In the aftermath of the death of my beloved and mostly
irreverent grandfather, my dad shed light (if you’ll pardon the expression) on
some of our country’s funereal practices that are carried out, to this day,
including—but not limited to—bathing the body, waving a fiery brand in front of
her face, and clanging bells next to her head. He told me, at the time of their
inception, they were a form of vital-sign detectors, pretty similar to the
stuff we learned in Emergency First Response class, to make sure that the poor
dear was actually dead. At any one of the stages outlined above, there was a
good chance of her sitting up in her coffin and declaring that it ain’t over
till the fat poojary sings. So what
do you think my dad’s next words were: “Yes, my child, that is why it is a good
practice that has been passed on by our revered ancestors and you must, in
turn, pass it on to your children and grandchildren after you…” WRONG. (I
believe his exact words were “bloody bullshit.”) When we now have medical
instruments that indicate, to a frightening degree of accuracy, the vital
functions and the level of patient participation, what would be the point? Couldn’t
we just bid the deceased farewell with a little more dignity and introspection
and a little less self-importance? Now, there are Paleolithic people still
inhabiting parts of the Nicobar Islands. That’s right, people whose lifestyle
has changed little since the Old Stone Age. Maybe the bells-and-whistles
routine is the most effective means of confirming death available to them, and
I don’t blame them for it. But what of our most highly esteemed doctors and
engineers, who set their iPhone 5 on silent (and their facial expression on “holier-than-thou”)
to conduct these “rites” every day in our metropolises?
It was in such an environment that my mother, not having had
the pleasure of hearing the Konkani word for urn (asti) before, mistakenly (and loudly) interpreted it as elephant (hasti). She got no props for this as you
can imagine, was met with a cold glare, and had to retreat—much like Alice in
Wonderland—muttering, “Father would have laughed.”
Incidentally, this would not be the first time my mom’s
putting her foot in it, if you’ll pardon the expression. After her wedding when
she arrived at the house of her impending in-laws, she made the grave mistake
of stepping over the threshold leading with her left foot. There’s a simple
reason for this: my mom’s regular, not goofy like me. In the course of my
surfing-related research (I tried to find out the origins of the word “grom,”
too, and got absolutely nowhere) I was investigating whether left-footed people
are called “regular” (as opposed to right-footed people who are “goofy”)
because more people in the world are left footed. I did not find enough
information to substantiate this; it appears they are equally distributed.
Though I can’t help wondering, if this is the case, why the word “regular,”
which implies normality and majority? Once again my dad, to the rescue, pointed
out that since most people are right handed (especially in our country where
left-handedness is still beaten out of you because everybody knows that’s the
ass-wiping hand), and the left foot naturally syncs with the movement of the
right hand (for things like walking), voila!
most people are left footed. This is plausible enough when applied to the whole
world, too, because throughout history, left-handedness was suspect in most
cultures. I stress the word “history” here, though, because we have since
discovered the phenomenon of soap. (Another fact documented by science is that
the Disney character Goofy surfs right-foot-forward on his Hawaiian holiday.)
So there are the Stone Age adherents who do the rituals
without question, adopting convenient loopholes sanctioned by said fat poojary when necessary, and don’t even
bother to go into the why’s and wherefore’s. And then there’s this whole other
bunch of people, who consider themselves a cut above—the Harappan hipsters, if
you will—who’ll give you lame pseudo-science “rationales” for why these things
were done in the Stone Age, as if this in some way mitigates their extreme
irrelevance and provides justification for doing them 10000 years later in the
age of the iPhone. I came across one such person (from an illustrious family of
doctors, financiers, and IITians) who insisted on telling me the benefits of
climbing 50000 stairs cut into a hillside in some village at 3:00 in the
morning to “see” a stone idol in some temple at the top. “It is a form of
self-discipline,” I was told. He was not amused when I pointed out that he had
never shown up on time for a social appointment a single day of his life, and
maybe he ought to look for more opportunities for self-discipline in the
practical realm of daily life.
In his defense, though, one of this guy’s decadent personal
coups (like any progressive scientist, hiding in the toilet) was defying his
mother and cutting his nails at night. I don’t know why he had to hide, though.
In the total absence of electricity, how could she possibly see his axe?
Rangoli was
another of his hobby-horses. Apparently, the rice flour that the lines were
drawn with kept all the ants occupied long enough so they didn’t get in your
house. So naturally, we should obstruct everybody’s path in the two-foot-square
apartment complex stairwell with ever-more-elaborate chalk drawings to this
day, despite the advent of Gamaxene (and a gamut of other non-toxic options).
Another explanation I’ve heard for rangoli
is that it provided “entertainment” for the little women who had to stay home
while their husbands were out constructing great granaries and drainage systems
or whatever it is they did. All the more imperative then, to have them outside
your door, albeit by outsourcing the drawing to your domestic help while you
watch The Real Housewives of Orange County.
When some such medieval ritual was being conducted at a
relative’s house, their beloved cocker spaniel cross came wandering up to the
altar and promptly started sniffing up the various unfathomable objects strewn
across the living room. The hyperventilating elders and the odd cousin
muttering, “The sanctity of the whole thang’s gone to the dogs” were all put at
ease by our old friend Fat Poojary, though. He assured them that dogs were
kosher because some three-headed “god” likes dogs and that there is, in fact, a
body of photographic evidence in support of this fact. So, if they’re good
enough for Him, they’re good enough for me is the premise here. But what I want
to know is, why can’t we just love dogs for all that they are? Or, for that
matter, emus, or whale sharks?
I could go on. If people are gonna murder animals for their
meat one day of the week, why are they so sanctimonious about not doing it on
some other random day, just because it has an unpronounceable name? Why this
hatred and outrage towards feet (goofy or otherwise)? Why are they equated with
disrespect and dirt? (If there’s no word for this let’s call it misopedy.) I
wanna know how far those hataz could run up the 50000 steps without them. And
people have told me in all seriousness, in the new millennium, that menstruating
women can contaminate a whole bottle of pickle with the touch of a finger (the
HH are quick to point out it’s because of “elevated body temperature”). Well,
good to know I’m instantly transformed into the Human Torch from Fantastic 4 whenever I get my period,
with the superhuman (and useful) ability to turn preserves to ash. Flame on, I
say. Don’t even get me started on the gender-biased ones, like how women have
to wear symbolic shackles around their necks, toes, wrists, or ankles
(depending on regional subculture) to scream that they are married, but men
have nothing to show for it. And that widows (if they inconveniently decide to
live on) transform into walking ghosts who can’t wear any colors and are not
allowed the tiniest pleasure for the rest of their lives, whereas men who’ve
lost their wives do nothing except, possibly, marry someone younger.
So it’s probably that time when I need to provide my
disclaimer to the local-area-network lynch mob. I’m not saying Hinduism is
intrinsically bad, or in any way worse than any other organized religion. Most
religions, in fact, have similar base tenets that are pretty sensible and
timeless. But the ever-increasing ritualistic trappings concocted by
self-serving men at every stage in history need not be perpetuated. Haven’t we
evolved enough to be able to tell the beneficial from the loony? Like my man
Markandey Katju said, it would be sick-tastic if people in this country started
opening their eyes and minds and stopped living a double life of supposed scientific
advancement on the one hand, and pre-historic superstition on the other.
"Espied by some timid man-of-war or blundering discovery-vessel from afar, when the distance obscuring the swarming fowls, nevertheless still shows the white mass floating in the sun, and the white spray heaving high against it; straightway the whale’s unharming corpse, with trembling fingers is set down in the log—shoals, rocks, and breakers hereabout: beware! And for years afterwards, perhaps, ships shun the place; leaping over it as silly sheep leap over a vacuum, because their leader originally leaped there when a stick was held. There’s your law of precedents; there’s your utility of traditions; there’s the story of your obstinate survival of old beliefs never bottomed on the earth, and now not even hovering in the air! There’s orthodoxy!"
- Herman Melville | Moby Dick
No comments:
Post a Comment