Profound moments

People often talk about some profound moments that changed their life. So far I have never experienced one, but that changed yesterday when we attended Karin’s funeral in Minneapolis.  All this while when Karin was approaching death, all I was telling myself was that when the moment actually comes I want to be present there. God willing, that happened and we made it to the funeral. Before leaving for the funeral I checked out Karin’s caring bridge site (https://www.caringbridge.org/visit/karintreiber/) one last time and the outpouring of love and affection for her as well as the entire Treiber family was very moving. I thought about how amazing it is that this tiny slender woman has been able to touch the hearts of so many different people  who spoke different languages, came from different parts of the world and on the surface looked and behaved a lot more differently than she did.

The minute we entered the church to attend the service, we knew this was not a mourning, it was a celebration of the person that Karin was and was happening the way Karin wanted it to be. There were some neatly made collages of Karin the teacher, the friend, the traveler, the wife, the mentor and the Rotarian – all of which had one thing in common – her smiling face. There was a bigger collage that had all the experiences that people had shared on the caring bridge site. Everyone had a different story yet it was so similar in the sense that each of them had been moved in some or the other by Karin. We then walked into the church to meet Bob and there he was with his trademark wide grin, thanking us for coming down and introducing us to his entire family. He sure was living up to his wife words of making this a celebration. He said all the love that people had showered on them in the past few days had created a bubble that was letting his carry on this ceremony. As I looked at her peaceful figure in the casket and how extra-ordinarily beautiful the church looked with all the flower arrangement and at all diverse people who had come to celebrate her, tears just flowed through my eyes. I missed her in the moment, her laughter, her warmth and her charm. That’s when I knew that even in death she would make sure that she taught us a thing or two about living.

I was wondering how someone could really capture Karin’s life for everyone present there but the pastor made the job easy for everyone that followed. He said Karin was the tiny horn with the big voice. She was our very own Mother Teresa. She selflessly cared for people around her and across national boundaries. All of her mentees will vouch for the fact that it was  because of her encouragement that they are where they are today. She has a total of 21 PHD students graduate under her, visitors from 80 different countries visited her and a lot of others benefited from her acts of charity at the Rotary and the church . However she valued service to the Lord about everything else. She was a constant learner in life, asking questions, constantly curious and at the same time valuing each and every moment in her life.

Right then I knew that I had met a saint and I only wish that I had more time to spend with her.

Listening to the songs interspersed with the eulogies I realized why I so passionately wanted to be there. It was because I wanted to hear people talk about Karin and her life.  I wanted to see if I can pick a drop from the ocean of love that she spread around and not be the self-centered person that I am right now. Bob, Paul, David and her friends talked about how much Karin had given to them both in life, through the process of dying and now in death. She had set the bar really high and as Paul mentioned if she was here today she would say there is no bar, just keep the bar pushing.

Karin’s life was not about power or material means. It was not a process of aggregation, it was a process of giving . The lesson that she taught us all was that only by making your life an outpouring of love can you really live life in its truest sense. I want all of us to remember that there was one amongst us who managed to live such an exemplary life and that it might indeed be possible for us to live up to the example that she set.

To the undaunting spirit

We all have had our favorite super heroes at one point on another - Batman and Spiderman for the adventurous folks, Krishna and Rama for the true to India folks, Hardy boys and Nancy Drew for the bookworms like me. But then most of us have only always had REEL heroes, REAL life super heroes are hard to come by.

I consider myself lucky to have known one such superhero. And that person is nothing like you would imagine a super hero to be. She is a little shy of being 5 ft tall, less than 100 pounds in weight, beautiful white hair and an infectious smile which is sure to catch you the minute you meet her. I met Karin or my American mom as I call her 6 years ago when I had just landed in the United States. I was invited over to dinner at her place one night and what started on that one evening has blossomed into a relationship I could have never imagined. Karin has been my friend, philosopher and guide over all these years. Their home has been a home away from home for me, to the point that they now consider Pradeep their adopted son.

Karin and Bob(Karin's husband) have taught me a lot of things over the years but the most important thing is the importance of love in our lives. It does not matter where we live, how fancy our car is or how much money we make as long as our hearts are open to people around us. They have hosted people from 82 different countries in their house over the past 10 years and to this date there has never been an uncomfortable evening at their place. It just goes to show that truly as humans there are no boundaries that separate us, but there is one common string that binds us all and that is mutual respect and love for each other. As they like to say they did not need to go out and discover the world, the world came to them. This just shows that when our hearts are open there are not a lot of things that we cannot do with out lives, life in turn happens in phenomenal ways to us. Thanks to them and their marital advice I think Pradeep and I have been able to lay down the foundations of a happy marriage.

Bob jokes sometimes that most people have 16 hours in their 24 hours, my wife has 48 hours in 24. Karin is an educator, a volunteer, an excellent cook, pretty much all of her gifts are hand made, she manages to catch up on her reading and still have the time to host people every other weekend. Once again she proves to all of us that life will only happen as much as we are willing to push our boundaries. If the spirit is pure you will always have a great amount of energy to do a lot of things in life however if we carry around a lot of hatred and animosity in us, a large part of our energy is sucked into just dealing with the negative emotions. Never once have I heard either one of them complain about anything in their lives, they believe in giving to everyone around them and as a result they receive a lot from people around them too.

Nothing proves her greatness more than her current struggle with cancer. Karin was detected with lung cancer in April this year, the predictions that doctors had for her were very bleak. But in her typical style she was not going to take anything heads down. She got to work immediately figuring out what her options were, refused chemotherapy and resorted to only holistic methods of treatment. She had won the struggle once before with breast cancer and she was going to do that again this time around. Despite all the struggle that she is going through I think she is still much more hale and hearty in spirit than anyone of us can even imagine. I have days when I go home complaining about work or the dreary weather or some tiny thing and then I get an email from Karin describing the beauty of the fall colors on the tree in her backyard and how the Lord was helping her by making each day more beautiful. For me that serves a reminder of how beautiful this life is and how we pollute our mind with small complaints every single day to a point that after a while we stop looking at the beauty of life.

The reason that I wanted to write this blog was that I thought it was not fair for people who did not know Karin in person to not know that such a beautiful person exists among us. Another more selfish reason was that after reading this blog I can get more people to pray for her speedy recovery.

Incase you wanted to give her your wishes, here is a link to her caring bridge site.
https://www.caringbridge.org/visit/karintreiber/

" It is not important to be a superhuman, it is important to realize that being human is super " . - Jaggi Vasudev

Sridevi bani meri mummy

                                             http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_Vinglish
I recently watched English Vinglish and it reminded me of my mom. Now before you start thinking this blog is about how my mom learnt to start speaking in English, I should warn you that my mom has a Masters in English Literature! All through our childhood my mom widely used her English speaking skills any time she wanted to let me and my sister know that things were going to get serious. Only problem was that we only realized this very late in life and by that time the harm was done, we had successfully managed to not listen to all of her warnings that were always delivered using the choicest of English language phrases.

Well, coming back to the point the reason the movie reminded me of my mom was because of the earnestness that Sridevi had in the movie to learn something in life and get better. She is shy and scared but the desire to learn and grow is so deep in her that she is willing to put aside all of her fears to get better. Of all the people that I have known so far I think my mom displays the strongest desire to learn and grow. You will be surprised by the number of avenues she has actually sought in her life to learn new things in her life.As long as a person is willing to teach she is always an eager student.

My earliest memory is of my mom is when she took a computer class with kids my age. The fact that she was older than them or concerns about what others would think about her were never a deterrent to my mom, she just wanted to stay up-to-date with technology and be a part of Gen X. That desire was enough for her to go ahead and do something which none of the women around her were even considering. Ever since then there is always a new activity every year that my mom picks up. She worked around out school schedules, my dad's work schedules, taking care of the house etc and still managed to find time to learn something new. There was sitar, veena, singing, painting, cooking, knitting, meditation, yoga and the list is just goes on.

The most surprising thing is that as years are starting to add to my mom's age the desire to do newer thing is growing at a even more fervent pace. She turned 50 last year and to mark that she started learning carnatic classical music once again !!  One amazing thing about her is that she is always pushing her boundaries, every passing year she is making sure that she is afraid of fewer  and fewer things in her life. My mom always felt she has missed out on being a working woman and experience of being out on your own. So to make sure she crosses that of her list she decided to start working once she hit the half century. Not as an employee though, she is entrepreneur in her own right. She runs a mini music school for kids in our colony now and the number of students keeps on increasing every day. As you might have guessed by now she is not satisfied by just teaching the kids, she comes up with newer techniques to keep the kids engaged and interested during the entire class.

Sridevi did a great job of capturing the fact that as long as there is desire to get better in life there is nothing in life that can really stop you and I think my mom is a living example of that.!

What would you do if you were not afraid ?

Over the past few months I have given some though to work life balance, woman at work and as I was hearing this Sheryl Sandberg talk today I finally decided to start putting down these thoughts in words. A lot more posts to follow on this as my thoughts progress.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AdvXCKFNqTY

Disclaimer - I really dnt agree with all of what Sheryl says, its just that it triggered a train of thoughts in me and I decided to write about it , most of these thoughts here are my ideas which may not really agree with what she says.

Here are a couple of things she said which got me thinking -

1) Woman quit long before they actually quit
We start making less ambitious choices even before we have actually started doing the required job , we somehow believe that it will take a lot from us and we will not be able to manage work life balance when we get to a bigger spot in the company. This in itself prevents us from getting to a spot where we will challenged enough or one that we believe we deserve to be at . Given this we end up at positions which are less suitable than the positions that we believed we deserved and hence the choice to quit becomes a lot more easier because we no longer feel challenged by the job or the position that we are at.

2) What would you do if you were not afraid ?
This I think holds for each one of us . Some of us are afraid of our jobs because we think we might not have the capacity , some of us are afraid of quitting the wrong jobs because we are afraid of not finding another one, some of us are afraid of asking for a raise or a job that you think you deserve because we think we will be berated for having asked for that.

I am turning into a big believer of questioning my everyday life choices that I make at my work place  and home. Questions like  -

1) Where do I work ?
Even though we tell ourselves we don't have much of choice in the jobs and people we land up with , that is wrong, with enough homework,trial and error you can call the shots on the place that you would like to work at.

2) How much time do I devote to my job ?
Is working long hours the only way of showing that I am devoted to my job ? What if I want to do a good job for 8 hours a day but then after that I want to devote time to my personal pursuits ?

3) Why do I choose to work long hours ?
Is it work pressure, my love for what I do or just because I don't have anything better to do with my time ?

4) Why do I  do my job ?
I see a lot of women these days do a job because they get a sense of identity and importance from the jobs they are at which they miss if they were to stay at home. But then if power and identity are our only reason for working then maybe we need to look at ourselves more deeply before we decide to work. Keeping track of the bigger picture is very important - how does me doing a good job impact the world around me ?

5) How do I deal with the pressures of a rat race ?
Sheryl Sandberg mentioned a very important thing, if you feel like you are caught in the rat race that might mostly be because you are not in the right job. To add to that I will say if you dnt have the right attitude you will feel the same way. If we are always trying to compete against the person sitting next to us, instead of just believing in what we do and trying to do a good job of it we might end up always having to be at the mercy of the rat race.

6) Work life balance
This happens to be my most favorite topics . How do you define work life balance ? Is it worth skipping meals, eating outside, working long hours, sleeping less to prove that you are a good employee?

People all around talk about how their jobs are stressful , there is a lot of talk about people not being able to handle the pressure, ambition, competition etc but what I find disappointing is that as a result of all of this we forget the basic reason for doing a job . We work to be able to produce something, something new, something useful and  worthwhile . Of course we need to do make money but then for most people I know we are at a stage where money is not the primary concerns.

And we need to think about these questions because even the most intelligent people in this world can create havoc in the world by working on jobs that they had no idea were causing the entire financial system to collapse.

Do I have answers to all of these questions ? Not at all , all I know is that I need to keep asking them because who knows someday I might actually have answers to some of these questions.

Getting married 101

So it all finally happened and went well . Given how much I had blogged before the wedding, I had to write something after it was finally done and also because a friend mentioned that he would be kind enough to read it :-).
So all the while that we were preparing for the wedding everyone that we met gave us some insights into what there's had been like and from that we had a clear cut list of what we did not want our wedding to be. Here are some things that we heard
1) You will just want the wedding to get over as quickly as possible and just get back home to sanity.
2) Weddings are all usually just a big daze, you hardly remember what happened during the entire time . It is almost like a photo where multiple frames got merged together
3) People are all very stressed out at weddings and they end up stressing you out.
4) All the rituals are so boring and old fashioned
4) Weddings are a very expensive affair and they drain your pockets out.

Armed with what all we did not want our wedding to be, we met some amazing couples who gave us tips that made sure our wedding was nothing like what we had heard. So when I decided to blog, I thought I should capture all of these points. So here goes my wedding checklist
1) Find a fun and chilled out husband / wife . I was lucky that ways but if that is not working for you follow the remaining tips.

2) Having a fun wedding is your responsibility. Plan things that will break the ice and get people to realize that they are here to have fun and not be caught up with just arranging things. I started off with a questionnaire for my family about the other side.Train journey, coupled with cards and some antakshari also can do the trick. Best of all tricks is to go up on to the stage during the sangeet and dance/sing. Nothing works better than the bride and groom dancing to each other tunes at the wedding.
3) Maintaining a journal throughout the wedding is also helpful as it prevents you from getting dazed and not being able to live in the moment. Capturing the simple moments on a video or on paper will help you stay focused and aware throughout the wedding.
4) Another tip that I received was not to resist taking part in any of the rituals. The more you detest them , the more you will end up spoiling everyone's mood during the marriage . It helps to do some research before as to what these rituals mean because then when they actually happen you will be able to athedd  certain quality that the ritual provides into your relationship. Some of them like taking care of wooden babies or playing with a flower ball help to lighten up the situation a lot.
5) Force yourself to smile no matter what chaos is happening around you. A friend of mine said, Akhila smile till you die at the wedding, you will have to live with these pictures for a lifetime to come and you don't want a swollen face in any one of them.
6) Get yourself a good photographer. Good photographers have this knack of making the simplest of things look the best and so when you look at the pictures you will end up feeling you had the most grandest of weddings when in reality it might not have been all like that. Consider this a cost cutting investment.
7) Do small things for the close friends and family at the wedding to show gratitude for all they have done at the weddings. Often times the wedding is so much about us that we forget all the other people who put in the effort to make it a grand success for us . Hand written notes with small gifts can do wonders.
8) Also remembering that this is just one day in a lifetime of togetherness helps . There will be good days and bad days in a relationship and it may so happen that things go terribly wrong at your wedding but then how both of you takes it defines how your relationship will look in the days to come. So if not for anything it is a good test of your relationship.
9) Finally Indian weddings are project management at the biggest scale, with each one person having a opinion on what is the right way of doing the wedding . After the dabbawalas of mumbai I think MBA grads should focus on how despite all these impediments Indian weddings do get done.

A good start can take a relationship a extra mile , so dnt forget to laugh and have fun at the wedding , you can add that extra mile or two...

The Science of Love

Going a little off topic , I wanted to add a blog on one of my favorite topics , the science of love . Movies and love stories are all full of details of how when a person falls in love the whole world changnes , there are colors all around him etc etc . The nerd in me could never accept these details , they were too cliche for me. I needed a explanation for all of it , all the more when I experienced the same . That is when science came to my rescue , found this wonderful explanantion of the different stages of love as defined by science . The biological processes behind it all . It all started to make sense then, I could distance myself easily from all the head rush and think camly and at the same time enjoy the whole process at a totally different level .

Listed here are the different stages of love

Stage 1
The first stage of love is lust. Lust is driven by our sex hormones testosterone and oestrogen. These hormones are what get us 'out on the pull'
Stage 2
After lust comes attraction. This is the love-struck phase; the time when we lose our appetite, can't sleep, and can't concentrate. This is what we know as falling in love.This is all due to surging brain chemicals called monoamines. They are called dopamine, norepinephrine and serotonin. Norepinephrine and serotonin excite us, while dopamine makes us feel happy

Stage 3
The third stage of love is attachment - staying together. Attachment takes over from the attraction stage and is the bond which keeps couples together.Two different hormones are important during this phase of love. They are oxytocin and vasopressin.

Significane of sindoor

From our young age as Indian girls we have always been fascinated with the red sindoor on a married woman's forehead. Here are some of the reasons why the sindoor holds such an importance in our culture

Sindoor is applied for the first time to a Hindu woman during the marriage ceremony when the bridegroom himself adorns her with it. Traditional authentic Kumkum  is made by grinding the dried turmeric to a powder. A few drops of lime are then added to this yellow powder, which changes its hue to a bright red

History of Sindoor
Tradition of wearing Sindoor or vermillion is said to have traveled through more than 5,000 years of Hindu culture. Female figurines excavated at Mehrgarh, Baluchistan, show that sindoor was applied to the partition of women's hair even in early Harappan times. Besides, legends says that Radha, the consort of Lord Krishna, turned the kumkum into a flame like design on her forehead. In the famous epic Mahabharata, Draupadi, the wife of the Pandavas, is believed to have wiped her sindoor in disgust and despair. Use of Sindoor has also been mentioned in The Puranas, Lalitha Sahasranamam and Soundarya Lahharis.

Astrological Significance of Sindoor
According to Hindu astrology, Mesha Rashi or the House of Aries is on the forehead. The Lord of Mesha is Mars and his color is red. It is believed to be auspicious. This is why red sindoor is applied at the forehead and at the parting of the hair. Both are signs of saubhagya (good fortune). Sindoor is also considered to be the symbol of the female energy of Parvati and Sati.

Physiological Significance of Sindoor
Sindoor is applied on the spot between the brows which is considered the seat of latent wisdom and mental concentration and is very important for worship. This also indicates the point at which the (third) spiritual eye opens. All thoughts and actions are supposed to be governed by this spot.  Also , sindoor due to its intrinsic properties, mercury, besides controlling blood pressure also activates sexual drive. This also explains why Sindoor is prohibited for the widows. For best results, Sindoor should be applied right upto the pituitary gland where all our feelings are centered.

Telugu movies to the rescue

Venky explains the meaning of marriage 


My friend Krish who is a avid telugu movie watcher provided his own twist to my blog , the meaning of marriage as explained by telugu movies . Here is the video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=169KFshXF4g

Saptapadi

Saptapadi 

Saptapadi or Nagavalli is considered to the one of the most important events of the marriage . This is where both the bride and groom take the seven sacred vows of marriage.

My cousin Vijay had done a wonderful write up on marriage for his sister's marriage and as I was reading through that today , I thought I should share this.

An important post marriage ritual performed on the wedding day is Nagavalli. Saptapadi, the seven steps & the vows, form part of Nagavalli. The bride and groom pledge and declare to all those present that they have accepted one another voluntarily. Holding each other's hands, the couple takes seven steps, symbolic of the seven marital vows, around the sacred fire.
As they hold hands and walk around the fire, the bride and groom pledge the following vows:

1. Let us take this first step vowing to keep a pure household, avoiding all things injurious to our health.
2. Let us take this second step vowing to develop mental, physical and spiritual strengths.
3. Let us take this third step with the aim of increasing our wealth by righteous means.
4. Let us take this fourth step to acquire knowledge, happiness, and harmony by mutual love and trust.
5. Let us take this fifth step to pray for virtuous, intelligent and courageous children.
6. Let us take this sixth step for longevity.
7. Let us take this final step to vow that we will always remain true companions and life-long partners.

This is a very significant event in the whole marriage ceremony, and it is only when they walk seven steps together, that the marriage is complete legally according to the vedic hindu scriptures. 

During Nagavalli, a silk cloth cradle was made and a piece of sandalwood, a ripe mango and turmeric was placed in it to pray for an off spring as healthy as the ripe mango, as pure as the turmeric and as self fragrant as the sandalwood. This is followed by a fun filled event where the bride and groom fight over who will collect the gold and silver rings dropped in a narrow mouthed vessel.

Holding the bride’s left foot toe, the bridegroom then helps her tread on a grindstone called sannikallu kept on the side of the fire. The accompanying manthra (chant) says: "Mount up this stone. Let thy mind be rock-firm, unperturbed, by the trials and tribulations of life" and when it is finished, the groom adorns the bride's toes with mettelu (silver rings).  This is followed by appagintalu the official handover of the bride to the groom and ever since her family name is renamed.

Talambralu

http://www.sirishavikram.net/wedding/images/talambralu4_small.jpg

Talambralu

For most of us talambralu is probably the most fun event in the marriage . The bride and the groom shower one another with pearls & talambrAlu (rice mixed with saffron & turmeric). Another reason is the photos taken during talambralu are probably the best :-). I have been trying to look for the significance of them but so far have only found some superficial explanations , here is one of them.

This denotes the couple’s desire for happiness, enjoyment and contentment. Initially they take turns to shower the rice as it progresses it gets more entertaining when they begin to compete with each other.

Love

Diverging from my marriage research a bit . I met Karin today and she gave me this wonderful saying on Love , which I thought was very apt given the next big thing that is coming up in my life .

"Love is patient , love is kind . It does not envy , it does not boast , it is not proud . It is not rude , it is not self seeking , it is not easily angered , it keeps no record of wrongs "

Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth . It always protects , always trusts , always hopes , always perseveres .

Love never fails "

Earrings

Earrings

Although earrings are not essentially a marriage symbol , most Indian girls get their ears pierced within a year of being born , I thought it might still be a good idea to understand the significance of earrings.

Here is the what the blog I referred to says about earrings -

According to Acupressure Therapy, the meridians connecting the brain pass though this area. This is said to help in the quick development of the brain. Hence, the earlier the ears of the child are pierced, better the results will be. In certain Indian communities, even a boy’s ears are pierced.

Toe rings


It almost seems like my search on meaning of  rituals has come to an end once Vaishali suggested that I take a look at this blog
http://nambikaai.blogspot.com/2010/03/significance-of-wearing-toe-ring.html

Here is what he has to say about toe rings

Toe rings usually made of silver have the following purposes that they serve -

1)  Wearing toe ring to the second toe has sexual/erotic effect. The reflexology texts also mention about treating gynecological problems by massaging the second toe. 

2)There is also a belief that the wearing of toe rings press on certain nerves that pertain to the reproductive system, keeping it in balance and healthy. . The Indians believe that your "prana" or life force must be in balance in order for you to stay healthy. All of the paths of your "prana" run down to your toes, so the idea that a marital symbol could double up as a reproductive enhancer is not a big stretch.

3) This is a ring with two or three line rounds, worn in their second finger from toe. By wearing this in both feet, it is believed, that their menstrual cycle course is regularized with even intervals. 

4) Also it is said just because that particular nerve in the second finger from toe, also connects the uteruses and passes thru heart. Because of this, the constant friction caused while walking and doing all sorts of chores during a day, it revitalizes the productivity organs. Silver being a good conductor, it also absorbs the energy from the polar energies from the earth and passes it to the body, thus refreshing whole body system.

Some men frequently wore a ring on the big toe for curative purposes or to augment their masculine vigor.

To keep everyone up to date on the items that are there next in my list , here are some of the things people around me suggested i study about

1) Snatakam
2) Saptapadi
3) Marriage symbolisms such as toe rings , kumkum etc
4) Talambralu

Kashi Yatra

Based on the traditional hindu system , a person's life is divided into four ashramas. A person spends his life in each one of the ashramas

Brahmcharya - The first 12 years of this stage a child is supposed just be a child i.e they can play and frolic around and be pampered by their parents . In the 12th year the child is sent to the gurukul to gain education under a learned master.

Grihashta - Once the student is done is with his learning , he is given two options , one is to take the house holders life or the other is to pick the ascetic life. Girhastha is the name given to the householders life.

Vanaprastha - After fullfilling their worldly duties and sending their kids off to gurukul , the husband and wife now pursue their own spiritual journeys , they set out separately in search of truth.

The shashtipurti celebration ( 60th bday celebration ) is when both the husband and wife return from their spiritual quests, they are now deemed as new people who have been reborn and so are remarried again as a part of the shashitpurti ceremony.

Sanyasa - Eventually the husband and wife renounce the worldly pleasures and settle down for a life of ascetism in the forest till they die.

Kashi Yatra is a ceremony that symbolizes the transition from brahmyacharya to grihastha ashrama. The groom says he has finished his education and now wants to take up a life of a ascetic and so he wants to head to Kashi . The brides father or brother then convince the groom by telling about the qualities of their daughter and advising him as to how a householders life is going to benefit him.

Arundhati nakshatram

There is a ceremony in the south indian marriage where the husband takes the wife and shows her the Arundhati vashishta combination. One popular story is that Arundhati was the dedicated wife of sage Vashistha and that is the reason the wife is shown the arundhati star basically to show her the model wife .

But there is also a scientific explanation for this . The star constellation of Arundhati and Vashishta is one in which one star does not revolve around the other instead they both orbit the same center of mass of theirs, and they travel through the cosmos together . So the star constellation is actually a symbolism of how a husband and wife should be . They should both support each other and travel towards a common goal together instead of one being the center and other serving them all along.

Mangalsutra

My first post on hindu marriage customs . All of us follow the wearing of the mangalsutra so sincerely but have we ever wondered why it was done to start with . Here is one explanation

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-932US7Ouk

The three knots symbolize three different aspects of a married woman -

the first knot represents her obedience to her husband, the second to his parents and the third represents her respect for God.

Apart from the mangalsutra, the Toe rings, the Kumkum, bangles, Nallapoosalu and nose ring form the six sacred symbols that indicate the woman is married.

Vaishali and I were looking for further meaning on why the mangalsutra or for that matter any other symbolism is worn by the woman , there seems to be nothing for the man . And it seemed like this was a recent change . In the vedic times women were supposed to be the ones who called the shots in marriage , it is only later than women started being treated as objects for marriage. And to support this theory we found something else.

"Historically, the custom of tying a mangalsutra, the auspicious emblem or cord, on the wedding day, appears to have become popular only after the 6th century AD. Before this, a yellow protective cord known as 'kankanabandhana' was tied around the wrists of the bride and the groom to signal their commitment to marriage."

So as the post suggests , earlier on both man and woman followed the same rituals but then as time progressed the symbolisms were all just passed on to the woman.


Remember the famous song from Saathiya ....every wondered what that meant , it is basically a mantra that is chanted when tying the mangalsutra


Mangalyam Thanthunanena mama jeevana hethuna Kante badhnami subhake sanjeeva sarathas satham” 

Its meaning is: “This is a sacred thread which helps in keeping me alive. I am placing this around your neck so that you can live happily for a hundred years”


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q44WFMeb7Hg&feature=related

Relationships Recap

Before I moved on to talk about the customs in marriage , I thought I should recap a bit and talk about the main influences that have laid down the path of marital relationship so far for me .

Over the last couple of years I got back to reading a lot on spirituality and that led to me Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev and Osho . Osho in particular defined my relationship theories ( as I like to call them ) a lot .

Some of the major takeaways for me where -

1) Most relationships fail because of the amount of expectation in them. We always expect the other person to make us feel a certain way and if they make us feel good , we define that as love and if they do not we define that as hate . But is that really love , love is a all encompassing feeling that one feels towards another person .

So my first lesson was - Define your expectations . Are the expectations from the other person or from yourself . The latter is fine , but the former is mostly unrealistic.

2) Don't count on the other person making you happy . Happiness is a instrinsic quality and it is never defined by the other person . A person can only be happy if he/she chooses to be happy.For ex - you have a crappy day at work , but your spouse has just cooked a awesome dinner for you . If you look at it this should have made you happy , but the problem is on your own you are not happy so no matter what happens on the outside nothing can make you happy.

3) Communication with the other person is always about understanding why you feel a certain why in a particular situation and never about what the other person did that you did not like . Any time you focus on the latter , communication will never flow through smoothly. Also once the focus shifts on why you feel a certain way there is a great understanding that happens , you get to learn more about yourself and your prejudices , in turn you become more honest with yourself . Greater the honesty with oneself , greater is your ability to accept other person because knowing your failings you can be more understanding towards others failings.

For ex - you were brought up in a house hold where money was very carefully spent , your spouse on the other hand spends more than you do . There will be a constant conflict if you do not understand the root your discomfort with their spending habits .Once you know why you are uncomfortable automatically you will know how to handle the other's spending habits.

4) And last Love is decision , not just a one time feeling . It is very easy to fall in as well as out of love but only when you decide you are going to sail through it would you continue to put in effort every day to get back the love . Also you need to realize that just like you fall in and out , so does your spouse and if you can both be honest about it , eventually love will become all encompassing.

The Traditional Hindu Marriage

I was whiling away time and complaining about how I really don't have anything worthwhile to do , that when my fiance' suggested I build something important.

Looking around I realized I have always wanted to understand the system of traditional hindu marriage so that I do not sit around blindly when the ceremonies finally happen. So I decided this is going to be it . My blog for a next 2 months is going to be a on going research on hindu marriages and what defines them .

More to follow soon .

The century of the self

Just finished watching Adam Curtis's documentary about the history of psychoanalysis , public relations , Freud and how all of them define the world as we know it today.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cCu1jBLbthk&feature=share

The 4 hour documentary was too much of a information overload for me and so I decided to start writing down a blog on it so as to be able to wrap my head around all the ideas that the documentary talks about.

Here are a couple of themes that I thought were important in the documentary

The documentary focuses on two studies about what actually drives humans to do things a certain way in life . Hundreds of psychoanalysts have worked on this over the last century and there are two predominant theories -

1) Humans are actually driven by the irrational desires such as sex , power and other animal instincts. Very few of them have the consciousness to be aware of these underlying desires and are able to overcome them to make rational decisions. Freud proposed this theory and he came to believe it more and more after seeing how people behaved during the world war . Nothing else could justify soldiers burning women and innocent children alive in gas chambers, other than the fact that most of people in the Nazi Germany were driven by a irrational desire for power over other humans. Freud and his followers believed that until and unless masses were not taught how to control these irrational desires there would always be a possibility of them being driven by these desires which would eventually lead to a unruly state of affairs . Based on this philosophy a bunch of psychoanalysts set down to the task of understanding the dark side of humans and exposing it so that they can be aware of it and avoid these desires from playing out in the open.

2) Anti - Freudians believed in exactly the opposite philosophy , the animal instincts that humans had were a part of being human and they should be embraced and not shunned. This was the start of the hippie generation of the 60s where open sex , open expression of emotions was encouraged. Each individual was considered a separate entity and the individual's desires were paramount in ensuring his happiness and as a result happiness of the entire society. People were asked not to suppress their emotions because only then would they achieve the ultimate liberation. The post 60s era till now has been focused primarily on the individual and his desires , they are no longer considered as irrational desires.

The interesting part of the documentary was actually how all of these theories have been used by the Big American Corporations to influence people's irrational minds to promote businesses.

During the Freud era , led by his nephew Edward , public relations came into being for the first time in the corporate world and with that came the world of advertising. Cigarette ads that showed men as masculine and lingerie ads that brought out woman's sexuality . The idea was that although people would not like to say openly, they actually were driven by their hidden sexual desires when purchasing items.

Then came the era of individual self in the 60s and the corporations then took on to that bandwagon . Corporates catered unique items to unique individuals so that they could use it to express their individuality. These liberated souls believed that they were making these choices out of their own thought process but in the background the corporate was actually working on their minds to convince them that only by carrying around certain material objects could people express their individuality.

The influence of the PR did not stop with corporations , it even went into politics , politicians started using statements that would appeal to the inner desires of the masses because that is the only thing that seemed to sell . Great ideas such as universal health care or increasing taxes did not go well with the new individualistic people , because they believed that a idea was only worth pursuing if it was going to give them individual happiness. So no matter how much debt the economy was in , increasing taxes was something which never got any votes from the masses , from their individual perspective , it made no sense.

So why d0 I think this documentary was important ? It is because each one of us in our own way is trying to find a meaning to being human and find the right way of leading the most fulfilling life but the problem with that is there are a lot of forces lurking out there which can influence what your chosen path in life is. If you believe Freud and think you should not let your animal instincts rule you , you can actually end up suppressing them instead of getting rid of them and unknowingly your hidden desires can still continue to rule your life.

If you are a part of the other camp which believes in the power of the individual you can fall prey to instant gratification because in the shorter term that might seem to guarantee maximum liberation.

Lets take a example , there a lot of theories on how humans are not monogamous creatures and the society is actually forcing the idea on us . As a result of forcing marriage on people we force them to suppress their desire to have sex with multiple partners which eventually shows up as frustration in other areas of life .

The other side of the story is open relationships were you have sex with anyone that you feel like getting involved with. Although this guarantees immediate gratification , it mostly does not guarantee a manageable social structure.

Same holds true for journalism , what should you present in newspapers. Sensible journalism that does not show all the crap that happens in the world or show all the crap that happens around and pitch it by saying that people are intelligent enough to choose for themselves.

We are all a product in some or the other way of the 1960s individual, consumerist generation and like the recent collapse of the economic system showed us , just catering to the desires of the masses although maybe a great PR stunt but in the longer run is good for no one. We need to think about these questions deeply , look at the hidden influences in our lives and see which way should each of us lead our lives .