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There were no Community Prayers in our household:...All prayers were private: silent or loud.
(Budugu was praying aloud for his marbles in front of their deity. When asked if he thought their deity deaf, he says, "No; but grandma is" :)
During my school years I never saw my parents asleep: they woke up before I did and slept after I slumbered.
School started at 10 sharp, after the three bells rung aloud by the peon.
In our Puja Room, my mother rang her own tiny bell thrice at intervals of five minutes each.
Upon the first bell, my HM father would get up from his chair and sit down in the dining space on a wooden seat and start his sandhyavandan.
Upon the third bell, he would wind it up; and we would all wait for our grub which would soon be forthcoming.
His sandhyavandan was a silent affair. I was curious once and asked him what it was that he mumbled.
And he said it was a secret mantra which he would teach me in a public function soon enough.
And he did do that...just before I was kicked out of our home for higher studies.
The climax of this function was his whispering this mantra in my ear while we two were covered in a loose dhoti stretched overhead (so secret it was!).
...And my uncle, sitting by my side, pinching my thigh ceremonially, slipping his hand into that shroud (called "Scorpion-Sack" in good humor).
Anyway, we trooped to our school-assembly presided over by my father.
It started with a public prayer by one of the four students who had a passable singing voice. The prayer itself was one of the four approved padyams from Bhagavatam.
The climax of the Assembly was the tumbling down of one of the four students prone to fainting under our Coromandel Sun.
In due course all my six sisters, one by one, acquired their own individual rosaries of different colors for their own silent mantras.
Rosaries are also called "Worry Beads" by Christians who roll them on their nervous fingers whenever they want peace in their flaming hearts.
I watched on TV the current US President Biden rolling his worry beads when he was their vice-president a decade ago.
That was while he was waiting (along with his boss Obama) to hear the assassination news of their pet enemy: Osama Bin Laden.
Obama himself was pursing his lips and fiddling with the tiny hanuman-idol which he said he always carried in his pant-pocket :)
In 1965, a few months after my reaching IIT KGP, my friend Chari asked me to accompany him one evening to the South Institute which was an Anglo-Indian Assembly-cum-Dance-cum-Cinema Hall.
Apparently Chari had an itching eczema on his neck, and the skin-specialist at the BNR Hospital, after prescribing an ointment in the morning, asked him to come to the South Institute in the evening at 7.
Chari went into the hall asking me to wait outside for a few minutes...
...And he returned after a good one hour, with an embarrassed blush anointing his stupefied face.
Meanwhile I was hearing repeated Hallelujas emanating from the Hall.
Apparently it was a weekly Christian Prayer Meeting for patients, of whom our Vaishnavite Chari happened to be the leading one...
I love Christian Prayers, by the way.
There is this famous Lord's Prayer taught by Jesus himself:
"Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done, as in heaven, so in earth. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our sins; for we also forgive every one that is indebted to us. And lead us not into temptation; but deliver us from evil."
And this "Hail Mary!":
"Hail Mary, Full of Grace, The Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now, and at the hour of our death."
"The self-same moment I could pray;
And from my neck so free
The Albatross fell off, and sank
Like lead into the sea.
Oh sleep! it is a gentle thing,
Beloved from pole to pole!
To Mary Queen the praise be given!
She sent the gentle sleep from Heaven,
That slid into my soul.
He prayeth best, who loveth best
All things both great and small;
For the dear God who loveth us,
He made and loveth all."
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Tailpiece Story:
This pastor of his village trains his two male parrots to close their eyes, roll their beads, and pray silently.
And this woman who bought a female parrot in the flea market is embarrassed by her pet's constant chatter:
"I am a prostitute...let us have some fun"...
She carries her scandalous pet to her pastor asking him to teach her (the female parrot) how to pray.
The pastor opens his cage door and seats his guest-parrot between his own parrots...hoping she would imbibe devout prayers from her saintly companions.
Upon which she (the parrotess) squeals her sacred mantra:
"I am a prostitute...let us have some fun"...
Upon which the senior male parrot opens his eyes and wakes up his junior:
"Throw away your beads...our prayers have been answered!"
(The parrots of course are metaphorical)
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