*************************************************************************************************************
Although I was the son of an ultra-orthodox pure vegetarian South Indian Brahmin couple, I had many Muslim friends during my schooling in Muthukur, the seaside village on the Coromandel Coast.
All of them excelled in games and sports and arts and amateur theater. I am sorry I lost touch with them after I left for Bengal pretty early in life. And they left schooling early to take up their family vocations like tailoring and soda-water bottling.
I used to constantly hear from them, with dread, words like Chicken Pulav, Mutton Biryani, Royyal Pulusu (Prawn Sambar), and Moghalai Korma, which they threatened to force on me playfully.
I also used to hear names of their festivals they used to call:
Bakrid, Muharram, Miladi Nab, and Ramzaan.
But I never got the significance of these rituals.
It was only after reaching Bengal that I got to hear terms like Id, and Eid.
And after resettling in Hyderabad, I know of them much more since we were living in the Banjara Hills Area for 3 years, close to the Old City called Asal Hyderabad by ToI.
And watched images of celebrations of Eid ul Fitr (Ramzaan) after their ritual fasting (Roza) lasting a month, and the several political Iftar Parties thereafter. The most charming public display of this festive occasion is the Eid Embrace:
It reminds me of Kolakuli, the ritual embrace following the immersion of Durga-Mai's idol on the Vijayadashami evening at the IIT Lake, always a pensive occasion for me.
I had always suspected that this Kolakuli embrace has similarities with the Eid Embrace. And Google too says so:
...Thus Kolakuli echoes the Id embrace among Muslims. Durga Pooja is a festival Bengalis celebrate without religious inhibition...
http://parvinkhetarpal.net/holidays/festivaldescr.html
At our IIT KGP's Physics Department, we used to have a senior colleague from Lucknow by name Prof Abidi, now Director of a reputed institution in Lucknow.
He was very sportive and highly cultured, all the time quoting couplets and quatrains of Iqbal, Omar Khayyam...and his own. His wife is a published Urdu poet. Both of them a warm people.
My first introduction to Professor Abidi was on the day I joined IIT KGP. Our Office Assistant, Ghoshal Babu asked me:
"You are a Shastry...are you a brahmin?"
"Yes"
"So am I"
and he shook my hands lustily. And then this fair, slim, elegant gent arrived in the office to check his mails and was stopped by Ghoshal Babu to introduce me to him:
"Professor Abidi! Here is our new arrival. His name is Shastry. He too is a brahmin, like you"
And Professor Abidi smiled and shook my hands and took me to the canteen for the ritual cup of tea to celebrate a new arrival.
An hour later, I met Ghoshal Babu and he said:
"Shastryjee! Professor Abidi is a Muslim from Lucknow, but there are Brahmins among Muslims too"
This was news to me.
Pretty soon Prof Abidi and I became friends and I got to know many things from him. He used to host parties at his home on the Eid Evening to his close colleagues of all religions, and attend Diwali parties in their homes.
One day he stopped me in my tracks while returning from the canteen and posed a quiz:
"Sastryjee, here is a question for you:
...A Hindu who studied all the 4 Vedas is titled a Chaturvedi (Chowbey)
...One who studied 3 Vedas is called a Trivedi (Tiwari)
...And who studied 2 Vedas is called a Dwivedi (Dubey)
Tell me the title of one who studied no Vedas at all"
I fell silent and said I can't guess. And he smiled and pointed to his chest and gave his own answer to his question:
"He is called A-Bedi (Abidi)! Ha ha ha!"
I then asked him a counter-question:
"What is the title of a chap who studied only 1 Veda?"
"I don't know"
"He is just called Bedi (Bhishan Singh)"
;)
...Posted by Ishani
****************************************************************************************************************
Although I was the son of an ultra-orthodox pure vegetarian South Indian Brahmin couple, I had many Muslim friends during my schooling in Muthukur, the seaside village on the Coromandel Coast.
All of them excelled in games and sports and arts and amateur theater. I am sorry I lost touch with them after I left for Bengal pretty early in life. And they left schooling early to take up their family vocations like tailoring and soda-water bottling.
I used to constantly hear from them, with dread, words like Chicken Pulav, Mutton Biryani, Royyal Pulusu (Prawn Sambar), and Moghalai Korma, which they threatened to force on me playfully.
I also used to hear names of their festivals they used to call:
Bakrid, Muharram, Miladi Nab, and Ramzaan.
But I never got the significance of these rituals.
It was only after reaching Bengal that I got to hear terms like Id, and Eid.
And after resettling in Hyderabad, I know of them much more since we were living in the Banjara Hills Area for 3 years, close to the Old City called Asal Hyderabad by ToI.
And watched images of celebrations of Eid ul Fitr (Ramzaan) after their ritual fasting (Roza) lasting a month, and the several political Iftar Parties thereafter. The most charming public display of this festive occasion is the Eid Embrace:
It reminds me of Kolakuli, the ritual embrace following the immersion of Durga-Mai's idol on the Vijayadashami evening at the IIT Lake, always a pensive occasion for me.
I had always suspected that this Kolakuli embrace has similarities with the Eid Embrace. And Google too says so:
...Thus Kolakuli echoes the Id embrace among Muslims. Durga Pooja is a festival Bengalis celebrate without religious inhibition...
http://parvinkhetarpal.net/holidays/festivaldescr.html
At our IIT KGP's Physics Department, we used to have a senior colleague from Lucknow by name Prof Abidi, now Director of a reputed institution in Lucknow.
He was very sportive and highly cultured, all the time quoting couplets and quatrains of Iqbal, Omar Khayyam...and his own. His wife is a published Urdu poet. Both of them a warm people.
My first introduction to Professor Abidi was on the day I joined IIT KGP. Our Office Assistant, Ghoshal Babu asked me:
"You are a Shastry...are you a brahmin?"
"Yes"
"So am I"
and he shook my hands lustily. And then this fair, slim, elegant gent arrived in the office to check his mails and was stopped by Ghoshal Babu to introduce me to him:
"Professor Abidi! Here is our new arrival. His name is Shastry. He too is a brahmin, like you"
And Professor Abidi smiled and shook my hands and took me to the canteen for the ritual cup of tea to celebrate a new arrival.
An hour later, I met Ghoshal Babu and he said:
"Shastryjee! Professor Abidi is a Muslim from Lucknow, but there are Brahmins among Muslims too"
This was news to me.
Pretty soon Prof Abidi and I became friends and I got to know many things from him. He used to host parties at his home on the Eid Evening to his close colleagues of all religions, and attend Diwali parties in their homes.
One day he stopped me in my tracks while returning from the canteen and posed a quiz:
"Sastryjee, here is a question for you:
...A Hindu who studied all the 4 Vedas is titled a Chaturvedi (Chowbey)
...One who studied 3 Vedas is called a Trivedi (Tiwari)
...And who studied 2 Vedas is called a Dwivedi (Dubey)
Tell me the title of one who studied no Vedas at all"
I fell silent and said I can't guess. And he smiled and pointed to his chest and gave his own answer to his question:
"He is called A-Bedi (Abidi)! Ha ha ha!"
I then asked him a counter-question:
"What is the title of a chap who studied only 1 Veda?"
"I don't know"
"He is just called Bedi (Bhishan Singh)"
;)
...Posted by Ishani
****************************************************************************************************************
No comments:
Post a Comment