Easiness of Great Meditation

As an unwritten rule our children don’t make a fuss over mother’s and father’s day. They think it is too commercial where the quality of affection is equated or lowered  to the discounts offered on goods and services.

 But I made an exception for the yoga day. Even though it is politicised the innumerable articles and TV shows on the subject  helped  to appreciate  the beauty of this exercise which has the ability to  elevate the mind!

I am fortunate to come across these beautiful words and I would love to share it with you and  wish and hope that you enjoy and  experience the   wonderful feeling of peace and serenity.

• Take off the knots created by of your ego
• Remove the knots  of your anger
• Take off the knots  of your jealousy
• Take off the knots of  your disappointments
• When you have smoothened all the knots feel little by little.
• the lightness of your body
• Now sit and loosen up yourself
• Sit straight
• Sit alone
• Sit pleasantly
• Sit with love towards self
• Sit with happiness
• Give out the fragrance of love
• Become the fragrance
• Sit lightly
• With all this goodness happiness and fragrance surrounding you, lightly close your eyes
• Feel and enjoy the eye lids tenderly caressing each other
• Imagine you are sitting on a beautiful fragrant thousand petal white lotus in the early morning pool.
• Enjoy this feeling every morning and evening
• This is the greatest form of meditation

The Minority Tribe

Many of you might have gone through these misadventures or may be worse ones while attending weddings where the organisers prioritise the majority non vegetarians leaving the minority to the custody of nearby vegetarian hotels.

 We were at a wedding.

“Vegetarians please go up” A person was pleasantly requesting the guests. We acknowledged him smilingly and moved up.  If we had been looking for a pleasant hall we would have been disappointed. There were just two tables placed adjacent to the kitchen and we were asked to make ourselves comfortable. The burnt logs pulled out from the stove were creating a smoky ambience around us. There was a power cut and the gen set connection was not extended to this poor vegetarian section.  Sweaty with burning eyes we had our wedding feast of half cooked rice and walked away as quickly as we can!

We were happy to note that at another venue the arrangement for vegetarian was as good as the non-vegetarian section. But by the time we came after wishing the newly married and tete et tete with the known guests the vegetarian food had gone with the wind!!

 It was another wedding venue. Even though the non-vegetarians were in majority beautiful arrangements had been made for vegetarians too with an aesthetic shamiana in place and important hosts wishing everyone and requesting one and all to enjoy the lunch. The items were many and the vegetarian servers who usually prefer to be topless showing off their sweaty upper body were fully clothed! But the moving guests the serving team and the running children had created a dusty layer and the effect was that along with the food we had to enjoy the fine dust too! They forgot to put a carpet over the soil!

We have taken a strong decision with regard to eating vegetarian feast in a mainly non-vegetarian wedding feasts.

We didn’t want to give an excuse of sickness or emergency hospital visits since those do not augur well with the occasion.

The planning goes thus

1. As we wish the newlyweds and shown our gift promptly as ordered by the photo and videographers and registered our presence by posing along we can quietly walk out Suppose we were caught in the middle by a known host

2. “What a wonderful treat… by the way where have you kept the paan? This food needs that for proper digestion.” In case we were caught just off the stage when this gimmick doesn’t work

3. “There is an important event where our presence is a must… explain to you later.” As we utter these words we should be on our run unavailable for a subsequent inquisitive questioning.

As we were discussing these options we never anticipated a problem in an entirely different sort would crop up before us. It was a phone call from our son.

"Dad you remember Sri who was your right hand man during my wedding?” “He is getting married now.  Since he is starting late from US he couldn’t come to our house to invite you. Instead his father would come in person to give the invitation. Even though it is an effort on your part to go so far please attend the wedding. And Appa I don’t want you to send anyone else. Mum and you have to reciprocate that affection.” It was more of a command from the land of Obama than a docile request to the respectful Indian parents!

That marriage was happening in a village in the vicinity of Sivagangai. Taking a wrong turn we lost our way and on that rustic route the back tyre of the car got punctured. Exasperated we arrived at the venue only around noon. We were lucky that the father was there to welcome us amidst the unknown crowd and without taking us in to wish the newly married, which he said could wait, took us straight to the dining area. As  they started serving the food we realised that we were being served non vegetarian food. As we slowly wriggled out, the worried father came running and we did the explaining

“I thought you were all non-vegetarians”

“You are right but just the two of us…..”

Our host was thoroughly disillusioned. His son’s best friend’s parents were not able to part take in this luxurious banquet!!  Not to be undone he took us to the hall and ordered someone to get cool drinks.

We dared not to open our mouth to say ‘no’ to this offer. Poor man……. we didn’t want to hurt him.

Dry and cold rice, watery  sambar  some rasam  smelly  butter milk and soggy over fried appalams was the fare sitting in front of us.

Our host was furious and shouted “Where did you get this useless food? I wanted you to go to Rassapa’s place to get food with vadai and payasam…”  he reprimanded

“ Rassapa had closed shop today to be here for our wedding……”

We made a great effort to relish it!

“Are you always a vegetarian?” asked the grand old man who was the grandfather of the bridegroom in a concerned voice.

“No, no it was just some time back that we decided to opt for vegetarian.”

His admonition was; “Don’t do it please, your body will lose all your energy and vitality. I don’t know how you manage it” he looked down at us with pity!!

He continued “It is big effort for us to eat that miserable vegetarian food on Fridays and New moon days. At least a piece of dry fish is essential to go with it.”

This grand old man was sailing in the same boat as  the Bangladeshis who recently entertained the Indian Prime Minister Modi and came to know that he was a pure vegetarian. They exclaimed “What ……… he doesn’t eat fish?!! He doesn’t touch prawns…!!? “Poor man what else can he eat?!!”

As we parted the wedding festivities and as a compensatory measure for all that we missed, all the delicacies were packed for the rest of the family.

“The food will not get spoilt for two days. The Chettinad cooks are world famous for their careful cooking.”

As we were ready to start the grand old man, with lot of concern in his eyes, peeped through the window of the car and we lowered it. Holding my husband’s hand he said “you are all highly educated people……but please listen to this old villager for once. you might have become a vegetarian for last few years, but your own well being ……  please come back and join our non vegetarian fold!”

His folded hands with rustic concern and love had indeed touched our heart if not the food!

The Flex Boards of Tamil Nadu

I had a persisting doubt in my mind.

What is your great doubt that friends like us can’t sort it out for you?

 “Could you tell me the place of origin of this flex culture which had entered into the state of Tamil Nadu on the sly and, like "Vetal of the Vikkramadityan" story, holding it in its iron grip?

My friends looked at me sarcastically at my ignorance! But they did indeed explain to me in detail

 Most of our Tamil Nadu politicians were born out of our Tamil cinema and Tamil cinema had the culture of bill boards and when these politicians became our rulers they carried this powerful advertising tool with them and with technological advancements the bill boards metamorphosed into the cheap and best  flex boards and we the people of Tamil Nadu, the virtuous followers of these heroes and heroines followed them to the core and their accompanying flex culture naturally attached itself to us and  now we don’t know where to stop  and like a mangal sutra for a wedding it has become an inseparable and important element of  all our social get-togethers and  house hold functions and celebrations!!

We often traverse the Chennai-Trichy national highway (NH 45) and whenever a village approached we kept our fingers crossed anticipating the atrocious flex boards   of the day. We were never disappointed.

On that particular day there was indeed a huge flex with a baby faced girl inviting one and all for the celebration of her first menstrual cycle! Her makeup was terrible with rouge on her cheeks, green and pink mascara on the eye lids red lipsticks on her lips…… did they stop with that….? No way..!Like a bharatha natyam dancer she had her moon and sun brooches apart from the rakkodi and forehead chain and her long braid had flower decoration. As if this was not enough thanks to the influence of TV over her eye brows she had another row of white dots like the Bengali bride and sandalwood pottu like the Kerala girls!

There was a necklace and poothali closer to her neck followed by dollar chain, jasmine bud chain followed again by a coin chain. As a last straw she was in a big pattu sari gifted by her maternal uncle

Like a sacrificial goat she posed ……….

 Should we Tamilians not be ashamed of our unwanted publicity…… for an occasion which needed lot of education for the female child?

In those days when there was no four lane highway there used to be boards announcing the degree of danger on a particular part of the road like “Caution! Highly dangerous curve!” In the same manner on the same highway I saw a really frightful flex which I would love to share with you

 “Goat sacrifice for Lord Ayyanar and ear piercing for the children “announced the board.

 On one side of the flex Lord Ayyanar was sitting on a horse with frightening big red eyes and flying hair adorned with crown. While his left hand was holding the reins on the other hand was holding a shiny big sword which he was swishing around with vigour. On the other side of the flex there were three little toddlers with fright writ all over their face! The children’s photo could have been a separate entity but the combined effect was indeed a horror story!

We stayed for some days in the village and a visit to the village invariably entailed a visit to river Kollidam at the village of Thenkatchi. A tractor load of relatives of various hues and kinds were there with an interesting breakfast of idly and kesari after a dip in the flowing river.

As I was floating in the shallow waters I enquired my local cousin how his shop was doing. “These politicians are indeed creating ruckus around the place.” He started his lamentations. “On full moon days and new moon days people used to visit temples but today the culture is topsy turvy. On these days they hold party meetings and conferences all through the night. The other day a man was digging  holes in front of my shop and I told him that there was already a big hole dug by the panchayat aeons ago and still left opened and if he was to dig some more to fix the flex the business for small traders like us would be affected. “I am asked just to dig holes at this place” He shouted at me and throwing his digging implements walked away. After a while there was a burly party man who addressed me thus, “What do you think of yourselves? Don’t you know that our leader had the majority vote from here? And you had the guts to protest against his flex board? We have every right to fix it wherever we wish and we can even close your b..i..g… super market and fix the flex right on that spot” I knew that he was not a local person and had come here to show off his power. Local politicians usually created bonhomie of sorts with the local business community. I didn’t talk to him and taking my vehicle went away from that troubled spot.”

“What happened then?”

“When I went back they had left a small entry gap for my shop while completely hiding the next one!”

“I have an even bigger story that this flex had created in our place.” an uncle who was listening joined in.

“It was a bride’s side wedding and busloads of guests from the boy’s side were filling up the whole area. But all of a sudden people among them were agitated and soon it was turning into war of words. In the middle of this was an old woman whose voice was rising to great decibels by seconds.

She was the paternal grandmother of the boy and getting down from the bus the first thing she witnessed was the flex board wherein both the sides of the family from the grandparents of the bride and groom were welcoming all and sundry for the wedding. That’s a good idea but what was the problem? While the girl’s side female members were wearing jewels neck to neck in the flex the boy’s side members were adorned in measly single chain! The grandmother thought they were indeed humiliated by this unbecoming flex board. She exclaimed “What do they think of my grandson? For his qualifications and earnings people were queuing up in front of my door and these disrespectful people had the audacity to make this poster. At the height of anger she shouted at her son to cancel the wedding and go back home and conduct the wedding at their temple with another girl at the same auspicious time and hold a grand reception at a later date with big flex boards (putting these measly boards to shame) adorning the whole wedding procession route!

But the culprit of this whole proceeding was the bridegroom. When his would be in law asked for family photos for the flex he looked at the photogenic quality of the photos rather than the adorning jewels. Now he had to manage the show.  His grandmother was the eldest in the family and people respected her words. What if she had her way with his marriage? He was in a big dilemma. With the culture of cell phone flourishing the chat and the Skype adding vigour his marriage had blossomed into an ardent love affair from which he would not like to come out.

Instantaneously he place a quick call across to his would be partner explain the situation. She indeed had a plan!!

On the pretext of grandma needing some rest from this heat the grandson led  her into an air-conditioned place  where they would be bride was waiting As the lady entered the room she fell flat on grandmother’s feet with a visible single small chain around her neck and as a further precaution showered the old lady with kisses. The flabbergasted woman was beyond words except wishing her would be granddaughter in law all the best in life and also with a query why she hadn’t adorned herself with her jewels!!

While the psychological endearing was proceeding the  girl’s father  called on the friends who had affectionately placed those 10 calamitous flex boards which had the capacity to stop the wedding itself and told them that they had to manage and make sure that those boards were never in the vicinity of the wedding hall.

“I didn’t know how many workers they employed, how many banana plantations they destroyed “ continued the uncle “But before the bridal procession could start they whole path was adorned with  fresh and greenest banana trees intertwined beautifully with colourful serial lights. So all was well on that day that ended well. “

We joined in his laughter along with hand full of sweet kesari and with the determination never to go near the flex in our family function.