Total Eclipse of Reason

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Some schools declared it a holiday. Some will start late. Apparently to facilitate the watching of the total solar eclipse of the century. I don’t just have doubts, I’m hundred percent certain as any of you is that it is to facilitate ritualistic baths and purification.

Not a single morning walker was seen till 7.15 AM. The teeming crowds of school kids on bus stops had dwindled. Schools where we send our kids to learn and question, rhyme and reason, get to the bottom of things and get a more rational/scientific view of life and world tell them to stay at home because it’s a solar eclipse! Come on, you just taught them in class 2 that it’s but the shadow of the moon.

Everyone is free to keep their faith. But please do it quietly. Don’t impose. Don’t propagate. Don’t influence and don’t create hysteria around normal, scientific occurrences.

I am a traditionalist, make no mistake. I follow tradition from sheer regard for the logic and thinking that goes behind it and from the fear of not losing beautiful things. I will do a million Surya Namaskars. I will visit temples and other places of worship because of their positive energy which makes me feel peaceful. But I will not bathe, clothe and feed my gods every morning. If I can do it so can HE. But I have no grouse against those who do. It can have a very calming effect as any repetitive, mechanical task and daily routine can. Also, chanting and meditation have benefits far beyond our estimation.

If you have older people at home who would like things done in a specific way, please oblige. It’s difficult for them to come out of it in a hurry. Because when the skies grew dark at midday and the sun was very systematically getting eaten up by the darkness; the birds grew restless and the cows mooed; they prayed and kept themselves half dipped in holy waters and asked pardon for their sins. Lo and behold! The gods heard them, forgave their sins, the sun was restored and life returned – all because of their faith and prayer. So it continued. Now don’t we know better? But the insecurities in the human heart tug. Rituals are a small price to pay. Kya jata hai? I will bathe in milk if it gives me shanti. Fair. Do it but do it in private. Schools that declared a holiday must have about ten percent or fewer students who would have stayed behind at home to follow rituals. But by declaring it a holiday they have made the other ninety percent rethink. What’s a bath? A few tulsi leaves? Let’s do it for the peace of our minds.

Insecurity. God forbid if anything was to go wrong this day – like say, a total all-day power shutdown, I would be taunted for sitting on the pot while the morning was turning night.

Do what makes you feel good but for goddssake don’t draw the impressionable minds into regressive rituals. It would have been so heartening if a school had organized a sighting and a session about the eclipse and made students come in early. Even if they had to close early afterward so they could go home and catch on the sleep, food or even the turmeric baths.

For a week now, I’ve shut my ears to all dos and don’ts and those nonsensical TV channels that have proclaimed doomsday and adverse effects on my rashi. But I have listened to the advice of not looking at the sun directly – it may damage the retina. Fair. Good. Thank you for reminding.

I hate confrontation. I do what I want to do – what I think is correct – logically, scientifically. I’m not strong on any - logic or science (sisters will comment that I don’t know why the roti puffs up because I never did study science). So tell me what the eclipsed sun does to my food and water how the tulsi will purify? Tell me how the early morning eclipsed sunrays will enter and spoil food that is not covered? Tell me how my chanting mantras will save the sun? Tell me how the bath will rinse away my sins? Tell me HOW?

The stories will come in all day today – I toh did not let anyone touch food! We stuck tape on our mouths afraid a word may slip. I am ready to turn my deaf ear. You didn’t know I had one? Good.

Gluttony is a s..port

Conversation with friends over lunch veered to some eating competition and to some two guys who ate up to 60 rasgullas. They reached a point where they had to eat the rasgullas with chutney.

Eating competitions are held at all levels - impromptu to professional. The most famous being the July 4 Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest in NY with a cash prize of $10,000. But these are for pros. Idiots. Who indulge in a sport that has adverse health effects. Then there are the amateurs – those with their eyes on Nathan’s. Idiots-in-the-making. And finally there are those who do it for fun and won’t go beyond 5 rasgullas. They are gluttons. Good. Sensible people with love and respect for the food, for their bodies and the machinery within.

There is no dearth of incidents where people die eating. What a way to go! I mean you go to a beautiful place and say I could die here! or eat a beautiful meal and say I could die now! but you never think I will participate in this rasgulla eating race and choke on my vomit and die, do you? Among recent instances, a student in Taiwan died during a steamed-bun-eating contest. Closer home in Gurgaon a young techie died during a pastry-eating competition and more recently the winner of a pancake-eating contest dropped dead after gorging himself on 43 of the cream and banana stuffed pancakes. I feel sorry for the last guy. The others died of eating something nice, at least.

When I was small a school in the neighborhood hosted a Jalebi race to mark the end of the annual fest. It was the most awaited event. Jalebees were suspended from strings tied to a rope held by two tall teachers who swung it continuously. The participants had their hands tied at the back and had to constantly jump and eat as many jaleebees off the string as possible. I don’t think the winner ever mattered there, it was such fun way to eat jaleebees and funnier to watch. (I have some heartbreaking news for India’s jalebi lovers – what you thought was yours, isn’t. Wikipedia with all her matter-of-fact tells me that our beloved Jalebi originated from Middle East and North Africa!)

I like going for buffets not because we can eat all we can but because as a family our tastes are varied. So if it’s a Chinese-continental-Indian buffet, we don’t have two sad faces in the car on the way back. Before even sitting at our table we just go off in our three different directions. No one tells the other your noodles or your dal-roti – uff!

When one day we were going out for one of these, a very straight talking neighbor familiar with our miniature appetites remarked that if we were indeed going to the place we were going to ‘bada loss pad jaayega’. That got me thinking. How much people eat when the food is free. They don’t mind falling ill because they have eaten at every stall at the wedding – from chats through chole bhature and chowmein to rabdi – I did not miss anything (now I’m dying of dysentery). When ordering, they will count rotis per person (embarrassingly pointing finger and asking ‘you?’ ‘how many?’ and you mumble 2 less than you want because everyone’s eyeing you) and even the addha or chappa left behind will be doggy-bagged but they will waste mounds at a buffet or a wedding.

Never count your roties, said mummy. It was blissful. But I talk like an old hag now. Because those who remember, remember. At age 10-12 yours truly sat on the patta (wooden plank) on the kitchen floor and downed at least 10-12 chapatis with a katori of ghee on the side and whatever curry, mostly aloo. It was a life lived cycling and running and the 12 chapatis went down without a rumble. Most importantly never showed up anywhere on the anatomy in the form of love handles.

Runcible! Making sense….

It seemed like 7 in the evening at 3 in the afternoon. The sky became dark and soon thunderous rain was lashing the window panes. It never fails to gladden the heart. Especially at 3 in the afternoon. Watching the world fill up and spill rainwater, ‘splish-splash’ came to mind and escorted it to my most wondrous nursery rhyme:

If all the seas were one sea,
What a great sea that would be!
If all the trees were one tree,
What a great tree that would be!
If all the axes were one axe,
What a great axe that would be!
If all the men were one man,
What a great man he would be!
And if the great man took the great axe,
And cut down the great tree,
And let it fall into the great sea,
What a great splash-splash that would be!

The thought of that great splish-splash makes me want to rush out and splash the puddled waters. Yeah, I know singing of cutting trees is so downright sinful, politically incorrect. But that was a world enclosed in Ringa-ringa roses/Pocket full of fozes. Now, now, before the elders (sisters, especially) scurry to list all the erroneous details of my rhyming times, let me clarify that my thoughts did go into the meaning, at least once, with alarm for, ‘London bridge is falling down, falling down…’ What was the song and dance about?

But I accept that much of it was a mincy-quincy of sorts. Now that is not uncommon in the age when a small dot of an injury needs to be band-aided, to realize later that the excitement of it obscured the fact that the injury and the band-aid are not on the exact same finger. So I could full-throatily and unabashedly reel off Peter, peter pumpkin eater/ How does your garden grow? And the guy who put the ‘ding-dong bell pussy’ in the well was little Jonny Thin (Flynn) which was so concurrent to the guy who pulled it out - Tommy Stout! Wasn’t that logical? The thin one was naughty and the fat one kind. I’m sure that singular logic made me look at all the fat people with respect for the rest of my life.

Much of the happy, foot-tapping, rhyme-singing time was all that except ‘happy’. Because unlike many of my classmates who sang unthinkingly while yawning, fiddling with anything within reach, chewing hanky corners, picking nose or the others whose focus was solely on getting their exaggerated facial expressions more exaggerated (like this 00), I reflected over word and meaning. Sometimes feeling most threatened. Like I hurried to cover my nose every time a bird came near me because Sing A Song Of Sixpence ended with,

The maid was in the garden, hanging out the clothes ;
There came a little blackbird, and pecked off her nose.

So when an eagle flew too close by during school recess and making me hurriedly cover my nose with both hands, it flew off with my paratha instead. That was a consolation.

Bonding with kids

-->Read Mr Bond to kids at easylibrary this Sunday morning.

The minute Vani asked if I’d read Ruskin Bond to kids, I thought of The Night the Roof Blew Off;I had loved reading it to the girl when she was little and to myself at all times. 
  

…snowflakes…settling on picture frames, statuettes and miscellaneous ornaments. Mundane things like a glue bottle and a plastic doll took on a certain beauty when covered with soft snow. The clock on the wall stopped and with its covering of snow reminded me of a painting by Salvador Dali. And my shaving brush looked ready for use!

But it was long and descriptive for this age-group (ages 6-12 years), so I decided to start with A Tiger in the House, sneak in a ghost story in between - The Haunted Bicycle seemed safe; and close with a tree story, the beautiful The Cherry Tree that ends with the philosophical, ‘Just one small seed,…. ‘I wonder, …is this what it feels to be God?’

After the tiger story there was a small discussion on why Grandfather calls the tiger Timothy, knowing Timothy was dead. The children were unanimous in their belief that Grandfather thought the keeper was lying! I had never thought of that and tried to lightly introduce the idea that perhaps Grandfather didn't want to believe that Timothy was dead or that perhaps all tigers were as dear to him. There were no takers for this! So the question that perhaps we are making them grow up more ‘cautious’,  distrustful (?) than necessary, is still niggling.

The Haunted Bicycle left them wide-eyed and wanting for more. Before I read the story, we discussed that ghosts were creatures of our imagination. I read out a humorous intro from The Ruskin Bond Omnibus, ending with ‘Ghost stories are meant to frighten you, but at the back of your mind you know it’s all a nightmare from which you are going to wake. In other words, it’s a “safe” fear and you can enjoy the process of being frightened.’ More than them, it put me at ease.

So? I asked. What was it? Buffaloes? Not wanting to put the G word into their heads. Ghosts! They were positive!! Buffaloes don't talk! How can they ride bicycles?

Why not? I insisted but between a ghost and a buffalo, the latter does seem like an insipid choice, really. 

Before reading The Cherry Tree, we talked about fruit and seed. How their mums tell them that if they swallow the seed, a tree would grow out of them.

Like this?

I forgot to ask if they imagined it coming out of their tummies (like I did) or from their heads, as was more likely? Flowing with their fantastic suspension of disbelief, we sat imagining how wonderful it would be to pluck fruit off each other and eat. But a 7-year-old cringed at the idea, she was certain the fruit would have spit on it! They also wondered about mud and manure and I assured them there was enough inside. Ten-year old Neethi wondered if they should occasionally go out in the sun and stand with their mouths open to let in the sunlight!

In the light of this discussion, THIS was very alarming! So if you can't be bothered with spitting out the seeds, listen to mum and CHEW YOU FOOD!

The kids wanted more. A 'Ghost' story was the certain choice! So a scary ghost story it was – A Face in the Dark. The finale, raw fear and all. We did not stop to talk about it. Fear of ghosts is a good thing. I’m smiling.