The tale of an Ayush Homam

The day began with Siddarth aka Hari Narayanan waking up at 530 am to have a bath before the ‘yama kandam’ started at 6 am. He, by the way, is my son who just turned one that day as per the Tamil calendar and hence we were about to have the function called the ‘Ayush homam’ wherein the child is blessed with a long life by elders of the family.

After a quick oil massage, he had the bath and escaped the dreaded time of 6 am. He was safely out of the bathroom and in his new clothes looking smart and unaware blissfully of the long day ahead of him. Slowly the family members, and a typical Iyengar’s family consists of many layers and … sub-layers, so get ready for a plethora of names and the relationship confusions - streamed in. First to land were my mother’s brother (mama), Mani and his wife, Maternal grandmother and mother’s sister - they made the long trip from Tirupathi to Chennai in a Toyota SUV and were in our house promptly by 6 AM. 

Mani mama, his daughter, and Sid

My mama himself is a certified pundit, but since he is almost of the same age as I am, we are at first name terms with each other and he is more of a fun pundit than most of the others (that does not mean he does not take his work seriously, he is just more open than many others)

As I played with my son, I ignored two to three calls from my dad asking me to have a bath.

‘Muhurtam is only at 7:30 dad, chill,’ I said as I rushed to save Sid’s head from making contact with a chair. Dad grunted and got himself busy hanging mango leaves inside the house, getting bricks ready for the homam (holy fire) and such activities that characterize these events. His elder brother arrived next.

‘The function is today, right?’ he asked aloud alarming of my parents, who were surely that he had spotted something seriously wrong in the arrangement.

Periyappa

‘Yes, why?’ Dad’s voice was extremely tense.

‘Varun is standing with a half drawer (loose term for ‘shorts’) on, that is why.’

I froze. I could almost hear my dad seethe, the thought ‘I told you so’ would be flooding his brain now and he would let it out anytime unless I defused the situation.

‘I am going right away Perippa (relationship term meaning ‘dad’s elder brother’). I was giving Mani directions,’ I said and scooted, towel in hand into the bathroom.

My wife, Niel, who had travelled half way across India from Ranchi, to be married into this family, courtesy the crazy little thing called love, was getting another hang of a family function in South India. The last time we celebrated something similar was Diwali where she had a bath at 5 AM, thinking what more could be appropriate on a festival day, only to be question by mom why she bathed without asking her. What about the oil to be applied on the head?

‘How was I to know? Neither you nor mom told me about it yesterday,’ Niel protested to me behind closed doors. Fair point but I obviously did not tell mom that.

This time though, she got the green light from everyone before bathing.

By that time, many more had trickled in, my cousins, dad’s sister’s (1) husband shortly followed by his son, dad’s sister (2) and her husband and their daughter-in-law, shortly followed by their son(2.1), dad’s sister‘s(2) daughter and her husband (all the way from Trichy), dad’s younger brother, dad’s elder brother(3) and his wife and his wife’s sister, dad’s elder brother’s (4) daughter(4.1), dad’s elder brother’s (4) son and his wife and their daughter, dad’s elder brother’s (4) daughter (4.2). Sorry, I know it is going above your head now, but you got the picture right? Wrong! You just have half the picture, because also present were… Maternal grandmother (from Tirupathi) who came along with mom’s brother (mentioned in the early part of this blog) and his wife, mom’s sister (1) and mom’s sister (2) and her husband (all the way from Kumbakonam). Even now you just have 95% of the complete picture as I am sure I missed some folks along the way.

A small portion of the 95% mentioned
in the article

The priests came by around 7:15 and started busying up the place. ‘Put the bricks here,’ ‘Place the puja items here,’ ‘Where are the plantain leaves,’ ‘Ask the son (me) to get dressed up,’ ‘Ask the girl (Niel) to get dressed up’ and so on. Mani promptly took me aside with a splendid dhoti in hand to help me get the panchakacham done. Mani is a man of the Vedas. His family (my mom’s family that is) was one of priests and I never fail to tell people that care (or those that don’t too) that back in the 70s and 80s, my maternal grandfather was one of five people that ran the temple of goddess Padmavathi in Tiruchanur, Tirupathi.

The temple is the second most famous in Tirupathi as it is the abode of the divine consort of Lord Venkateshwara who people flock to visit in the Tirumala hills. His son, Mani, had taken his line of work and was one of the more well-known pundits in the town. It is always a pleasure seeing him perform rites and rituals, shouting out the slokas with perfect emphasis on each of the syllables. He would even throw a gentle line of taunt or two in the middle just to catch the attention of people around.

He wrapped the dhoti around my legs, through my legs, and across my hips in a fashion that was as complex as any piece of code that I have written in my seven years in the IT industry. ‘Whenever you are free on Sundays, try this out.

Panchakacham and Madisar eh!

I will check on you after two months and you should be able to do this by yourself,’ he told me. I just smiled in return but the guy is so persuasive that for the first time in life, I fantasized on how it would be to learn the art.

I suddenly realised that Niel was missing for the last 30 minutes. After searching for her everywhere, I realised that the door to one of the room’s had been shut for a long time and in a house as busy as ours was that day, no door can be shut unless people were in it. It was elementary. Niel was being dressed up in the women’s version of the panchakacham, the ‘madisar’ or the ‘nine-yard saree’!!! And I was sure there were at least 2-3 attendants making sure every fold was right. Sure enough, she came out looking like a bride, all over again.

We sat at the wooden platforms placed for us on the floor, in front of the square homa enclosure, surrounded by four priests and all the people I mentioned earlier. The function began.

Priests behave in different ways – They either rush the slokas in a hurry, pay scant respect to whether you, as the host, utter each of those slokas properly or not, collect their money and leave even before the ‘Muhurtam’ time is over. This is done if the host is judged (by the priest) as someone that wants the function done just so it has to be done and just because the religion demands it from them.

But if the host and family are inherently religious (this sounds more like my family), and even worse (from the priests’ business point of view), if there are qualified pundits in the host’s family itself (there were at least four people from either side of my family that day that recited the slokas along with the priests, two of them ultra-qualified pundits, holding important positions in some of  the top temples in Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu- two of the major Brahmin bastions of India), not only will the priests ensure they recite the slokas slowly, they would also be a tad nervous if they are intimidated by the wealth of knowledge around them.

So the main priest began reciting the slokas taking care that I recited them properly after him. Even in the second scenario that I mentioned above, a certain minimum speed has to be maintained when reciting the slokas as the Muhurtam time was usually short, spanning anywhere between an hour and a half to two hours. And at this speed, it is difficult to follow what all is being said even if it is said in English, leave alone in Sanskrit (which of course was the language of the day). The art of not embarrassing oneself by blabbering something completely unrelated to what was just said takes years to cultivate and being brought up in the family and having gone through many functions like this (‘Upanayanam’-Holy thread ceremony, ‘Changing of the holy thread’ ceremony – once every year since the Upanayanam, My marriage, Ceremony held at the eighth month after Niel conceived to name just a few), I knew most of the slokas soon as the priest started uttering them and had some tricks up my panchakacham to handle the other bouncers thrown at me. For those that are searching for ways, here are a few in ascending order of difficulty:

1.  Top most and easiest of them all is to start a phrase as soon the pundit starts it. This way, you can get away uttering anything from that day’s cricket scores to the news headlines till the last part of the phrase (that almost always ends with a ‘swaha’) is recited. But unless the elderlings around you are totally deaf, do not recite the news headlines. Rather, try following the priest and say things that at least sound similar to what he says and then end the phrase with the mandatory ‘Swaha.’
2. Grab hold of the mantra book prior to sitting on the hot seat and follow it as and when the slokas are being recited
3. Learn all the mantras by-heart and fire away at will, go on give people around you a complex. At the end of the day, you might even get a little extra (in the form of Ashirvadam) by the elders. Not the easiest way to earn money, but hey, who said earning money was easy!

Head priest intimidating us

This pundit was good and constantly ensured that I was at least keeping pace with him as he recited along merrily. He would merely increase the tone and pitch of his voice if he found that I was getting distracted and that would bring me back to planet earth from wherever I went (which that day, ranged from something as exciting as TinTin-3D to something as mundane as just getting rid of the dhoti in favor of my ‘half drawer’).

The pundit breed is ultra-special. You will not see many people speak better and so confidently in public gatherings, not even the top salesman in award winning car dealerships. They have to meet people from all strata of society – rich, poor, Six pack Suryas to those with one big MRF tyre pack (as obese people are referred to jocularly) and a lot more variety. Doing this day in and day out make them so garrulous that only empty politicians or army officers can challenge them in this trade. My mama is no different and can hold in own even if he is amidst NASA scientists discussing their next launch. He would probably convince them into visiting Tirupathi to seek the Lord’s blessings for the launch.

The chorus of the slokas raced ahead towards its imminent conclusion when the chief priest’s phone rang the tune of another sloka. He picked up the phone, glanced at the number, looked sheepishly at the rest of us, and signaled us to stop for a bit. And attended the call, much to my surprise. I remember my dad slapping me on my head during my younger days if he found me spacing out during these functions, and here the priest was on phone giving directions to some guy who apparently wanted to reach some place. The audience looked at each other wondering how to bell the cat and resume the chorus. My father’s younger brother did it elegantly.

‘What happened?’ he asked, addressing everyone and no one in particular. ‘Some emergency?’ he feigned a state of shock while neatly conveying the message that such an interruption in the midst of a major family function could be warranted only by an emergency and nothing else.

The chorus resumed instantly and all was well again. The function ended in the next fifteen minutes and the crowd dispersed to various corners of the house – the women folk bunched around in gangs in the kitchen, terrace and in one of the bedrooms, men lorded over the ceremonial hall and the verandah, my son ruled the entire house commanding attention wherever he went, the priests stuck to the space around the homa kundam.

Mrs. I and I were then paraded around the house by various elders who suggested to us to prostrate before and take the blessings of other elders around. Though we were used to this, my mom thankfully nudged my dad and asked him to tell everyone to gather around so that Mrs. I and I can prostrate before all en masse. 

The beginning of a prostration,
not even the kid is spared!!!

And so, the who is who of the Rangarajan family gathered around in the ceremonial hall and showered a ‘limited meals’ amount of ‘Akshata’ (rice mixed with turmeric powder, considered very auspicious) on us.

The day ended with me and my wife replacing our festival clothing with more modern and comfortable clothing. Yet another family function, high on religious quotient and very eventful!

Post Script

The current generation, I don’t think, is very excited when it comes to such functions. I shamefully include myself in that category. But my humble opinion is that when we take time off to explain to our children practical and religious significances of such events, the point would go much farther. Fortunately or otherwise, the world is tending to be more scientific and less religious. 

Mom

Dad 'ashirwad'ing us

Therefore, just thrusting rites and rituals on children would more often fail than succeed.

From the other side, we, the internet generation, need to understand the sensibilities behind our parents laying stress on such events. Not everything religious can be explained practically, and generations of educated people cannot be wrong. So, unless you would be seriously impacted, let us go ahead with the flow, understand the meaning of these events beforehand, enjoy them and make them enjoyable for everyone around.

If we all make these adjustments, our culture would be able to stand the test of time for a very long while to come.

Swaha!

Backpacking in the Cats

We waited in Tarrytown, waiting for April to arrive,

‘The cars around me on the bridge’ she said, ‘were like bees in a hive.’

The five of us carpooled in the Toyota and the Merc, sped towards Prediger road,

We were excited about the Devil’s path, ready with our 30 pound load.

So we arrived at 10 o clock, parking in the dark,

There was not a single sound, neither of man nor of the lark.

‘Did we take all our stuff?’ someone asked,  ‘the maps, compass and the water?’

Cos we need to spend time in the woods for the next day and a quarter.

April fell down reaching for the maps, the first in a series of ten,

But boy was she tough surviving it all, like a lion in its own den.

Lean-to was soon in sight, after the one mile hike,

we tied our food in plastic bags and hung it on a tree higher than the bears would like.

We soon slept in our sleeping bags, after hanging to dry our shoe(s)

all the night the roar of a river nearby, our ears listened to.

The birds chirped, the water dripped, when day finally broke

What a crisp day it was then, its beauty made us choke.

We had our food, and filtered the river water, thanks to April’s portable device,

Little did poor Judy know then that the device had a vice.

‘Oh no, will we fall sick?’ that was Judy’s grouse,

when April revealed suddenly that she forgot the filtering element in her house.

But we had bigger problems down the trail, as slowly the Devil revealed

why so many people before us had tried the trail and failed

(Well the above line was just for fun, not the truth)

On and on the trail went, not something you would love,

Especially if it goes up and down, like a sine curve.

We did not stop for lunch at all, we were racing against time,

to get the day’s hike over with, before the end of sunshine.

First we came to Indian head, then the Twin mountain peaks,

followed by the Sugarloaf, crossing many creeks.

Then we descended in the dark, stumbling over the rocks,

cliff climbing with just headlights, not a stroll in the parks.

‘There is the lean-to’ screamed one of us,

Tired, relieved, and what-not, we changed after we undressed.

Toni, the fireman, made a valiant try,

to get a fire started but alas the wood wasn’t dry.

We all sat inside the shelter trying to get warm and cozy,

but when swirling around Toni, the draft seemed to get lazy.

‘Tis already 9 O clock, the time is just right,

to go to sleep,’ said April, ‘cos its hikers’ midnight.’

The whole night it rained, without any respite,

but the morning brought rich sunshine, much to our delight.

So for the final time, we packed our bags with the pans and pots,

and receded from the lean-to, with rather heavy hearts.

The last three miles seemed like the longest, but we crossed them after all,

to complete the first, but not the only hike of the fall.

Crunch time

“Ok sonny, six balls to go and you got 12 runs to make, how do you plan to win? This world cup is ours for sure.’

‘Wasim Bhai. Not for nothing am I best batsman in the world. Bring in your inswingers, you will see them swung to the boundary with equal speed.’

‘Huh…here you go..Hey, don’t duck. Really? That’s the best you could do? 12 off 5 now. You are done for.’

‘Umpire, Wasim is distracting me. Please do something.’

 ‘Come on Sachin baby. This is a final. Pakistan is playing India and you want to play like mutes?’

‘Ok, old man. Out with your next ball.’

‘Shucks. Damn this dew. You are lucky you got a full toss buddy. My next one will toss your bat to the boundary. Stop sniggering.’

‘I told you. The boundary is not far when the little master plays. 8 off 4 now? My grandmother could score that.’

‘That’s fine. I would not want my upcoming bouncer to injure someone old. So stick to your crease. Here it goes.’

‘Damn this dew’

‘I heard that chubby. You defended? Rahul would have done better’.

‘Hey. My bat slipped, else this ball would have struck your coach Javed who is sitting in the box enjoying mutton biryani.’

‘Yeah, yeah. I hope the fans of India don’t make biryani out of you once you lose this match. 8 off 3 brother. Not sure if your grandma would like to play in this situation, eh!’

‘She would not want to. Cos there is no challenge. With a wimp like you bowling. Why are you taking so much time anyway? Scared?’

‘Here you go buster. Take that Yorker. You flicked it? You actually flicked it? That was pad first. Umpire, come on. You cannot be serious!!!’

‘Hey, hey. Don’t do a McEnroe here. The umpire has given his decision. Will you please ask Shoaib at the boundary to be sharper than that? It is getting too easy for me. I think he is still thinking about his autobiography.’

‘You don’t worry about that, Mr Tedulkar! Here goes the last ball of the match.’

‘Now you can’t count? There are two balls left. 4 runs to make.’

‘But you will last only this ball, Tendla. The stumps better be strong enough to withstand my pace. Ugggh’

‘Ooh! That almost got me, damn it. But I will take the two runs. 2 of 1 big boy. What do you reckon?’

‘No time, take this. Oh no, you hit it. Shoaib, come on, stop the boundary.’

‘Hey, What happened? It became dark suddenly.’

‘That’s because I have been calling out to father and son for the last 15 minutes to stop that stupid Xbox game and come and eat breakfast.’

‘Awww mom! But that was the final ball of ther World Cup!!! You can't switch off the TV like that’

‘If our actual cricketers had so much passion, we would do better. Now please eat!’

'I wrote this for a 500-word dialogue only short story competition. Was fun writing it, and I was able to  space out for about 20 minutes at work!'

Irene whispers

The news was bombarded with stories of the wreckage created by Irene south of New York City as it waited the onset of one of the worst hurricanes in the last 26 years. I would not be surprised if Facebook servers were overloaded by the number of people commenting on their drenched walls of their experiences with the hurricane.

After having a few glasses of ‘The best Chardonnay’ that one of the many wine-making families in ‘the Napa valley had to offer’, I decided to take a walk in the rain to see what really was in store for tomorrow. It was just past midnight and though Irene had not yet ascended onto our town yet, she had most definitely sent her infantry (in the form of incessant rain and a strong wind) to ‘check out’ the area before herself making an appearance. My wife was asleep, so was my 10 month old blissfully unaware that tomorrow he would mostly witness the first thunder and lightning of his life. I wore a rain jacket and my track pants, buried my phone (I can’t move out anywhere without it) deep in my pocket, ensured that I took the house keys with me (didn’t wanna wake up the wife when I returned, did I), and ‘elevated’ myself down to the ground level.

The first thing that struck me was that our parking lot, which is usually overparked during normal days, had many vacant spaces. I figured soon that people did not want to park under the trees. Not everyone had a beat up Audi like I did and waited for disaster to strike so that they could cash in the insurance money after the car got totaled. I walked up the road ignoring the ‘here-goes-a-lunatic’ stares that some car drivers gave me. The wind was pretty strong, though not anywhere close to the 75mph that weather.com had predicted for tomorrow. The CB Richard Elllis advertisement board outside their office had already unhinged on one side and was tottering dangerously on the other. If this had been Final Destination-V, the wind would have ripped apart the board which would have flown towards unsuspecting me and sliced my head off neatly. The audience would have enjoyed the IMAX-3D version of the scene for sure!

The gutters were working overtime to drain the increased volumes of water and were doing a pretty good job of it so far. I only hoped that they did not get tired by the time Her Highness appeared. Further down the road, there were a group of people walking – the only people on foot that I spotted in the entire half hour trip – towards me. They were drunk and I was sure that they would not let me pass without making a remark. As we got closer to each other, one of them stared at me and shouted ‘Irene’ in a guttural tone. I instantly raised both my arms to my sides and charged him imitating a ghost. That seemed to be enough to calm the guy down. I did not have to do anything more with him or his friends.

When I started, I was hoping to hit one of the downtown bars and have a drink before heading back home, but the only other weekend evening that I have seen America be ‘inside’ is on the eve of thanksgiving a few years back. This time, downtown Stamford was deserted even more. As I made a quick U-turn and headed back home, I witnessed a guy kiss his girl on the porch, another run towards his apartment, and a group partying in the balcony. The wind was more intensity and so was the rain. Dunkin was open, always dependable, like Mama Bear. I soon reached home jogging on the slope going down towards my apartment. The headiness caused by the wine was amplified by the rains, the wind, and the downward slope. But I didn’t have to mind much when crossing the road due to obvious reasons.

I had a strong urge to write something once I reached home and what better topic than the one doing the rounds in North East America now. I sat down with my laptop, and more of ‘Napa Valley’s finest.’ If it is relatively safe to go out when Irene arrives tomorrow, I surely will, and will write another piece of the actual event. Meanwhile, if you are in the path of the storm, be sensible and follow the checklist items that no doubt you have come across many times by now from various sources. The one that I last read was to fill up one's bathtub in case water ran out!

The wine is kicking in well and proper. I'd better go and eat and get some sleep. Bye!

Fasting from a foreign land

Many people ask me why I am fasting just because Anna Hazare is fasting in India. The answer is both philosophical and practical. In a philosophical way, I for one, cannot be at ease knowing that someone is suffering on m behalf, that someone is going through a  lot of hardship so the future of my family sees as little hardship as possible. The man is fighting for a great cause. I believe in his cause. I also believe that he, at 74, is fasting for 14 days, for you and for me and for every Indian on earth. I cannot carry the burden of that knowledge and eat good food daily. Tomorrow when something positive comes out of this saga, I wont be able to get out on to the streets grinning ear to ear and enjoying the fruits of his hard work, knowing that I never as much as raised a finger to help him.

Now for those who ask how is me fasting tantamount to raising a finger to help the man, the practical explanation follows. Such bold uprisings if not backed by mass, would fail. The government of India is a powerful entity. Especially when it is on the back foot like how the Congress now is. Ever seen how boxers simply flail their arms in despair when they are cornered? That is what a government will do when given a couple of hard punches and when its back touches the ropes. The only weapon that we the people can launch, is mass support - by way of public gatherings, peaceful marches etc. Now, such demonstrations would help very little when done in a foreign country unless the word spreads around back to India. So a group of us are participating not only in marches and demonstrations in the USA and other countries, but also directly participating in the fast itself. The news of such actions go back to India through the media and when they get reported out, serve as an additional couple of jabs to the government, if not a knock-out punch. Also, and perhaps more importantly, Anna's place is a very lonely place. He might be surrounded with thousands of supporters, but very few are participating in the fast with him. True, he is a veteran of more than a dozen fasts, but people supporting him directly by sharing this activity will ease a little of the pain. That is how, in my eyes at least, the fasts undertaken by people in Chennai, Bangalore, and other places in India are going to help him, by adding that extra bit of energy to his spirit.

Now, this all might look more than a tad indirect of a cause and effect relationship, but I just wrote what came to my mind, rather than meticulously try to construct arguments to justify fasting. Bottom-line is I believe in it. I will fast till evening, once in three days, till Anna Hazare does. And you are welcome to join too! Power to the movement! Darkness to corruption!

Technology integration over two generations

(A college student could have used this title for his project submission and been proud about it. Sorry about that. I suck at conjuring up titles and have to improve on that aspect of my writing. The following piece might really not be as boring as what you read above.)

I vividly remember the first television that we bought in our rented house, back in Valluvar Kottam, Chennai. I think it was the early nineties (with a tolerance of 3-5 years on either side) and televisions were slowly becoming common, from lower middle class families up. And we were in that bottommost band which explained the initial reluctance of dad, who had come from a remote village in TN to make a living among the bright lights of Chennai, to jump in on the trend. My mom and I cajoled him a lot, even sulking at times. Eventually we discovered that our affluent neighbors were upgrading to a color television and had no need for the Solidaire black and white piece that the family had.

We ushered in the TV on a Sunday afternoon but past the time when the (usually) award winning regional language movie was shown. Mom and I gaped at it unable to fully grasp the beauty of the device. Not until Fido - our German Shepard – would come to our house a decade later, would we feel the same thrill. It was a huge rectangular box inside a wooden cabinet that had sliding doors designed to lock the TV and protect it from dust, falling objects and the like. It had all of eight channels to choose from using the rotary dial that would click and lock into place with a small thud at the stop of every channel. I don’t exactly remember how the volume control looked like. Before switching it on, we smeared kumkum on the TV’s forehead and also did a small puja praying for its long life. Even the black and white static (looked like ants crawling at a very busy pace) on the screen denoting the absence of programming at that ‘odd’ Sunday hour excited us.

Mom made hot bajjis that evening as we gathered around, awaiting five o clock. White static turned into multi colored bars that ran from top to bottom and made a constant hum. Then started the countdown from, what was it… a minute? Doordarshan’s cult graphic of those days appeared - the rotating solar system in the midst of which appears a moon. The word ‘Doordarshan’ then shows up in the moon, written in perfect symmetry. This was followed by some Tamil movie that was Sunday special. Dad was not much of a TV person and so, it was mom and I that made full use of the television.

I was studying in class eight of nine… much later, after we moved from that rented house to another. Video games were the fab. Talk of 8-bit games and 16-bit games, slowly moving on the coolest of them all – the 32-bit games, were becoming common amongst us school children. I only fantasized these, I knew there was no way my dad could afford any of these for me. But that did not stop me from pestering him. He had by then quit his salaried job and taken to business, partnering with a group of Marwari friends that he had. All these men had shops around Annai Sathya bazaar, a place for buying the fanciest electronics (Video games, remote controlled cars you name it) and the choicest of garments. I think the pani puri wallah that put up stall in that extremely busy lane was the only pani puri wallah in T.Nagar. Since my best friend’s house was quite close to that place, after we hung out together in the evenings, I used to go to dad’s shop to return home with him. His fellow shop owners in that bazaar soon became my friends with me and Riaz, the guy who owned the electronics shop, was my best friend there. I had little interest in those that sold garments. Riaz bhayya offered to lend me one of the 8-bit video games from the shop. Though my father did not like the practice and chastised him for spoiling me, Riaz was calm and told him that I was just a small boy and that I “should enjoy it at this age”. It became a regular habit, I would take a loaner from Riaz bhayya on weekends and play games like ‘Duck hunt’ and ‘Super Mario bros.’ (The former actually had a gun that you had to point at the screen and shoot ducks that would fly into the air. How cool was that!)

Cut to 2000! This was serious stuff. The days of fun and frolic were over. I was in college. Engineering. Filling ones head with knowledge of computers was deemed to be as necessary as filling up ones tank with gas when going cross country across the Sahara. GNIIT and DNIIT were fighting the royal rumble with similar courses from Aptech and SSI. Unless you wanted to end up on a shop floor with a meager pay that would doom you for life, you had to get into one of these courses (that’s what the advertisements confidently proclaimed). We had moved yet another time. This time we had a color TV. But no cable connection. (This last part came from a stolen connection that I was the proud architect of). Dad also was building a house for us in some part of Chennai. A lady who worked in SSI and was a regular buyer of garments at dad’s store suggested to him that instead of enrolling me in an expensive course, he should invest that money in buying me a computer and that I could always learn most of that stuff by myself.

I could not believe my ears. A computer? For myself? I felt like how Raja would have if he were asked to distribute 4G spectrum. Boy, would I use the machine to learn Java and C and C++ and AutoCAD and what not. I promised my dad a hundred times. And the poor man fell for it. So many students were buying assembled computers (My friend got his assembled by some hack who installed a 'Priya' motherboard and not the more popular 'Pentium' that he paid for. After all, students would not bother opening the PC and looking in. At least thats what the hack thought.) that though my dad did not really believe that all of them were actually putting those machines to good use, he was pressurised into buying one for me. I never learnt Java in my life. Hell, I didn’t get beyond the first 10 pages of the most popular JAVA book on the planet at that time. The 96% that I scored in C++ at school in my twelfth standard was not due to my self-learning at home using the assembled computer (the PC came at a cost that I won’t take lightly even today with my plush dollar to rupee Xoom assured exchange rated salary). Instead I got addicted to playing video games! Illegal copies of Heroes of might and magic, Unreal tournament, and Need for Speed gave me sleepless nights and my parents, utter frustration. When dad used to go on business trips to North India, I started playing at 5 pm (immediately after college) and went on till 4 AM when I would eat eventually eat dinner and hit bed dreaming of capturing the flag on the new planets.

Now - and now is almost a decade later - I bought a television of my own. 40 inch, LED technology. I can browse the internet. Play games. Post updates on Facebook. Even watch TV too. All in one box. And it does not even look like a box. TVs don’t anymore; they rather resemble flat boards, don’t they. It is amazing how much integration technology has done in such a short span of time. When my son grows up, he will have all the entertainment that his dad had over a span of a decade and a half, sitting right there in the living room. What more is left? Coding C and C++ or whatever the new languages out there are, in your TV itself? But that would make it just a computer with a big screen right? Exactly. So that eliminates yet another device. Whichever way you twist and turn this tech crystal ball, the future seems exciting. For gadget freaks at least. It’s a pity I have other not-equally-interesting priorities now than playing games on my large screen HD television.

How to go to Gurudwara for free food - For dummies

It was a gorgeous Sunday afternoon in Stamford, it was raining all right, but the temperature was a pleasant 50 Fahrenheit and there was no snow predicted for days. Monday too was a holiday, so that made it easier to thoroughly enjoy the Sunday. I had plans to go to the Gurudwara in Norwalk – when I could get free food in a town 15 minutes away, why would I go to the temple at Pomona an hour away? Besides, I heard that food is really good at a Langar.

My friend Gagan Lamba and his wife, who incidentally cooks the best Punjabi food I have tasted, had also planned to tag along – albeit for nobler reasons than mine – but had to withdraw at the last moment as the dude was suffering from a bout of high fever.

‘Don’t worry, all you have to do is tie a kerchief around your head and you are good to go,’ he had a word of advice to me when I left. I was going with another friend of mine eventually – Tam Brahm Vinay. And he had been to this place apparently multiple times in the past.

Always the cautious one, I didn’t want to land there just in time for the Langar, that would be too rude. So we left by 12:15 despite Vinay protesting that the prayers don’t end till 130pm. we reached at a quarter to one. As I walked from the car to the Gurudwara, I panicked. Have I come grossly underprepared? I tried to recollect all the Sikh kind of things that I knew and could do or say inside. The beautiful Golden temple came to mind! Then some people whom I know – Vikram, Gagan, Kulpreet, Manmeet, Harbhajan, Yuvraj etc. (The last two are indeed the cricketers, but what if they don’t know me…I do know them right?). Next came the song from Rang De Basanti.

This prayer song is one of the few prayer songs from movies that I would ever cherish. One other classic is from Mahanadi. 

But then, what good were these memories now??? They still didn’t tell me any Sikh things that I could do or say inside. Thankfully, no one accosted me to ask anything. As I removed my shoes, I was glad to see lots of scarves, meant for tying around the head. I picked up one and started when Vinay said ‘You know that the hair should not be visible after you tie the scarf, right?’

‘Well, I don’t, but what’s the big deal in that?’ I said and to my horror, found out that it is not easy to get the cloth to cover your head completely if you didn’t know how to. I turned around to see Vinay begin confidently. ‘Dude, you know how to do this???’ I asked shocked.

‘Man, I have come here many times before. Of course I know’, he said and proceeded to fold the cloth.

Damn! I should have done my homework. I have youtubed to learn how to swim, how to kickbox, how to tie a tie, wear a scarf, build websites even, but tie a cloth around the head for entering a Gurudwara? No!!! I mentally kicked myself for the stupidity and kicked Gagan Lamba too for oversimplifying things.

Thankfully, only an elderly couple was nearby and they didn’t care if two kids (they were old enough to call us kids) were fooling around with the scarves. Finally, we got it right and entered the Darbar Sahib (prayer hall, I have read about Gurudwaras by the time of writing this article) where I went and almost took a seat when Vinay hissed ‘Dude, wait.’

I wondered what it could be now.

‘We have to prostrate first.’

We stood in line and I prostrated before the Guru Granth Saheb which was placed on a raised platform (Takht or Manji Sahib, it is called). A shiver ran down my spine when I thought about how it would have been if I had come here alone. I would have probably earned nasty glances from a hundred people.

A person was giving a speech over the microphone and most of the words were Punjabi, way over my head. Though it was similar to Hindi and he interspersed the speech with English words, I still was unable to pick up the meaning of the sentences. So I started looking about and observing the people sitting all around me. Many people were not wearing turbans and had just covered their heads with scarves. This could only mean one of three things…

• ·         They were Sikhs who did not believe in the turban
• ·         They were non-Sikhs that believed in Sikhism and turned up here with intent to pray
• ·         They were non-Sikhs who were just plain hungry for good food, like me

Vinay nudged me from behind and whispered, ‘The speech will continue for another hour. I told you that we could leave another 30 minutes later.’

I despaired hearing that, but still ignored the remark and opened the browser in my cell phone to wiki up what customs people follow in Gurudwaras. No luck. Tried rephrasing the search a couple of different ways, but to no avail. Then suddenly a burly man came and sat right next to me. He better not find out that I was googling things up sitting in the prayer hall. So I turned the phone display towards me to hide it from his view and looked at him cautiously. He returned my stare, only I could not tell if he looked angry or not.

I looked around and every person seemed to be looking at me, but their expressions were totally covered by their lengthy beards. This made all of them look like they were glaring at me. And the ones wearing the big turbans looked stricter than the ones with the leaner turbans. Look below...don't you think?

Big turban

Smaller turban

I guess it’s an exact parallel to how differently the Brahmins wear the mark on their foreheads – these ones look fiercer than these ones. But eventually I convinced myself that they were all nice people and that I was just feeling guilty for coming in here underprepared and that they actually were just looking at me normally. There was nothing serious about the glances!

Big forehead mark

Smaller forehead mark

Now that the internet search option was out, I began to watch the proceedings closely and did things exactly the way others did them, right from the way the Prasad was accepted to the way people lifted their plates as a mark of respect to the volunteers serving the delicious food to everyone. I was more confident by the time I left the place. I kind of had figured out (when I was fidgeting with my kerchief during the prayer) how the knot can be made around the head. I caught some of the prayer words – Wahi Guru Ji Ka Khalsa, Wahi Guru Ji Ki Fateh, and had an overall experience of a Sikh prayer meeting, not to mention the awesome food. As much as I feel strongly that religion causes a lot of split among people, it is indeed remarkable how India is the birth place of such great religions and this underlines the strong spiritual thread that runs across the nation.

PS:To get a more serious description of a Gurudwara either for learning about this holy place of worship or for being forearmed when going for free food, read this: http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/sikhism/ritesrituals/gurdwara_1.shtml