TN Tour 6: Divya Desam

It took us a while to get settled in at Kanchipuaram till we got allotted a room that suited us. A late lunch and coffee at the Saravana Bhavan down the street meant that it was only after 5pm that we set out.

The Kamakshi temple was within walking distance. We were asking for directions and negotiating the lanes that would take us to her, when we came upon another temple. We entered, not knowing where we were. However, Kanchi has such a wealth of shrines, I doubt you could throw a peanut and not hit hoary legend. We had somehow chanced upon the fabled Ulagalanda Perumal Temple. 

There are 108 ‘divya desams’ in the Indian subcontinent dedicated to the Lord Vishnu – these are spots that have been extolled in song and verse (mangalasasanam) by the 12 alwars, Tamil Nadu’s most revered poet-saints. This temple – the Ulagalanda Perumal complex, where Vishnu is worshipped as Vamana, the dwarf avatar who vanquished King Bali – houses not one but in fact four divya desams.

My father tells me that ‘ulagam’ is Tamil for the world, ‘alandha’ is ‘the one who measured’ – therefore Ulagalanda Perumal. You know the story of the asura king Mahabali, of course, in which the Lord, in his vamana or dwarf avatar, asked the king for three paces of land. When Mahabali had acquiesced, Vishnu assumed gigantic proportions. One step he took from heaven to earth, the second from earth to the netherworld and asked Mahabali where he should place his next step. The King, bound by his promise, offered his head. He was pushed into the netherworld and the Lord gave him sovereignty over Patalaloka. 

Vamana by Keshav @Krishnafortoday

The main shrine has the most breath-taking relief in black stone depicting Vamana with one leg held aloft to span the skies. It is believed to have been built by Pallavas, with later contributions from Medieval Cholas, Vijayanagar kings and Madurai Nayaks.

My breath hitched with some resonance in the temple. The worship was ardent but apart from the central shrine, the rest of the temple, the outer mantapam etc is rudely maintained, unkempt and messy. A temple of this antiquity, this stature not getting its due attention is simply saddening. It is, of course, under the grip of the notorious Tamil Nadu Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments Department (HR&CE) – an authority reported to have been so corrupt and inept over the decades, it is in the process of destroying all remnants of this valuable civilization.

This was another strain that threaded our whole journey. On the one hand, we were blown away by the sheer force that the deities still wield, by the throbbing bhakti that has been kept up, in the face of monumental odds. On the other, we were frequently moved to grief at the dilapidation, the criminal neglect, the apathy… In some cases, it was callous disregard, in some others, the utter lack of understanding of what the whole temple complex represents, how it works not as ornamental levels or grandiose architecture but as a subtle energetic mandala.

Phir wahi dil

As I made the bed this morning, loath to waste even five minutes to a mundane job, I played on YouTube the superlative ‘Aawaz deke humein tum bulao’. Just under five minutes and it sucked me into a vortex of nostalgia. 

Movies in India have morphed so much. There are grim, dreary, bleak reflections of society, there are political statements, social statements… always, always pontificating on something or the other; revealing the underbelly of something or the other, taking a stand on something or the other. In a sense, they have all become very masculine: hard, primarily concerned with the outside, with the larger picture; rather than feminine, which is soft, and more about the particular, the subjective and individual experience.

Are we never to see any particular stories about human beings anymore? Or for that matter even a genuine lip-sync song? Have we been embarrassed out of our natural and spontaneous musicals? It seems the only songs that are sung out are those performed on stage, or item songs. The rest are background scores. Am I wrong?

I don’t remember the plot of ‘Professor’ and don’t remember the context for this intensely romantic song set in Raga Shivaranjani. How inspired were Shankar-Jaikishan with this one… the faintly ominous large drum in the beginning, yielding space to the tabla and Lata Mangeshkar’s soaring voice… The song pulls you in, makes you wonder what is up with these two people…
How wonderful would it be if we could have such mellow, romantic stories made with all the wonderful filmmaking techniques and technology we have today!


 

***

I was discussing this with my sister the other day. How is it that OTT platforms, which have mushroomed in such large numbers, have not yet tapped into this wonderful bank of old classics in any language? Where are the Hitchcocks, the Gene Kelly musicals, the b/w favourites? The Shammi Kapoor hits, the Joy Mukherjee must-watches, the Best of Dev Anand, Dilip Kumar, Filmfare awardees of 4-5 decades ago? Where are the Telugu mythologicals and socials? I don’t know about the economics in connection with Hollywood fare, but surely Indian goldies must be low hanging fruit? 

Maybe they'll get there eventually?

Touch and Go

Balancing out the pleasure you get from online games is the hoops the makers put you through in order to get you to buy from them – coins, energy, gemstones… all the in-game currencies that apply in that universe. Understandable, I suppose. But I’m miserly and would much prefer to watch their advertisements to support them than fork out cash just because I’m impatient.

Most games would like you playing them – a lot. Anything to keep you hooked and coming back for more. Running out of currency? A sudden gift or windfall will keep you in the game for while longer.

Then I came across Murder in the Alps. It’s a hidden objects game with a lovely 1930s theme. Anna, our protagonist, is the journalist-detective and you must help her find the clues to piece together this very intriguing locked room mystery in which corpses keep turning up with delicious regularity. The set of suspects includes a cuckoo Indophile professor who is chasing after the elusive Vedic recipe for the elixir Soma. The artwork is spectacular, the voice acting is fantastic, the interface smooth and exciting – the atmosphere of the game is top-notch.

 

Except, they don’t want you to play.

You get 200 energy to start off with. And as Anna examines a scene looking for these hidden objects that will help her understand what the hell is going on in this forsaken, snow-boarded inn in the Swiss mountains, every item you touch on her behalf will drain you of 5 to 30 units. Depending on how frenzied you are, you could play for 10 or 20 minutes at the most.

And then, unless you are willing to pay quite handsomely for more energy, you wait. The energy replenishes itself at the rate of one unit in eight minutes. Which means a wait of upwards of 26 hours to max your quota – which, I repeat, lasts you gameplay of 20 minutes. If you are desperate, there are ads to watch that’ll give you 10 energy at a time.

It's perfect sadhana actually. You touch the screen with the utmost awareness and only when you must. And you learn to wait. This view is solipsistic and you must grant me the indulgence: considering I have a tendency to be addicted to games, that’s the sound of my Guru having the last laugh.

Sound Levels

There’s a special animosity in my heart for sound mixers who don’t understand the concept of background music. People so carried away by this music they’ve picked out that they must inflict it onto the situation. They couple up, in my mind, with attention seekers, who simply must have part of the conversation, preferably about themselves. Chaps who don’t get what a mosaic is, even if their work stands out like a badly placed chip.
I remember disagreeing with a video editor I was working with. ‘You can barely hear it!’ he said, of the B/g music track. What you cannot hear are the dialogues, dude. As for the background score, you don’t need to hear it, it just needs to be there!
And then I knew a band once where the leader happened to be the percussionist. You know what happened next. You could barely hear the vocalist, who was way down in the pecking order superseded by the drums, the strings and even the shruti box. And there was no arguing about it. ‘Brightness’, that’s what they said, ‘we need brightness’.
Rubbish fellows.

Colour me green

Have I confessed my deep desire to be artistic on these pages? I must have.

Anyway here’s the thing: I long to draw, paint and colour. Sadly, I am held back, seriously held back by a lack of talent. I stare at a blank page, tighten my grip on the medium at hand and invariably there will emerge – a tree. That is the culmination, the pinnacle of my creations. A gnarled tree, with a few branches, a knot in the middle and tapering roots. And, sadder still, it’s always more or less the same tree. I branched out slightly into coconut trees, but it yielded unsatisfactory results.

In some past life, I must have been surrounded by artists who, with a few magical strokes, could suggest and evoke whole worlds. I must’ve watched and admired, despaired of my own skill. Because I don’t have the imagination and I certainly don’t have the technique. Over my adult life, I’ve bought paints, brushes, charcoal pencils, shading pencils, illustration books... spent rather a lot of money on, as a friend once punned, ‘a paint hope.’

These two pencil shading landscapes from my learning book had convenient outlines that were dead useful as a structure. Perspective is everything!

And then adult colouring books happened. It was godsent. Now, with someone else drawing out the lines, all I had to do was colour within the lines. Now, this was well within my powers. And for a few years now I have enjoyed this – listening to music and poring over printed sheets of sketches. My blending skills have improved, I love using a mixture of water colours and pencils. Then I also bought Johanna Basford’s amazing book, Enchanted Forest. 

There are many such books now, but I absolutely love Basford’s whimsical, intimate rendering of imagined scenes. I bought myself a rather nice set of colouring pencils and I enjoy the whole process. That is to say, I did. Till yesterday.

I went to pinterest and instagram desultorily looking for finished coloured pages. Awe and angst in equal measure! What imagination, what skill! I hate these showoffs. They should be out there creating their own masterpieces. What are they doing in amateur circuits? Not only is their colouring spectacular, they fill up the white spaces around the illustrations with their own creations, and now alas, in her latest book Johanna has taken to leaving huge portions of blank space to leave scope for these. And WAIL, I don’t know WHAT TO DO WITH THEM!!!

Let me show you what I mean:

3D by night

Riot

He or She colours outside the lines! Fancy that.

All that inside stuff is the colorist's own tweak on this wreath

Let's add a story to that flower wagon

Brown fox in the deep wood.

Have you seen anything so beautiful?

Now I have to plod on with my own pitiful efforts. I don't know how I'm going to find the heart to carry on.

List of Annoyances

Irritated by everything.

This curtain that tickles the top of my scalp as I type.
The lounge-at-home pajamas that I gave to the tailor to shorten, which he did alter but not enough, and the bottoms of which now annoyingly curl under my heel every damn step.
The fact that I got late with everything.
That I had no creative, exciting plans for brunch and ended up making (and eating!) white rice.
The fact that I ATE without doing a single of my practices and then didn't enjoy it because I was too busy carping and feeling terrible.
The NEWS!!! The MeToo campaign. The horrible disgusting men, the unsavoury stories, the gloating women, the airing of old grievances, the jumping on the bandwagoners, the ugliness of it all.
The fact that I am working against deadlines and feeling anxious about it, instead of enjoying the pressure.
My stuffy head and this persistent headache.
My stomach that gets hungry but doesn't really want anything, but which I feed anyway, in a stupid, compulsive way.
Oh, and inflamed gums that hurt the whole left side of my face.
Plus, I forgot to soak the curtains.
AND my shoulder hurts.

Reaction

Impatient today.

Of specious sentiment, of aggrandisement of petty things, of small outlooks and small concerns. Of the constant need to pity someone, to tendency to be immersed in sickly sentiment.

Stop!
Look at the sky, I want to shout!

Stop, or at least stop pulling me in to participate. I am not sufficiently established, and so cannot play with you. I will only get entangled, and incoherent, and confused, and angry.

Just. Look at the Sky.

Sheetal say...

Cynicism is not cool.

A Tight Place

Stuck in a traffic jam for the last half hour. So stressful. How do people venture out in this madness everyday? My stay-home work has softened me overmuch and I feel like a tortoise without its carapace. Surely cities shouldn't be like this? They're supposed to be convenient, for God's sake!

The unkindest cut

We feel that the local man in charge of our regular power cuts has given over to megalomania. We used to have them initially in two-hour slots spaced out considerately for households needing to use kitchen gadgets for the day's meals and such, for harried people leaving for school and work as well as others doing their morning kriyas. (Electricity is strictly not a requirement for this activity but it helps, of course – the buzz of household gadgets keeps other intruding sounds away, and there is always the menace of mosquitoes that can be held at bay with a breeze propelled by electric power.) Of course this also served for everyone requiring to charge their tech paraphernalia.

The first cut used to occur promptly at 10.30am and was restored at 12.30. As humans, whose thing in life is adaptability we, accordingly, adapted. Early in the morning, we fought over power plug points, made our chutneys, sent off last minute mails at 10.25 and sat back in somewhat of a smug attitude. In the break, we puttered around the garden, caught up on the bird scene in the neighbourhood, read the newspapers, and some even going so far as to read a book! It was idyllic.

At 4.30 in the afternoon was our second cut of the day. Walkers would reach promptly for their shoes, others for grocery bags, the colony uncles chose to huddle for leisurely powwows. Dusk would gently fall, leading some to make quite a to-do about their sunset pictures. With normal life restored at 6.30, the populace would withdraw indoors to prayers, television and dinner.

Now this is a thing of the past. The man at the switchboard has lost his rhythm. Sometimes, at 6.30am, when most of God’s creatures and snuggling in their razais, dreaming their last dreams of the night, they are awakened most rudely by a cessation of fan-blades. Now having thus dragged oneself out of bed, there is no easy method for obtaining hot water for one’s ablutions, the overhead tanks have not been filled and plans for breakfast must be altered very quickly to include Spencer’s wheat bread. You will note that I said ‘sometimes’. For, at other times, it is another time. Sometimes, 7am, sometimes 7.15, once 8am, occasionally 11am and now he has passed over the morning slot altogether. For two days now it has been 12-2pm and 4.30-6.30pm, which gives us barely two and half hours in between to get the fridge cold again. Food is spoiling and for persons who worry about laptop batteries forming the wrong kinds of memory, this is bad indeed.

Although I have described vividly the torments of unexpected cuts, I have not yet touched on the other kind – the torment of uncertainty and hope! What happens when the citizenry is expecting a power cut and it doesn’t occur? As a sample, I studied my father. At 10.40, it becomes clear that the schedule isn’t being adhered to. Having put off eating so that he can maximise on the router being available, he is famished. Should he have breakfast anyway? Or perhaps he should fit in one more response to an email in the next five minutes before it might be shut down? He teeters, Dear Reader, between work station and kitchen in the most piteous manner. But worse, when we have braced ourselves comprehensively and nothing at all happens. “Is it a festival today? Or some holiday?” Why, we wonder in private, aloud and during every interaction, has there not been a power cut. Having no faith in free lunches, we wonder what retribution will be like.

The maid discusses the cuts as much as she discusses the weather: “Ee rozu teesinadaa, akka?” and then tells me how it was in her locality these past 24 hours. We have concluded that we have a control freak on our hands. Our lives will run, he imagines, on his say-so (as indeed they do). Do you think he breaks out into maniacal laughter every time he pulls the plug? Or that his eyes gleam when his hand hovers on the button and then withdraws, knowing well the consternation he is spreading?

As I write this, my father has been wandering around the house muttering to himself. Tufts of hair stand upright on his head, and he wears a pinched look. There has been no cut today.

Reactive

A bit angry, right this minute, for I was at the receiving end of some rather unfair treatment. And in spite of the dangers of using a weblog as a confessional, sometimes, it tempts me.

Oh, not that I stayed quiescent under the lash of ingratitude - I kept quiet because it would not have helped a whit at that moment - but I passed the unpleasantness on, never fear! I scowled at my maid, growled at my father and now as the breath returns to normal and sense overrides indignation, the proper perspective emerges.

I should have come to you first, dear blog. Plus there a couple of things I need to rant about. Today is the day for such a harangue; I can feel it.

Bah

I'm beginning to really dislike feminists. Super aggro, man-hating, society-reviling feminists who're on the case ALL the time. For heaven's sake, let up sometimes and just be a PERSON, yes?

Edited to add:
That came as a reaction to some very silly and extreme views I encountered here and there. I swear I didn't know this movement was rising:

Links: Missing links and Other Things

I can’t go wrong today, it seems. Every day brings exhortations from my social media timelines – links that lead to news, videos, cat videos, absorbing views, activism, personal photo albums... the lot. Today, link after link led to gold, so I’m just collating it all.

First thing in the morning, my friend Samanth Subramanian’s most excellent and moving essay about his grandfather, whom he says he didn’t question closely enough when he was alive. (I find that shocking – Samanth has at least half a dozen questions for anyone.) But now with the man himself obscured by death, Samanth tries to make ‘forensic guesses’ about his grandfather’s life, to build a sketchy biography, and a tribute.

He says: “There is some complicated guilt here too, lurking in the corner but unavoidable. I have felt as if I am personally responsible for rupturing traditions that run back many generations and that are still alive, to some extent, in the person of my father... under my uncaring stewardship, a certain continuity has snapped, and a vast body of inherited knowledge has suddenly and irreversibly decayed.”

How this resonates with me! Particularly since my mother’s death, I find myself stupidly at a loss – and feel many pangs over this heritage that could have been mine if I had only respected, valued it more. Between my grandmother’s lifestyle and mine is such a world of difference and I know whose is shallower, poorer.

In the same vein allow me to link (although I came across it a few weeks ago) to another fine piece that speaks of a culture, a past we have wantonly let go of.

When Shweta and I discuss this loss, we are agreed that the blame lies with our parents’ generation – our doting parents who loved their parents but didn’t respect them enough, who looked too much to the future, to western educations, to success, to expanding their horizons beyond anything their forefathers had dreamt of. Theirs the blame for not holding on tightly enough, for their lack of conviction, for not insisting that we, their children, learn and carry on some of it, for letting it all sink before we thought to grasp it. Is that too harsh? I am not bitter, only regretful.

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Another link today led to this wonderful interview with actor Kangana Ranaut. She’s astonishingly poised, impressively mature (she’s 26!) and devoid of artifice or affectation.



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My Guru talks of knowing rain: “If you walk through the rain with utmost awareness, you will know rain in a certain way. But if you walk through the rain with absolute abandon, you will know rain another way.” Isn’t that like holding on to moon beams? Can one know rain? He says maybe. That’s what I’m after. Which way I still don’t know, but I’ll know in the end. Or it won’t matter.

But let Sadhguru speak for himself.

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And though I didn’t come across these links today-today, these TED talks enlivened my week, so they go in here too.

Iwan Baan on how people carve out homes in unexpected places and ways:



This unexpectedly moving lecture on muses by Elizabeth Gilbert, the author of Eat, Pray, Love:

Very silly hai inki love life!

I watched Shuddh Desi Romance yesterday and can't think why I wasted two-and-a-half hours on characters who simply didn't know what or who they wanted.
After a stunning debut in Kai po che, Sushant Singh Rajput was blah. The girls were better, esp Vaani Kapoor; and Rishi Kapoor was FABULOUS but that still doesn't make up for the jalebi plot. Not shuddh anything, not desi (surely commitment phobia is an imported angst) and definitely not romantic. Maneesh Sharma, you annoyed me so much.

Khwab juda...

You know what annoys me? When people say - over and over - that they want something and then, when life offers their heart's desire on a platter, they're too... oh, I don't know... too damn scared to reach out and take it. They step back, they make excuses and then they become wistful at how free other people are to do whatever they want.

It's too inconvenient right now, it's too expensive, my children have exams, the timing isn't right... may be next time.

Either take it -- take a risk, make yourself uncomfortable, go out on a limb and see if you like it after all -- or SHUT UP. Be happy with the life you've CHOSEN! Just don't tell yourself (and me) that your life would have been this wonderful, many coloured rainbow, if only you had had someone else's luck.

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The title of this post is from this wry sher by the most quoted poet on this blog, Farhat Shehzad:
Khwab juda, rang bharna aur
Kehna aur hai, karna aur

ख्वाब जुदा रंग भरना और
कहना और है करना और

Dreams are very well, living them is another matter
Talking is one thing, doing is another matter

Indeed.

Because I can't hear myself think

The children at the playschool next door are getting an enthusiastic education... a live band is right now playing 'Summer of '69' and other nostalgic numbers that must make a lot of sense. Too bad most of them will be deafened before they pass out into kindergarten.

I wonder at them, the people who're doing the educating, I mean. They ruthlessly cleared every shrub and tree from the place, laid down plastic turf, covered the play area with plastic corrugated sheets and greenhouse nets. Having gotten rid of the teeming birdlife that lived here, they have paper birds hanging all along one wall in the hope that their charges may be charmed and inspired. And to create an illusion of the green outdoors, they now have a large photograph of a rainforest forming a backdrop to their newly renovated swimming pool.

I'm not suggesting the children aren't happy - they are, they are! But I notice they're happiest when they're left alone, not being harangued to come inside and dance to Justin Bieber's Baby every day of the week, or plagued to put up drill displays (it's a pre-school playschool!) or indeed, being subjected to horrendous concerts like today's.

A tangent. About this cartoonist who knows a bit about kids, and dispatches regular reports on her own with warmth, lots of funny and insight.

My neighbours should take this leaf out of Oormila's book, but on second thoughts, it's probably too subtle for them.

Cartoon copyright: Oormila Vijayakrishnan Prahlad.
Her page, Adventures of the Renaissance Mom is on Facebook. Take a look, she's hilarious!

Snit

Supremely irritated.
Isn't it annoying how anything - anything at all - rapidly becomes about society, community, rules, demands, expectations? I have limited energy and some enthusiasm to spare and HATE it when people try to yoke it for their ends. 
bah.

Sighing

...at the gulf between theory and practice.

Power play

It is a ridiculous situation. My laptop charger cord has worn at one point and there's a loose contact that needs to be treated with kid gloves. This has ramifications on my lifestyle. For one, I cannot occupy any seat where the cord loops around the laptop - the joint can't take such maltreatment. When I achieve the happy position of having continuous supply I cannot move lest I disturb it. To add to my woes, my battery has almost completely given up even a pretence of holding any charge whatsoever.

To which you may ask: why not get it fixed? Good point.
First, several months ago, my sister's laptop charger/adapter cord refused stoutly to work and she bought another. Three months ago, my own started to show its inner wires at one point. We took in both to be repaired, after which, for a few days, we were in the happy position of having three working wires between two laptops. Then Shweta's box went bust. Then the other one developed a problem with the pin socket. During one visit to the repairers in Secunderabad's Chenoy Trade Centre, I pulled out all three cords, each labelled neatly as to ownership and current problem.

Long story short, we are now again caught with one completely useless wire and two temperamental ones. I could get my loose connection fixed but what's stopping me is the sheer embarassment of turning up there again. So I've taped it up, sit only where the power outlet is to the right of me and endure a very painful back.

I need a new laptop.

Oops, they did it again

In September last year, my landlady had this nice tree outside my balcony shorn. I was a new tenant then and I had protested mildly - perhaps she didn't even notice. But look, they did it again:


What am I to say? It was doing well, better than I had hoped. In a few weeks it would have given me privacy from 70 percent of the apartments that face me. Besides, I liked it. I didn't know they had this planned. Nothing to do now but wring my hands. Shall I storm off harridan-like and tell them how presumptious, how officious they have been? It isn't even on their property. It's a street tree. It belongs to EVERYone. How dare they?

Or now that nothing can be done, can I calm down and consider this a lesson in cultivating detachment?