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- Hamlet (1.5.166-7), Hamlet to Horatio
That, surely, is the type of story you would find in DC.
From childhood we were fed on stories of the superhuman and supranatural. Our mythology and folklore were replete with them. And our favorite reading also had these elements built in them. There were these hundreds of stories on Vikram-Bethal in the Chandamama of our childhood. And the serial called Thokachukka (Comet). And our Shakespeare tales were full of ghosts...Hamlet, Macbeth and Julius Caesar who were duly visited by (or visiting) the ghosts of their adversaries and triumphing in the end.
One of my sisters was watching the blockbuster Telugu Movie: Mayabazaar, an all-time favorite of our generation. And there was this scene where Lord Krishna was busy presiding over the aborted wedding ceremony of the son of Duryodhan with the fake Sasirekha. And suddenly Krishna goes into a momentary trance when he heard the long distance distress call of Draupadi in waist-deep trouble while Duhsasana was trying to disrobe her in full public view. And Krishna lifts up his right palm granting her an unending sari (long distance again).
That scene so enchanted my sister that she instantly turned a devotee of Krishna. And decades passed and it was time for her marriage. And she was not quite impressed by many of the alliances that were brought to her notice. At last, one day I brought the cabinet-size photograph of a prospective bridegroom. She looked at it and asked what his name was. And, on being told that he was Krishna Moorty, she kept the photo aside and asked me to fetch the original pronto. That was how she found her mate.
And I am sure he has been giving her miles and miles of unending saris...both their kids are medicos settled in the UK.
While we were kids, we were living for a year in a village called Atmakur in Nellore District in an abandoned forest bungalow (it was free). It had a huge compound with a Neem tree in its front yard and a tamarind tree in its back yard. My mom told me that this is an auspicious combo...for, tamarind is an indispensable ingredient of our food...sambar, rasam, chutneys, pickles, pulihora, and most everything that adds tang to our food. But the catch is that the tamarind tree is home to ghosts that roam about in the day and roost at night on the tree.
So, to drive away these ghosts, the auspicious neem tree is grown in the foreground...canceling each other.
Each of our homes also had a tulsi (basil) plant that is so health-giving that it is worshiped daily as a Mother (Tulsi Amma). And it is grown in a bed with an elaborate cemented structure around it surrounded by a stone platform on its four sides on which half a dozen of us could sit, gossip, and breathe the scented air. It is called Tusi Kota.
Atmakur had a generous Muslim population while we were there. And there was much camaraderie between us. Mom used to invite fakirs and peerbabas renowned for curing the ills of her half a dozen kidlings. And they used to arrive and give us free amulets and bless us. There was also a Muslim who owned a holy cow! And he used to arrive in our backyard and mom used to make us do pooja to it and go round it with folded hands and occasionally make us sip its salty urine.
The first day this gent arrived with his cow he was bewildered on seeing our Tulsi Kota and asked mom:
"Whose gori is it?"
Gori is the term used for the pedestal erected over a Muslim grave...
And Nellore is nowadays famous for its Rottela Panduga (Roti Festival) celebrated by Hindus and Muslims alike:
$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
And then I grew up to be an inadequate but staunch devotee of physics and turned a rationalist and joined IIT KGP as a faculty member living in its Faculty Hostel in the 1960s. Those were the times when there was this Vietnam-churning in the West and there bloomed the Flower Power, Hippies, Beatles and Youth Revolt.
And there was this Guest Professor S of Architecture joining us on our dining table for a week. And on the very first day he stunned us proclaiming in all seriousness:
"Salvation for Humanity lies in the Hippies and Mahesh Yogi"
Till then we couldn't really classify if Architecture was science or engineering or arts or humanities. His declamation cleared our doubts...Architecture was Psychedelics.
And then the US Universities went into a tizzy about what they called Parapsychology. Lots of funding there.
And then shot to fame a chap called Uri Geller who could bend spoons on TV at a remote place...
Could never make out why only spoons? Why not forks? And swords?...
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There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
- Hamlet (1.5.166-7), Hamlet to Horatio
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Chennai: Author Tim Murari lost his dog recently.
Tim and his wife Maureen walked the length and breadth of their Kilpauk
neighbourhood calling out his name but Prince was nowhere to be found.
This went on for days and Tim even had thousands of fliers inside
newspapers, with the photograph of the handsome mongrel, pleading for
information. And then a friend, Devika, a lover of dogs and cats
herself, told them about a German psychic who could communicate with
Prince and restore him to the family.
“We are rationalists but
still we decided to give it a shot. We were that desperate because days
had gone by and there was no trace of Prince. We contacted Barbel, who
lives in a Bavarian village in south Germany, through a
friend-interpreter because she knows only German. We were told she had
found several lost animals over the last ten years or so”, said Maureen,
recalling the incredible story of Prince’s rescue.
Barbel took a
good look at Prince’s photograph and began the process of trying to
reach the lost canine. “She would concentrate in a quiet atmosphere and
come back to us with some description of places where he had strayed to.
She spoke of a construction site and we found there were seven in our
area. She came back with more information—he is confused, scared and
hungry, and someone hit him with a stone. He was near a house with the
staircase built outside and in a lane with an arch at the entry. She
said she told Prince to stay put there because Tim and Maureen would
come and fetch him”.
A friend told the couple there was such an
arch and off they went searching. They found a lane that had a house
with staircase outside, but no Prince. Some more walking and there was
the arch and the lane that took them to another staircase-house.
“We
called out his name, many times and loud. Then I saw him, wagging his
tail like a car windscreen wiper. He had lost weight”, said Maureen and
recalled how they celebrated Prince’s return home “well in time for
Diwali”.
“Ah, I forgot to mention. We found there was stone injury on his head just as Barbel had mentioned”.
$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
That, surely, is the type of story you would find in DC.
From childhood we were fed on stories of the superhuman and supranatural. Our mythology and folklore were replete with them. And our favorite reading also had these elements built in them. There were these hundreds of stories on Vikram-Bethal in the Chandamama of our childhood. And the serial called Thokachukka (Comet). And our Shakespeare tales were full of ghosts...Hamlet, Macbeth and Julius Caesar who were duly visited by (or visiting) the ghosts of their adversaries and triumphing in the end.
One of my sisters was watching the blockbuster Telugu Movie: Mayabazaar, an all-time favorite of our generation. And there was this scene where Lord Krishna was busy presiding over the aborted wedding ceremony of the son of Duryodhan with the fake Sasirekha. And suddenly Krishna goes into a momentary trance when he heard the long distance distress call of Draupadi in waist-deep trouble while Duhsasana was trying to disrobe her in full public view. And Krishna lifts up his right palm granting her an unending sari (long distance again).
That scene so enchanted my sister that she instantly turned a devotee of Krishna. And decades passed and it was time for her marriage. And she was not quite impressed by many of the alliances that were brought to her notice. At last, one day I brought the cabinet-size photograph of a prospective bridegroom. She looked at it and asked what his name was. And, on being told that he was Krishna Moorty, she kept the photo aside and asked me to fetch the original pronto. That was how she found her mate.
And I am sure he has been giving her miles and miles of unending saris...both their kids are medicos settled in the UK.
While we were kids, we were living for a year in a village called Atmakur in Nellore District in an abandoned forest bungalow (it was free). It had a huge compound with a Neem tree in its front yard and a tamarind tree in its back yard. My mom told me that this is an auspicious combo...for, tamarind is an indispensable ingredient of our food...sambar, rasam, chutneys, pickles, pulihora, and most everything that adds tang to our food. But the catch is that the tamarind tree is home to ghosts that roam about in the day and roost at night on the tree.
So, to drive away these ghosts, the auspicious neem tree is grown in the foreground...canceling each other.
Each of our homes also had a tulsi (basil) plant that is so health-giving that it is worshiped daily as a Mother (Tulsi Amma). And it is grown in a bed with an elaborate cemented structure around it surrounded by a stone platform on its four sides on which half a dozen of us could sit, gossip, and breathe the scented air. It is called Tusi Kota.
Atmakur had a generous Muslim population while we were there. And there was much camaraderie between us. Mom used to invite fakirs and peerbabas renowned for curing the ills of her half a dozen kidlings. And they used to arrive and give us free amulets and bless us. There was also a Muslim who owned a holy cow! And he used to arrive in our backyard and mom used to make us do pooja to it and go round it with folded hands and occasionally make us sip its salty urine.
The first day this gent arrived with his cow he was bewildered on seeing our Tulsi Kota and asked mom:
"Whose gori is it?"
Gori is the term used for the pedestal erected over a Muslim grave...
And Nellore is nowadays famous for its Rottela Panduga (Roti Festival) celebrated by Hindus and Muslims alike:
...The unique feature of the three-day festival is that devotees offer
rottelu (roti or Indian bread) to the martyrs at the Bara Shaheed Darga
near Nellore tank, in lieu of their fulfilled desires and those with
similar wishes pick these up. It is widely believed that the warriors
grant every wish of devotees offering prayers at the dargah.
People whose wishes for education, wealth, good health, etc., were fulfilled, come here to leave home-made rottelu (roti or Indian bread) in Nellore tank near Bara Shaheed Darga. Those who have similar desires receive those rotis and eat them for fulfilling their desires. If their wishes are fulfilled, they come to leave rotis at the same place next year.
Many types of breads (rottelu) are being offered and searched for by devotees like Fortune Bread (Adhrusta Rotte), Marriage Bread (Pelli Rotte), Money Bread (Dabbu Rotte), Job Bread (Udyogam Rotte), Children Bread (Santhana Rotte), Health Bread (Arogyam Rotte), etc. IT professionals who want to go abroad offer Foreign Bread (Videsi Rotte). It is believed that music director AR Rahman took a holy dip in the tank and picked up Adrushta Rotte (lucky bread) before sending his entry for an Oscar Award in 2009.
People whose wishes for education, wealth, good health, etc., were fulfilled, come here to leave home-made rottelu (roti or Indian bread) in Nellore tank near Bara Shaheed Darga. Those who have similar desires receive those rotis and eat them for fulfilling their desires. If their wishes are fulfilled, they come to leave rotis at the same place next year.
Many types of breads (rottelu) are being offered and searched for by devotees like Fortune Bread (Adhrusta Rotte), Marriage Bread (Pelli Rotte), Money Bread (Dabbu Rotte), Job Bread (Udyogam Rotte), Children Bread (Santhana Rotte), Health Bread (Arogyam Rotte), etc. IT professionals who want to go abroad offer Foreign Bread (Videsi Rotte). It is believed that music director AR Rahman took a holy dip in the tank and picked up Adrushta Rotte (lucky bread) before sending his entry for an Oscar Award in 2009.
$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
And then I grew up to be an inadequate but staunch devotee of physics and turned a rationalist and joined IIT KGP as a faculty member living in its Faculty Hostel in the 1960s. Those were the times when there was this Vietnam-churning in the West and there bloomed the Flower Power, Hippies, Beatles and Youth Revolt.
And there was this Guest Professor S of Architecture joining us on our dining table for a week. And on the very first day he stunned us proclaiming in all seriousness:
"Salvation for Humanity lies in the Hippies and Mahesh Yogi"
Till then we couldn't really classify if Architecture was science or engineering or arts or humanities. His declamation cleared our doubts...Architecture was Psychedelics.
And then the US Universities went into a tizzy about what they called Parapsychology. Lots of funding there.
And then shot to fame a chap called Uri Geller who could bend spoons on TV at a remote place...
Could never make out why only spoons? Why not forks? And swords?...
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