Desicritics Category: Culture: Festivals

If the World Becomes Colour Blind...

Hardik Ruparel — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 10:53:19 EDT

As the day passes by, the spirit of Holi seems more and more distant from me. Even more distant than the sun itself. I can see the sun and I can feel it. But I really cannot feel the spirit of Holi today.

Maybe Liverpool thrashed Real Madrid, and India did the same to New Zealand, but still today seems so gloomy. The colors on my face just seem to be another symbol. And I hate symbolism. I hate it when we wear headgear as a display of symbolism. I wear a cap because I protect myself from the sun.

Nothing seems to alienate me from the thought (or fact ? ) that the world is spiraling downwards. My friends here in college play around with water and colors as they know nothing. But it's hard to believe they're so ignorant. It's becoming harder to find a reason to smile. It's so hard to believe the world has come to this.

The (so-called?) God we pray to has become the basis of hatred amongst each other. In the common room next to my room, some students do their Namaaz 5 times a day diligently. I don't understand what they're saying. It sounds beautiful. I stand in awe, listening hard, wishing I could understand them, their message, and tell the world how great they are. But then these students walk past the common room. They scoff and they laugh "Terrorists. "

I fail to believe what just happened. Have my ears defied me ? Should I trust my ears or should I trust the people ? I do not know. I fear to think what's the truth.

We haven't progressed much from the Dark Ages. We just don't execute and kill people the way they used to. We're not any more humane than they were. We're just some generations below them. Do we really think we're civilized enough ? We still think, imagine, in our hearts, how we could punish people that we don't like. We hate to admit it. But it's true.

It's true and the world has only gotten worse. Technology has done it's part. Before we could love each other and eradicate diseases like communal hatred, we've found myriad ways to destroy each other.

On such complicated days, nothing seems to cheer me up. Not even good jokes. They only bring a smile. Or probably two. I go back to my magic, and my deck of cards refuse to vanish like they should when I wave my hands ( I don't yet have a magic wand...)

I look around and see how colors have made a difference in the world. Skin colors from white to brown to black to yellow. The colors of things around us influence us. Thanks to The Discovery Channel, I know that colors play a major part in our personality, society, development and hence communalism : Orange, Green, Yellow, Blue and the Red.

That brings me to imagine a day we all woke up to be colorblind. Would we still discriminate against each other ? On religion, color, race, sex, minorities, political parties and other interests ? What if all our lives lost color ? Would we be distressed enough to forget our differences ? Or would we get further enraged and kill each other with nuke bombs ? Would we realize that color actually had no importance and meaning in our lives ? Would the European countries be able to distinguish one flag from the other ? Or would we use our memory to record which object was of which color and continue living pretending that we still saw colors ?

Pretense has been one of the most important factors for survival in this world. I'm sure someone would've said this :

"Shit happens. Just pretend it didn't and get on with life."

If nobody has said it before, well it was just too general and accepted a fact to be even stated explicitly.

Today literally has no significance to today. All we can do is go back to our lives and look at the simple things in life. That brings me to the age old question asked by so many wise men and women:

"Why are we here?"

And I say we are here to enjoy the simple things in life that delight us. For me it's chocolate. Chocolate has helped me resolve many a strife, and many internal disturbances. Chocolate is one of the biggest motivation factors for me. I'm off for a bar of Cadbury's. Happy Holi.

My Funny Valentine - Sweet Comic Valentine

Aditi Nadkarni — Sat, 14 Feb 2009 00:22:52 EST

There is something to be said about friends. I mean, they give us their all without expectation. At least mine do. I have friends who will listen to me yap about everything from completely transitory issues such as missing periods or acne to permanent problems that I suddenly have become aware of such as world peace and intolerance. They will never tell me that I am boring them and will loyally stifle yawns. None of them expect rings or a gift, much less a flower bouquet.

They will be completely fine if I don't call them for Valentine's Day or might even be slightly embarrassed if I do. I can just imagine my friend whisper a quick "Hmm, wish you the same but are you trying to murder my love life?" when I scream "Happy Valentine's Day!" through telephone lines while he is trying to chat up a cute girl who having heard my loud Valentine's Day wishes walked away quickly excusing herself.

Now, don't get me wrong, I love them dearly but my family can drive me nuts because, lets face it, that is their job. A year before turning thirty, I have come to accept that as a woman I will forever disappoint my mother. That's it. I feel better just having made that admission. Let me elaborate. My dad once told me of a doctor in his locality who they later discovered was somewhat of a quack. No matter what ailment one brought to Dr.Kamat, he would immediately ask them to stop drinking tea.

"But doctor I don't drink tea" the patient would sometimes respond.

"Ok so don't drink coffee" Dr.Kamat would tell him distractedly, filling out a generic prescription that everybody received unless they were having a heart attack in which case, Dr.Kamat's drunk compounder quickly shoved them into a taxi and sent them to the nearest hospital.

"Umm I don't drink coffee either doctor" the patient would tell him, hoping this information would give Dr.Kamat some brilliant insight into what was causing his affliction.

"You must drink something no....juice, cola, something. Stop drinking that" Dr.Kamat would snap at the confused patient. The poor man would nod and walk away with his prescription wondering why drinking his wife's nimbu sharbat had resulted in such a terrible case of butt-acne.

My mother is like Dr. Kamat.

"Are you drinking enough water?" she will ask without occasion

"Yes mom, I am drinking water all the friggin time" I respond in my high-pitched whiny "talkin-to-mom" voice

"Maybe you shouldn't drink too much water. You should drink a bit less. Too much water is also probably not good" she'll say.

"What's with your skin? Are you going out too much in the sun?" she'll comment, putting on her glasses, her keen stare making me squirm

"I rarely go out. I am always in the office or in lab. What are you talking about?" I answer with a shrug, rubbing my cheeks and forehead as if hoping for the tan to come off.

"Maybe that's what it is. If you stay cooped up at home, you don't get enough sun. You need some sunlight." And so on.

So basically no matter what I say, I'm screwed.

My dad is mostly neutral. But sometimes his neutrality is like that of Aishwarya Rai's where you just want to scream "Dude, say something!"

He once read my short story and I sat waiting in front of him, with baited breath to hear some feedback. He finished reading, took his glasses off and got up. I thought maybe he would walk over to me and pat my back. No such thing happened. I followed him inside until he walked into the bathroom. I stood outside only to hear him fart. That was my feedback.

Lets not even talk about extended family. They care so much for you that they have decidedly compartmentalized your life and now have inquiry committees set up for each section. Reproductivity, weight and marital status make up the three big departments and by the end of this concerned scrutiny, you are half the person you once were.

So that leaves us with friends. And it leaves our friends with this beaten down version of us, to deal with our woes, to lift our trampled self-esteem, to assuage our tested patience and soothe our hurt feelings.

Last year, I had to have surgery and just before they wheeled me into the OR, my friend's face loomed over my bed. She held a cell phone in her hand and was taking a picture.

"OMG, what are you doing?" I asked her, nervous in the anticipation of my first surgery ever, my face pink in embarrassment.

"Smile" she said loudly, as doctors and nurses looked on wondering whether or not to tell her that this was not allowed.

"Come on...just one picture, you look hot in that surgery robe and the blue cap" she told me as I smiled into the cell phone feeling like a complete moron.

When I woke up several hours later and suddenly threw up she was already holding the vomit-pan as if waiting for the puke to fly.

"Oh yeah baby!" she said victoriously as if she had caught a frisbee in the pan, "the doctor said you'd be nauseous from the anesthesia" she told me when I looked up confused wondering how she had managed to just be ready for such an unwarranted bout.

Men make amazing friends. They believe that disagreements or fights end when the phone call comes to an end. Can you imagine? One day we have a heated argument and so during the next conversation I try acting all aloof hoping he'll get the hint and apologize. He just chuckles and chortles while telling me about this colleague who was caught looking at some weird porn at work. A few minutes later, I sheepishly realize that he has completely forgotten about any fight whatsoever and even wonder if I had imagined the whole heated argument we'd had two days ago. Now I am starting to get the hang of it. This attitude keeps the friendship child-like and therefore stress-free.

A few years ago I received a V's Day card from a friend. I was surprised. He hated mushy V's day crap and had told me so, many times. I opened the e-card at work and a big blue cloud turned into a pink heart and floated around. And just as I wondered what the hell had happened to my perfectly wry friend, the large pink-heart balloon turned into a humongous, burly, pink, dimpled ass and whats more, it loudly farted. This time I turned pink and wanted to float away as colleagues looked on when the audible offensive rip came from the general direction of my desk area.

In his personalized note he wrote: "Had to show you this hilarious card. I knew you'd laugh". I did.

My roommate and I are the best of friends. I am a Harry Potter fan. She is not. One night, I read late into the night and wept when at roughly 3 am, I found out that Professor Dumbledore had died. That poor, poor, dear old man with his soft beard, I thought, crying into my pillow. I can get weird like that. I will have pent up sorrow that will suddenly be unleashed by stray occurrences, ranging from watching tragic films to hearing Talat Mehmood's ghazals. Anyways, so my roommate heard me weep and came over worried, her sleepy eyes trying to focus on my face in the dark.

"Whats the matter, why are you crying?" she asked me, blinking rapidly, her voice hoarse and heavy with sleep.

"Professor Dumbledore died" I told her mumbling. I don't know what she heard but she immediately put her arms around me

"Aww, how did he die....I'm so sorry to hear that" she cooed

"I don't know" I wept. I probably had been repressing some weird grief that Dumbledore's death had now released.

"Was it an accident? How did the professor die?" she asked her face a picture of concern

"No, that asshole murdered him" I told her as she brought me tissues and wiped my face.

"with his wand" I added, my lip still quivering and she frowned.

"Murder! With his wand? Wait, did you say wand? Wand?!" she stammered, her eyebrows knitted in confusion

"Yeah you know he used this curse and..."

"Which professor is this again? This isn't the professor who taught you Maths who you adored?" she asked, rubbing her eyes, her lips pursed, now fully awake and suddenly having spotted the Harry Potter book on my bed.

When she found out that she had been helping me mourn the death of a character, from a Harry Potter book, she could have fumed, rolled her eyes and walked away, back to bed.

"You are such a drama queen!" she could have told me and dismissed me. I expected her to do that.

Instead she sighed and sat down beside me.

"Don't worry. It's not the last book. He'll come back in the next one...just watch" she told me, with a grave philosophical expression, tucking me in and giving me hope. Professor Dumbledore's death had most likely just been a trigger for some other anguish I had suppressed and even though it found vent in the most odd fashion, she was still there for me.

Two of my very best friends are guys. I have known them since I was a tomboyish teenager. They are quintessential men who love sports, cars and beer. But for my sake, they spent a whole day at Butterfly World in Florida just because it made me happy and I had been feeling low. They had probably wanted to go the beach and watch beautiful, tanned bikini-clad beauties. Instead, they stood patiently in Butterfly World, their hands in their pockets, with tight, uncomfortable smiles, while I clicked pictures and annoying little kids ran around everywhere screaming. They tried very hard to not swat the pretty butterflies that settled down sometimes on their shoulders and hair and even gave me enthusiastic nods and a thumbs-up when I fed two parakeets on my palm.

"Please do not show these pictures to other people" they told me quietly, as we left Butterfly World and headed straight to a sports bar where macho-ism can be painlessly revived.

When I finish a good book, I call them. When I am depressed, I call them and I later find out that they had walked out of a movie theater to talk me out of my blues. When I see a great movie, I talk them into watching it and argue with them when they tell me they hated it. St.Valentine has blessed the celebration of love with his name. Similarly, Plato has blessed friendships between the genders with his name but nobody seems too keen on celebrating Plato's Day. Maybe my post will start a new wave for Plato's Day and annoy those angry Senas even more.

Sadly, in case of Platonic friendships, sometimes I feel like I am on this long wait until the guy's wife comes into his life one day and refuses to see how this friendship of his could be "proper". I spend my days fearing that one day, my best friend will turn into somebody's husband, that one day his wife will claim that him and I are just too close for her comfort. It scares me that this one whim might decide the future of a friendship that I have cherished since I was a teenager. These people are the only witnesses who knew the original me. They knew the person before the cynicism of age and experience set in and they heard the laughter that grew inhibited with every passing year. I once told one of them about this recurring nightmare where he and his wife meet me at the mall years later and he refuses to acknowledge me because she might get offended. At the end of my narration, I waited for his reaction. I waited for him to tell me that I was panicking for no reason and this it was a thoroughly stupid paranoia. And instead he giggled.

"Was she hot...my wife in your nightmare?" he asked me cackling at his own joke as I groaned and protested his ill-timed humor. I was secretly glad that he had made light of the situation; how else could I have ever laughed in the face of such credible fear.

Come to think of it, it is even harder for two girls to stay friends through all the numerous life changes. Two women who are such good friends that they are more than sisters, in the United States, are either pronounced gay or are Gayle...and Oprah.

Marriages, romance, children, jobs, geography and in the face of all the chaos, change and exhaustion is the steady, scaffold, the pillar of a good strong friendship that keeps us all going. So I have decided that I won't wait for Friendship Day to come along and pass by unnoticed. This Valentine's Day, I raise a toast and a cupcake with pink frosting to the ones that keep me sane through all the insanity and yet manage to bring in ample craziness when things get more serious than they should. This Valentine's Day I celebrate this one love that hardly ever gets celebrated and the deep affection we have for the unsung heroes of our busy lives.

Here's to you, my friend, my funny, crazy Valentine.

Valentine's Day: Love Expressed On Desicritics

Deepti Lamba — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 12:18:17 EST

Valentine's Day is close by and we are already swimming in pink undies, pink sarees, listening to passionate calls for and against the celebrations but what is going unheard is the silent love that beats deep within our hearts. No matter how cliched it may sound Love deserves to be aired out like fresh sheets in sunny breeze and we'd run through our memories and those expressed by others like children enjoying nothing more than the carefree moment lived and forgotten within the darkened recesses of our hearts.

Love makes us pause and smell the roses, enjoy the caress or maybe for once realize that we have much to be grateful for no matter how hard life may get. Love heals wounds, love gives hope and more than anything love makes us want to be better than we are.

Its all about love and its being painted pink. Pink is not the color of love. Its rich red like the blood flowing in our veins. It lives within us and flows through a touch, a glance or a word. Express what deserves to be aired. Anger and hatred cloud our horizon but love barely scratches the grime reality we live.

Its time to express what makes us human and its called Love.

Articles Written For the Valentine's Day Competition:

Articles Written By Editors:

Tell us how you feel. Posts for the competition are invited until February 16th, and prizes will be announced soon after.

Bazaar Walks: Today at Dadar

Deepa Krishnan — Wed, 3 Dec 2008 07:46:05 EST

I went to Dadar today, to chalk out new routes for a Dadar Bazaar Walk. Here are impressions from today's walk, clicked on my Nokia E90.

At Phule covered market - crabs for sale
There were mussels, dried fish, bombil, and all sorts of other fishy treasures on sale. The fisherwomen as usual, had tongues as sharp as their curved fish knives. I was asked if I wanted to hold a live crab. My hurried refusal led to much merriment.

Resting after the morning's sale
See the green and maroon khun blouse? The fabric is probably soft and comfortable after repeated washes. Have you ever tried a khun? It is an absolutely beautiful brocade. Rich as silk, soft as satin, with the coolness and comfort of cotton - what more could a woman ask for! This is me, in case you're curious, in a glorious golden khun.

Outside the covered market - Goddess in Finery
Someone please, please tell me what's going on with the coconut + eyes + jewellery + new clothes thingy. I'm dying to know. Is this Lakshmi? Durga? Some other devi? I wrote about it earlier as well. I know this mystery woman is a goddess that the fisherfolk worship.

The Goddess obviously has a thing for bright skirts!
Lots and lots of women were buying things from these stalls. We asked them, but got incomprehensible answers. "It's for puja", they said. All I gathered was that there was a festival this month.

I call him The Yam Accountant.

She was concentrating on making a "veni" - flowers for the hair
The flowers come from the wholesale market nearby. If you want to see what the finished veni looks like, I have a photo here.

Plastic covers for computers and television sets
So it's not just Goddesses who like colour - see how the Indian love for colours transforms even these practical covers into a feast for the eyes! Near the plastic covers, green bangles (favoured by married women) are stacked in a basket in sets of twelve.

We stopped for lassi and snacks at a nearby restaurant. I had misal-pav, a brilliant Maharashtrian invention that doesn't get the press it deserves. Misal is a tangy spicy dish, eaten with bread. In my hurry to eat it, I forgot to click a photo, but if you want to see what misal is like, there's a great photo here. The most satisfying part of the misal is when you dunk the last of your chunky bread into the last of the gravy, and polish it all off with a final tasty mouthful. Sigh.

It is clear to me, people. I have inherited my mother's love of bazaars.

Devi Comes Home

Blokesablogin — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 00:03:17 EDT

It began with a trip to the local hardware store and we found several Tamilians looking for the same item: deck steps. What is that for?, you may ask. Well, it is time for Kolu.

While the Bengalis begin their Pujo, many of us in Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh, set up "steps" and have a dolls exhibition, many of them themed after stories from the Ramayana, Mahabharata and Shrimad Bhagavatham. The exploits of Krishna, Dashavatharam, Rama Pattabhishekham, Shiva-Parvathi, Durga-Lakshmi-Saraswathi, Ganesha, Santa Clause, Buddha, Sai Baba, every one exists in harmony, rubbing shoulders with each other, adorning the "steps". There are always odd number of steps- three, five, seven, or in some elaborate ones, nine and so on!

My Gujarati friends are gearing up for nine nights of Raas Garbha and there are several Non Profits hosting Raas Garbas as fundraisers which are jam packed. You will never feel that you are in America, given the next few days: Everyone is decked up in their Indian finery, going to temples, attending Paats, Jagarans, Raas nights and Kolus.

The weather has turned cooler reminding us that autumn is here. The tree tops are slowly turning color, getting tinged with yellow, orange and red. My Jewish friends celebrate their "New year" (Rosh Hashana) on Mahalaya Amavasya and on Vijaya Dashami, Yom Kippur.

The Kalash, symbolic of the universe, represents the Devi, during these nine days. Chanting and recitations from special texts, especially Durga Saptashati (called Chandi Paat, in the North) are part of the festivities.

The Devi is here, ready to be propitiated for the next nine days. Let us reflect upon the mysteries of the Divine Feminine. Just as we reside in our mother's womb for 9 months, these nine nights take us deeper within the spiritual realm of ourselves. This is a great time to meditate and engage in other spiritual practices such as fasting and Kirtan. Happy Navarathri!

Could India Host an Impressive Olympics?

mbjesq — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 00:33:43 EDT

India and China. China and India.

Whenever discussion turns to the New World Order, these neighboring giants are always mentioned in the same breath as the up-and-comers. I understand the arguments, but remain deeply skeptical about the prospects for both countries, though for vastly different reasons.

With the Beijing 2008 Olympics drawing to a close, one must concede that China has managed to pull off a fabulously successful advertisement for itself, even though its ugly authoritarianism and environmental shamefulness remained on plain view throughout. So the question nags: Could India hold an Olympics that would flatter, rather than embarrass the nation? I, for one, seriously doubt it.

The Olympics requires the host nation to provide three basic elements: infrastructure, architecture, pageantry. This is no mean feat; just ask the organizers of Athens 2004 and Atlanta 1996. Greece failed in two of the three, just managing to save face, largely as a result of the world’s extremely low expectations. The United States failed across the board.

Infrastructure development takes vision and planning – not areas in which India has distinguished itself. Delhi is the only metro in the country which appears to spend on infrastructure in anything but an ad hoc, purely corruption-driven way – not that Delhi’s version of forethought has made it even remotely the world-class city it purports to be. Sure, it is difficult to remake old cities – although that is, essentially, what Beijing has done – but even its built-from-scratch, nouveaux riches commercial neighbor, Gurgaon, is an almost perfect study in tastelessness and dysfunction.

One of India’s most challenging infrastructural problems, from an international public relations point of view, would be to develop habits and systems of internationally acceptable public hygiene. I suspect that most first-time visitors to India will be under-impressed by the filth and noise of their surroundings, and the television cameras will have a difficult time avoiding the blight of omnipresent garbage, which flows through the streets of India the way water flows in riverbanks.

Perhaps India, like Greece, might shine in the spectacle, even if they would fail in the organizational aspects of building proper infrastructure to host the athletes and visitors in style and comfort. From classical dance to Bollywood, India shines in artistic performance. But would this kind of close-up oriented presentation captivate the world when executed on the scale of an Opening Ceremonies? Perhaps not. Have you ever attended a major pop concert in India (or involving India performers traveling abroad, for that matter)? They are unwatchably cheesy. A.R. Rahman may write world-class music, and Adnan Sami and Asha Bholse may be stars of Indian popular song, but their live concerts are hideously amateurish affairs. They are often accompanied by filmy dancing which, though so attractive on the screen, comes off as a bad joke when the scale of the movements are dwarfed by the live venue.

Architecture is an extremely important element in the Olympic mix if, as with China, the aim is to establish one’s prestige and announce one’s global intentions. It expresses a country’s ambition, accomplishment, sense of style, sophistication, and ability to produce tangible outcomes suited to a major occasion. Most of the world sees the host nation only via satellite feed, and images of the Olympic venues are the ubiquitous “context-establishing shots” which begin the coverage of almost every event. A country can do no better advertising for itself when hosting an Olympics than provide monumental, attractive architecture. This has certainly been a key part of China’s strategy – and it has worked.

China commissioned outrageously wonderful buildings from teams of architects and landscape architects from Switzerland, Australia, France, Germany, the U.K., and China. The superb “Bird’s Nest” National Stadium, the “Water Cube” National Swimming Center, and Olympic Forest Park are the glamorous face of a spectacular Olympics. The subsidiary venue structures each have a degree of architectural merit, even if they are not as jaw-droopingly innovative as the main sites, and the 1,600 unit Athlete’s Village has received LEED “gold” certification for its sustainable construction techniques and energy efficiency. In addition, Beijing has undertaken an impressive array of non-competition-hosting buildings as part of its Olympic face lift, including a spectacular National Theater, a Digital Media Center, a Convention Center, and television network complex.

Now consider India, which has hardly built a worthy piece of major architecture since Independence – I can think of only two possible candidates, one of which was designed by a Canadian, the other by a Frenchman. A couple years ago, a friend sent me this idiotic Business Week slide presentation, touting the greatness of contemporary Indian architecture. I sent him back a note congratulating him on the excellent joke. Awkwardly, it turned out not to be a joke, but an earnest (if blinkered) piece of jingoistic bragging.

Are there great Indian architects working today? Surely there must be. But what are they building? And would insular, foreigner-resenting India consider commissioning high-profile Olympic buildings from international architects? Never. Indian national pride would never allow it to do what even xenophobic China was able to do – what the entire rest of the world does: commission world class architecture from throughout the world.

Then there is the little problem of paying for the infrastructure and new architecture. After the politicians and bureaucrats have siphoned-off their monumental bribes and contractors have been selected on the basis of kick-backs rather than ability, will the bid-winners have sufficient talent and remaining resources to deliver quality buildings, on time? There is certainly plenty of past experience on which to hazard a prediction.

I have tremendous affection for India, and a like degree of antipathy for China. But there is no question which country has announced its presence on the world stage with panache and which can never hope to do so. “I love my India” as much as the next guy, but not because it has a prayer of achieving greatness in my lifetime.

Idol Immersion Increasing River Pollution in India

DeeptiA — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 11:30:29 EDT

There are a number of areas where modern science and problems clash with traditions. In such cases, a reasonable expectation is that there is a compromise between traditions and the needs of today; in some cases, there is a need that the tradition changes. Why did I suddenly think of this topic? Well, I came across this article that describes how idol immersion, a joyful and integral part of many religious festivals, is actually helping in killing the river systems of the country. Now, there are many reasons why our river systems are getting killed - there is too much flow of effluents (both domestic and industrial), not enough cleaning of these effluents, not enough flow of fresh water to do a cleanup of the pollutants in the river. No one doubts that in many cases, the conditions of our rivers as they move past major cities is that of a sewer, with the water having very high percentages of pollutants.

For those who have taken part in Durga Pooja celebrations or those celebrating Lord Ganesha, the immersion of idols is an important part. This is repeated across the country. But how many of you have read the news articles that describe the dead fish found floating days after a major festival, with these fish poisoned by the chemicals form the immersion ? Read this article in more detail:

Elaborately painted and decorated idols are worshipped before they are taken during mass processions to rivers, lakes and the sea, where they are immersed in accordance with Hindu faith. Environmentalists say the idols are often made from non-biodegradable materials such as plastic, cement and plaster of Paris and painted with toxic dyes.

After the statues are immersed, the toxins then contaminate food crops when villagers use the polluted water for irrigation, said Shyam Asolekar, science and engineering head at the Indian Institute of Technology in Mumbai. Statue remains from festivities last year still float in rivers and water tanks in Mumbai, where the annual "Ganesh Chaturthi" festival culminate in the immersion of some 160,000 statutes -- some up to 25 feet high -- by millions of devotees. Traditionally, idols were made from mud and clay and vegetable-based dyes were used to paint them.

This is a tricky issue. Issues related to religious festivities are treated with care, with efforts being made not to offend the religious. However, there is no getting around the facts of a matter, and this is not an issue that has sprung up suddenly. Even on TV, you do see many times news articles about the importance of making statues with eco-friendly material, but somehow these items do not sink in.

Sometimes, direct action needs to be taken, as for example, when the courts ordered the installation of tall fences on the bridges of the river Yamuna in Delhi in order to prevent people from throwing in flowers or complete garlands.
Rivers are the lifeblood of this country (or any country), with dependence on water requiring that water sources be protected. People know this, but somehow the relation with water pollution does not sink in, or maybe many people do not care. How does one ensure that such a message sink in? You cannot use force to ensure that such a change happens across the breadth and width of the country.

Travel Report: Korba Street Festival - Heliopolis, Cairo

Kim — Wed, 14 May 2008 02:19:02 EDT

Last Friday was the annual Korba Street festival in Heliopolis - a residential suburb in Cairo.

Baghdad street was closed off to traffic and stalls were put up along the sidewalks. There were stalls from the Asean countries selling native food and some handicrafts.

The Indian stall just had posters urging visitors to visit India. Nothing else. :(

There were tables along the sides for families to relax and grab a bite and the main road was left free for kids to express their creativity on the road with chalk and paints.

Marriott's Bakery, Swiss Inn, Sultana Ice Cream had tables on the road and were serving food there. The Swiss Inn even had a buffet set up on the road. But the more exciting stuff to eat were the street stalls which were selling things like cotton candy,the hummus drink and beans.

I attended in the morning half and left by 1:30pm, before the crowds really started to pour in. This meant I missed out on the musical performances (by Wust el Balad among others) and the puppet show, but what I managed to catch was great anyway.

My friends tell me, there was a short parade later in the noon with flower covered floats and giant coke bottles. More of advertising than Spring flowers was a comment I heard.

What I got to see, kind of reminded me a bit of the Kala Ghoda festival in Bombay, but just a little bit. The concept is similar, but there is so much further that the Korba festival can go. Its a good start though, just to have an open air event in a residential area of Cairo.

I would definitely try to catch it again next year.

Putrid Pilgrimages in India

Shantanu Dutta — Tue, 13 May 2008 13:23:25 EDT

A doctor who has just started some charitable work in the island of Rameshwaram among Sri Lankan refugees has an experience to share. Hailing from Chennai, she was used to the thought of abandoning the comforts of city life and get used to the exigencies of rural life. But the one thing that greeted her as she crossed over into Rameswaram and that one thing which she was not prepared for was the over whelming stench of human excreta hovering all over the island.

Apart from the infrastructural issues of there not being any adequate sewage disposal on the island, she wondered aloud as to why a pilgrim centre of religious significance should be so dirty and why whether or not the official machinery did any thing or not, the basic piety of the people should have served as some kind of an incentive to keep the place clean. Going by the press reports, the problem in Rameswaram has been noticed and action asked for at least a year ago when A. Sellamuthu, Secretary for Housing and Monitoring Officer for the district, had directed the Rameswaram Municipal authorities to take urgent steps clean the island town. He had also noted that that “Rameswaram was an important pilgrim centre, which was attracting thousands of pilgrims and tourists daily. Hence, it had to be kept neat and clean always”

The question is worth asking as to why filth and squalor are so routinely associated with places of pilgrimages –except for the cash rich ones like the temples at Tirupati and Vaishno Devi and a few others and may be the Dargah at Ajmer. As for the rest, be it the shrine of a pir or a typical teerth sthan, the gathering of crowds for journeys of piety and pilgrimages are almost synonymous with dirt, disorder and chaos instead of harmony, serenity and order.

Remember the kanwarias who crowd up the roads every couple of months. Emerging from every little town and village that India has it would seem, they run through the land like locusts ravaging a field. Small time charities spring up to feed and shelter these hockey stick wielding pilgrims. During the time the season is on, these resting places are filled with leaf plates with flies buzzing, plastic and other waste lying around every where and ear splitting music of the crassest kind copied from the latest Bollywood hits but supposedly charmed to induce piety.

Or remember the Kumbh Melas, the largest gathering of humans on earth for any purpose, but not necessarily the most tranquil or peaceful. There are these akharas filled with opium soaked sadhus and their equally fanatic followers jostling for space and dominance. And oh yes, till modern times, the end of Kumbh Mela often sprouted cholera. The rather provocatively titled blog “The Shit of the Saints is Still Reeking” talks pointedly of the 2007 mela in Allahabad and quotes the Chief Medical Officer of Allahabad alluding to the threat of diarrheal diseases, typhoid, and hepatitis as a direct result of the trash and human waste.

The Incredible India Campaign has run several direct ads on the need to keep and preserve our heritage –from vandalism as well as other acts that might desecrate them in any way. But they have largely concentrated and talked about historical monuments. But considering that so much of our heritage is tied up with religion and religious places and yatras and pilgrimages, it might do well to also talk of keeping religious places and events clean and sanitized so that the memory of having visited them might remain pleasant memories and not stories of nightmares.

A Goddess for Summer

Deepa Krishnan — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 13:14:57 EDT

The fierce April heat brings with it rashes, skin diseases and the dreaded pox.

Before it was eradicated in India, smallpox was one of the most feared diseases of summer. Chicken pox is still a big worry for Indian parents. Many communities believe it is the wrath of the Goddess Mariamman that brings on these diseases, and that she must be propitiated to ward off the pox.

In Mumbai, a small community from Andhra Pradesh worships the Goddess Mariamman every summer, seeking protection from smallpox, chickenpox and all forms of disease. My housemaid is from Andhra Pradesh, so I went with her to see the annual Mariamman ceremony. Mum came along, of course, to find out what it was all about.

The first thing we saw (heard) were the drums. Three men came walking from a little lane, and posed for me.

Then the women emerged from several lanes, carrying offerings for the goddess. Their bowls had a sort of thin gruel, made from ragi and buttermilk, and flavoured with chillies. Ragi, or finger millet came to India 4000 years ago from Ethiopia. It is now a staple part of the local diet.

There were neem leaves in the ragi gruel. Neem has medicinal properties and is used all over the country as a cure for chickenpox.

Several children and young girls wore skirts of neem, as protection from the pox.

A temporary tent had been erected, where everyone gathered with their offerings.

Inside the tent, there was a little shrine. In the villages of South India, there's a distinctly different looking Mariamman. But this is Bombay! There is no consecrated idol of the goddess here, so a popular representation of Durga was housed inside the tent, with the customary trident.

Mariamman is said to be a proto-Dravidian goddess, not a part of mainstream Vaishnavism or Saivisam. But as usual, both Saivaites and Vaishnavites have appropriated her, because she has such a large following.

To get things going, there was a dance. Two male performers had come from a little village in Andhra Pradesh. They were not just dancers; they were more like shamans, intermediaries between the Goddess and the rest. They said a little prayer and tied anklets on their feet.

The dancing lasted a short while, but it was energetic and graceful.

After the dancing, there was a brief prayer ritual. An elder from the community performed the arati. The prayers to Mariamman are "non-agama" i.e. not from the sacred Vedic texts. Brahmins do not conduct prayers to this Goddess, except in a couple of very large Mariamman temples in Tamil Nadu, where the worship has morphed into a fully agamic tradition.

After the prayer, a desi fowl was offered as sacrifice to please the Goddess and ask her protection. As the sacrifice happened, the drums and trumpets rose to a crescendo. Quite a spectacle.

I clicked the obligatory gory picture.

This pot would be taken around the city after the sacrifice. It was filled with water, turmeric and neem leaves, and decorated with turmeric, red sindoor, neem, lemon and flowers. In Bombay, this vessel goes to various Tamil and Andhra localities in Dharavi.

The ragi gruel was then served to everyone as prasadam. It was delicious and cool, by the way. There were a couple of neem leaves in mine, bitter as expected. I ate them, mindful of all the medicinal properties neem has.

The customary group photo at the end of the day! This is a section of women from my maid's community. The one on the left, with the orange and red saree is Vasantha, who lives with us, and makes the best khichdi-kadi on the planet. Without her, I would never have known or participated in this amazing spectacle.