Godaan Recycled - 1

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In our tradition one has to gift away many things at appropriate events in one's lifetime in order to achieve the summum bonum, here and hereafter.

Some of these are: annadaan (gifting food), godaan (gifting cow), bhoodan (gifting land), swarnadaan (gifting gold), and kanyaadaan (gifting bride).


Of all these, the gifting of one's daughter to a 'suitable boy' is considered the best. The canonical kanyaadaan is the one in which King Janaka gifts Sita away to Raam after he tops his IAS exams. Here is the momentous shloka uttered by Janaka and every father subsequently in the marriage function of his daughter, Hindu style:

 Iyam Sita mama suta
sahadharmacharee tava
prateechchha chainam bhadram te
panim grihneeshwa panina
pativrata mahabhaga
chhayevanugata sada.

After I got my son at age 40 (my age), my mom was convinced I was not going to play a second innings. So, she was worried that while I could by and by gift away all the other goodies, I can never do Kanyaadaan. 

So she bought a ticket for a whopping Rs 1000 in my name for participating in the mass-kanyaadaan at the Tirupati Balaji temple...a dozen or so fake fathers of Goddess Padmavati are allowed to sit in a row in the heart of the temple at Tirumala and participate in the Heavenly Wedding of Balaji to Padmavati. At the appropriate moment, all the ticket-holders of the day are permitted to do a nominal kanyaadaan one after the other without breaking the queue discipline. At the end of the function, the kanyaadaatas of the day are showered with Lord Balaji's gifts in the form of huge laddus, vadas, pulihora, paayas and such delectables in vast baskets...much of which couldn't be stored and were best gifted away to the needy waiting around the temple...thus killing two birds with one ticket...kanyaadaan and annadaan.

But, Fate subsequently made me do a real kanyaadaan of a real bride (my niece) to a real groom (both now well-settled in Hyderabad). It is a long story, but the short of it is that I played the role of matchmaker in that default alliance and so the honors fell on me...Rs 1000 gone waste, sort of....who can predict the future 25 long years hence?

Last Laugh: The Department at IIT KGP where I 'worked' for forty glorious years was named: 'Department of Physics & Meteorology'. The Meteorology was never a steady sidekick...it had, much like Phoenix, several births, stupors and rebirths. During one of its revivals, Prof RSS (sadly no more) was asked to manage it and he did his best. Prof B of Physics had a poor opinion of  KGP's ability to sustain such a complex field as Weather-Forecasting and I overheard this dialogue between the two:

Prof B: Will you be able to predict the weather a day in advance with the computers you have?

Prof RSS: No, 24 hours is tough

Prof B: Alright, I give you a month...

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