This long rambling is not meant for those who generally find their BP shooting up to alarming levels upon reading or watching stuff that take a lighter and borderline irreverential look at religion / faith / beliefs etc. Such folks would be advised to not read beyond this point. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Having spent a large portion of my life upto my early teens within 100 M of “Kabaleeswarar temple” and within 500 M of Santhome basilica , the sheer contrast in style & rigour in worship and prayers inadvertently planted in me at a very young age a bit of doubt on God and His staunch servants. Added to the style of worship, I have often wondered about the vastly diverse dress habits of the main occupants of Kabali temple and Santhome basilica. The former used to change attire very frequently and a few times during the day, whereas the latter maintained a near constant look through the year. As for the main servants, K’s used to flaunt their six pack with their upper torso adorned with screaming white vibhoothi, whereas J’s would sport a long cassock through the year. In Chennai’s stifling humidity and heat, it is a miracle that J’s pulled through in a cassock that covered their entire body. Bob Marley, had he visited India during his formative years, and visited K temple, would have loved the vibhoothi on the priests, and would have integrated it with his Rastafarian looks, and made it a hit globally. Talking of Vibhoothi, I have nothing but pity for Michael Jackson who tried his best to make his skin white and probably spent millions – I sometimes imagine the global reach “thevaram / tiruppugazh” would have had, if only Michael Jackson had converted and become a Saivite, applied a thin coat of Vibhoothi on his face and belted out songs from those anthologies, accompanied by his moonwalk. If a devotee, in his pure devotion put his foot on the Lord and pulled out his eye could be called “ Kannappa Nayanaar”, why not MJ, a “moonwalk Nayanmaar”, if only he had done the dance singing Thevaram ? Songs from Thiruppugazh can beat rap music any day. Those who do not know, just look up “Muthai tharu” https://youtube/watch?v=YfvjAuw3D2w. Another song that is a killer rap is youtube/watch?v=q1mYqaa6ek8 ( rap starts at 0.45 ) which is supposed to have been written by Karaikkaal ammaiyar, sometime around 1500 years ago. What a racy rap – Jay Z and Eminem can move over and bow down to this old lady. Folks like Jay Z, Eminem, Puff daddy, Pitbull etc need to be told that it is entirely possible to compose rap without F words – in fact if I ever get to meet them, I will tell them that they can entirely lift such songs from Tamizh and sing in Tamizh, and none will know the difference. Watching the pathetic song at 2014 FIFA opening ceremony by Pitbull and J Lo, I thought they could have done far better by just lifting a rap number straight from Thevaram or Thiruppugazh - Pitbull could have grabbed his crotch to scale high pitch and J Lo could have done the crouching low bottom swirl to a seductive lower octave and trust me, it would have been a giant hit – with their stupid “la la la” Brazil went off to “ la la “ land, but, with help from Tiruppugazh rap opening song, probably Brazil could have done better, as Lord Shiva could have rescued them and struck a few goals for them in his unique cosmic pose delighted by Tiruppugazh rap. Coming to the men in cassock, especially black colour cassock, always used to remind me of dark, mysterious villians who would jump out from behind a pillar and fire at James Bond. This example has real life correlation for me, as during my early school days, I studied in a Christian missionary school . The principal and a few other teachers then used to dress in a white cassock. During recess or some outdoor activity, a couple of them will hide themselves behind pillars and would pounce on unsuspecting & mischievous boys. They would then proceed to cane the boys, and in the process, attempt to drive some serious Christian spirit in the boys, through the wrong end of the body. I have been a victim on rare occasions. So, good Hindu values driven through the correct end mostly at home, and good Christian values driven up through the wrong end at school, have often collided inside of me somewhere down the middle, resulting in both getting out of my body quickly through their respective entry points within 24 hours. All of us those days were required to sit through “Moral instruction” class, where a very stern looking man would ask someone at random to read a passage from the Bible and launch into an hour long explanation. As a young boy, I have been bewildered about verses uniquely numbered 1:23, 3:46 etc and when MI class used to be followed by math class at times, I would wonder if the Bible verses’ numbering was an ingenious way to teach us all about rational / irrational numbers, ratio & proportion. That said, I did enjoy my school days and do not suffer any bad memories. When I read about flare ups due to religion, caste etc, I am confused totally. I just cannot understand what the thought process is all about. I have been put through hard core Christian missionary school during my formative years, and later on into an altogether Hindu school. Neither seems to have had any impact on me at all. Both have contributed to a completely irreverential view of religion, God, rituals etc. I have also put my sons through similar schooling, with a large proportion of Christian missionary school and later on a Hindu school, and I think they have also developed a similar inert attitude to religion. So, 2 generations in my family have been exposed to near similar schooling conditions with almost identical result. In fact, one of my kids, in an unexpected fallout, parallely developed a deeply irreverential attitude to formal education itself, but, that is another story. Scientifically speaking, any experiment done under near similar condition, if produces similar results, then the hypothesis is proven. I think, it is proven in my family, and it just needs to be replicated across large numbers. I think it would be a very good idea to change our entire school education system to have 2 years zorastrianism, 2 years of Islam, 2 years of Christianity, 2 years of Hinduism, 2 years of Sikhism, 2 years of Jainism, 2 years of Buddhism compulsorily so that the resultant combination can hopefully produce someone like the character in the “Life of Pi” – Mr. Piscine Patel, who describes himself as a Hindu catholic at some point in that movie directed by AngLee. If that movie had become a mega hit in TN, I was worried that Ang Lee would have been promptly called AngaLee Amman and a temple would have been built. Thank God it was not a mega hit here. My own belief, if one can call it thus, is largely influenced by Blaise Pascal’s wager on God. Later on, someone in college remarked that probability theory itself largely evolved out of that theory of Pascal, and I cursed him ( I mean…Pascal ) no end. Balaji
Posted on: Fri, 11 Jul 2014 05:40:08 +0000
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