It was an extended weekend. The garden needed fixing, the home had a whole bunch of little things to get right - and the one day breaks was not enough to get anything done.

The earlier gardener had let weeds overrun to such a level that not only could i find little garden snakes all around, but the weeds killed the plants. The tomato died, the mango sapling was murdered, the hibiscus looked as though it was out of a famine struck zone, and there were mosquitoes the size of elephants buzzing around and sucking blood with the glee of a vampire…

The earlier gardener was packed off in the course of our last visit - a month earlier. He was probably the only person who knew less about plants than me — and that is saying something. I took some of the stuff that i had grown on my little window sill, got some other plants from a nursery near by, and the garden was ready to go…

Pink Roses

Red Hibiscus

Twin Shade Hibiscus

white roses
Thankfully they are growing well. I have taken another mango sapling that i had grown in a pot and had it planted. the parijata is blooming; the tulsi is growing;the banana, which was earlier showing signs of dying, seems to have revived … and i went and spent more money on more plants

My colleagues find my joy at a plant flowering very amusing. But, i am a city girl. Have lived in some city or the other all my life. My ancestors left the village some 4 generations ago — and i really don’t have a ‘native village’ as such. so, the sight of something growing on land - as opposed to a pot on the window - makes my heart sing….

Here’s wishing that i could grow this, but it would just attract too many mosquitoes …. maybe if i had a bigger place with a distance between the house and the pond … then,

Tags: Lonavala, Photographs