Twenty- five Seven

Thoughts after Nine days of Goddess Worship

October 24, 2012
Today is Dussera or Dasra (as I know it) a festival to mark the nine nights of worship to the mother goddess.These nine nights of worship are celebrated twice in a year, once in the earlier half and the other in the second half. It is this Navratri which comes at the end and is more well known and widely celebrated particularly the last day or the 10th Day which is known as Dasra.

This original harvest festival is also known as a day when Good triumphs over Evil – the slaying of the demon Mahisasur by the mother goddess. Yesterday was a day spent in frantic preparation for today – I cleaned and dusted and swept the house with a passion and vigour that was lacking these past few months. As I dusted away the cobwebs, I could truly feel the resident evil in my house lifting and going away. After months of despair, I am sure that things will change for the better and that the evil spirits that had claimed my life will slowly disappear.

These nine days I have spent saying a special prayer for the Mother Goddess and this morning I truly got up at the crack of dawn and walked down to the temple nearby. It was strange but by 6.30 it was packed and I literally had to squeeze my way through. In my part of the world men and women enjoy an equality unknown elsewhere in India but these days times are changing. With more and more people coming into the city, traditions are changing and we actually have separate queues for men and women – something simply unheard of when I was a child. However, since most people consider praying itself regressive, it would only be in keeping with this regressive mind set to segregate the worshippers into men and women. That did not stop me from keeping another tradition that is known only in my part of the world (circumambulating round the sanctum sanctorum. So refusing to be kept down by these men who hogged up half the temple, I excused myself and went to the back where I renewed my thanks before ploughing my way through the women in the other half and came away happy and truly blessed.

On a personal front, Dasra as a festival, has always been tinged with sadness as I always remember my first miscarriage that I went through on this day. Even though it was just in the initial stages, I always wonder how my life would have turned out if that child had survived. And with the upheaval in my life this year, I find the loss all the more poignant and more real……..

But this evening Anna Shetty and her husband are coming home to celebrate and I’ve already finished boiling down litres of milk to make the divine caramelised Basundi that she loves. Sickeningly sweet and flavoured with saffron and cardamom, the little slivers of almonds add the crunch to this yummy sweet that she loves. Eaten chilled with the fattest of puris, nothing can be more divine!

Sudha ben has just delivered her usual Dussera treat of hot jalebis and ganthia signifying the start of the festivities. So now I will trot off to the goldsmith to buy some golden Bauhinia leaves which I will present to Anna Shetty welcoming her into the world of married women.

Happy Dasra all. May your ventures bear fruit and your wishes fulfilled! Good will always triumph over evil.
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Can’t you forgive Lance Armstrong?

October 23, 2012

This morning’s head lines screamed that Lance Armstrong was stripped of all his 7 Tour de France titles. It was only a repetition of what was playing on the ticker tape in last night’s TV news and the way it was being played, one would imagine there was a sense of glee that the poor man has been so publicly humiliated.

I find this whole song and dance about Lance Armstrong and the stripping of his titles extremely silly. First of all a country that is built on competition, a culture that deems that the means justify the end and last of all with a public with very little moral values has no business to point fingers at a man who ultimately only reflected the society in which he was brought up.

America is full of stories of saints who’ve had a past and how every sinner has an opportunity of becoming a saint, how human beings should forgive and forget, how people should learn to forget the past and look ahead, and last of all how every person who asks for forgiveness should be forgiven for his trespasses.

With such a forgiving “culture”, I find it ridiculous that Lance Armstrong cannot be forgiven for “doping”. After all he did it for the larger good – to win the race and raise money for his charities. So what was wrong in that? He was only following his heart, realising his dream and working for a cause he believed in.

So what’s wrong with telling lies?
What’s wrong with running a scam?

And most importantly, why not forgive him?

The Lance Armstrong story only proves that cheaters never prosper. Liars, thieves, criminals, and cheaters , in fact any one who acts in an immoral way can NEVER justify his actions. The means can NEVER justify the end. And once a liar and a cheat – always a liar and a cheat.

While I cannot forgive Lance Armstrong for winning unethically, I feel sorry for him because his behaviour was totally in keeping with the dictum ” All the world loves a winner” and as long as he won, he was the public’s darling.
Shopping for the reluctant gift receiver.

October 23, 2012

This post is a part of the contest at BlogAdda.com in association with Badhai.in

I love receiving gifts and even if I am getting the sixth pink scarf, I oooh and aaah in appreciation, gaze lovingly at the fabric and actually voice my heartfelt thanks. It’s not that I’m a hypocrite but I do honestly believe that the whole effort deserves commendation even if the gift is not after your heart. Besides I not only love shopping for gifts but I love wrapping them up.

I always thought that everyone had that wide eyed approach to gifts but it is strange but true there are some people who don’t like gifts. And what seems even more strange is the fact I am surrounded by people who don’t want gifts.

” I hate using things I don’t buy myself”

” I have no space to keep anything.”

” All curios are dust collectors”

” I am very fussy”

” I just throw out what I get or re-cycle it”

These are just some of the reactions I get when I ask them what they’d like as a gift. So with most people I know simply reluctant to accept gifts buying them is soooooooooooo very difficult.

When we were growing up buying gifts for birthday parties was very simple.For all of Rs. 2.50 you could get a lovely paperback of Enid Blyton so we could easily pick up one or two books depending on how much our budget stretched to and be sure of getting a big grin and a thank you hug for the “Book that I was dyyyyyyyyyyying to read.”

Today unfortunately no one has time to read and even less of a desire to acquire a book which truly lands up being a dust collector on yet another shelf that has to be dusted. Besides, the cost of books being what they are, it is often cheaper to give cash than a book which you are unsure will be well received.

Which then leaves me with other options which are more personalised – like clothes. But here again you have a problem with size and colour. If you gift anything in XL or XXL it doesn’t go down too well while anything in S or XS doesn’t go down well either ( it gets stuck at the head!). Checks, stripes, self design, prints, embroidered or otherwise, fabric that is too clingy, stretch or just plain coarse………..the list of gripes is as varied as the different combinations that the garments and styles that are available to choose from.

Kitchenware is useful only if used by the person to whom it is gifted – it is absolutely of no use to the donee who gives it to her maid or cook. But on the other hand such a domesticated gift implies complete slavery to the kitchen bringing forth some more angst about the donee’s ability to do anything other than cooking.

Gifts of wine and spirits don’t go down well with wives and nowadays with Dhoble on the prowl isn’t too welcome by the high spirited either. Besides, your choice of wine or whiskey opens yet another Pandora’s Box of your ignorance of the good from the bad so perhaps you are better off without a bottle.

Which left me with the biggest nightmare of all times – buying a gift for my daughter’s wedding. Actually it was not one gift but at least a hundred gifts. As everyone knows, gifts exchanged during a wedding are different from ordinary gifts. I spent almost an entire year doing shopping. First looking around to see what was available and then finally getting down to buying.

I went up and down escalators and towns looking for the perfect gift for X, Y and Z. Most times it was harrowing just to go and have a look with traffic jams and shop timings making it quite a task to go from one end of town to the next. And with every gift option there was the added question of whether it was appropriate for the person or the occasion.

So I can honestly say that the whole of last year was a nightmarish experience looking for the perfect gift and even though I had fun looking around, I wouldn’t want to go through it again!