Seven Superstitions

  When I conducted a poll on my blog group for a suitable topic to write on, I was surprised that ‘superstitious beliefs’ emerged as a frontrunner. Of course there was the ever enticing ‘ How to flirt with girls: For men’ giving equal competition to it.Since I believe in Non obvious topics , I choose this one.

The poster girl of superstitions

You can find my How to not flirt with girls -> Here. You can find my ancient post on superstitions  Here. This post is a rehash of sorts of that post.

Before listing out some whacky superstitions let us ponder about the idea itself. Even the most unreligious and logical looking person sometimes hold pretty weird superstitions. The rationale seems to be  ‘why tempt fate?’. People used to the random uncontrollable pulls of life and nature try to bring some semblance of sanity with their own dose of insanity. Fear of the worst case scenario and the guilt which will definitely hit us if we proceed anyways and fail, also serve as pretty strong factors for holding superstitions.

I feel that superstitions or any habit for that matter are alright as long as they don’t impair our already dysfunctional lives. Like Harry duping Ron into believing he had drunk liquid luck , superstitions help us believe that all will be well and even if we failed it was not for want of effort on our part.  

That being said lets proceed with this semi listicle on Some Superstitions which I felt need to be mentioned.

     1)    

  Like the movie ‘chain kulii ki main kulii’ rightly showed, cricket is a fertile ground for superstitions to sprout from in our country. In this movie we have our protagonist who believes in his ‘magic’ bat only to know in the climax that it is he who is special. Cricket is a game of confidence and sledging and batting collapses, a little liquid courage did no one any harm. However, it is a different ball game for poor spectators who can sadly not control the cricketing proceedings. This leads to crazy situations when some people don’t watch the match they love for the sake of their team’s victory or banish others from watching it and sometimes make people stand in the exact positions when lady luck struck.

    2)     

Now imagine the rural scenario of agriculture dictated by the vagaries of nature. How can we be surprised that these people are the most superstitious? If I was a farmer in India I would probably wet the fields with my tears. It is no surprise that they tend to have the most ‘primitive’ superstitions like animal sacrifices and are the most vehement followers of faith and religion. You cannot survive without beliefs in these areas of activity.

   3)   

   That might explain why the most corrupt , cut a share to god in the name of faith. It is their own superstitious belief that they are making a deal with forces above. The tirupati coffers tell their own tales.

   4)      Talking of whacky superstitions , I read this book called ‘ When girls dare’ long back. One memory that stays clearly in my head when a girl really needs her violet color undie to win but it has gone for laundry! So what does she do? Of course wear a red and blue one and win the race :D

   5)     A surgeon's scrub cap

Only one purpose for this pic

    6)      Irksome ones which make no sense at all in this century :-

·         Wash hair at home after cutting hair even if they gave u a hair wash at the parlour ( borders on casteism if u ask me)       

·         Reach the house from the back door after coming back from a funeral. And bathe.

7 7)  

  Reserving the worst one for the last. Untouchability practiced in the name of menstruation in certain houses. Apparently a 3 day vacation for women from housework , it is actually very demeaning . You cannot touch anyone , the clothes and utensils you touch are impure and this practice silently continues to day in many households. While I do know some women who use it well to get out of social situations it is an absolutely disgusting superstition to still follow in the 21^st century. 

    What is the whackiest/ most ridiculous superstition you hold or have heard of?

                                                                                             

Trendistan: Ze gods!!

Lets take a moment off and acknowledge the fact that there is going to be a post. I have been mentally planning and constructing this post for soo long ( since NOVEMBER 2012! :O ) I never thought it would see the daylight. Ladies and Gents , here it is ze 'trendistan' . Semi's version of 'my fives / my lists' :P The lists are random as they get..

Soo what is it going to be this time?! Religion , god ......... INDIAN MYTHOLOGY. Well this trend has been in vogue for the past....3000 years .But in the past few years , it has been trending a lot thanks to Amish tripati's Shiva trilogy and Ashwin sanghvi's - Krishna key , chanakya's chant... ( This is what we get when we stop writing romance...BRILLIANCE) and an all new serial of 'Mahabharata' has started in sun tv on a magnum opus budget. All these egs show us that Indian mythology is definitely trending and I am going to analyse the lesser know characters of Mahabharata .
Before going into the topic , i want to dive into one more seemingly tangential issue - the ever growing zest to curb Right to freedom of expression , in favor of  religious fundamentalism and bigotism. Bal thackeray - facebook issue , my name is khan, vishwaroopam (which was nothing but a dumb action film) ,Salman Rushdie's and Taslima Nasreen's continuous saga with Calcutta and countless other instances has shown us at least one thing. There is a need to understand religion and the true meaning of secularism . Through this post I want to tell you how authors humanized godly figures - and how we seem to cling onto the belief that the opposite is true. Every god went through a hurdle to show that everybody has faults. We should always keep this in mind.
ok chup.

My fascination with Indian mythology was an early one - grandmother telling stories of ramayana during power cuts ( so obviously quite a lot :P )  , dad buying me colorful books of Mahabharata to read - I was this strange kid who loved to spend her sundays watching the tamil dubbed version of mahab on sun tv.

To all those who have been frowning quizzically at the word 'Mahabharata' - It is nothing but an enormous Indian epic about two sets of warring cousins - kauravas and Pandavas of the kuru ruling lineage , who fought for power in a HUGE war of kurukshetra for over 20 days. And duh the good guys, the pandavas won - Yudhishtra , Bheema , Arjuna , Nakula and Sahadeva ; Arjuna's uncle lord krishna xD ; their polyandric wife - Draupadi. The kauravas composed of 100 brothers of whom we get to know much , only about duryodana the eldest and dusadana. We also have Karna the generous who was duryodhana's best friend and also the secret brother of the pandavas.
And I haven't even scratched the surface yet! It is an enticing tale of love , power , greed , jealousy , vengeance and WAR. I personally prefer it over Ramayana because a) the characters are closer to human b) More divine weapons / astras  and awesome description of war and the futility of it all in the end.

Characters from Mahabharata who needed to be known/understood better.

#Respect#

1. Bhishma - Not to be confused with Bheema , he is the grand uncle of the cousins. Mahabharatha starts with him when he decides to adopt celibacy in order to get his father (shantanu) married to his step mother - Satyavati , a fishing woman. It is the descendants of this couple who give birth to Dhirithirastra and Pandu , who in turn give birth to kauravas and pandavas ( quite elaborate eh? :> ) Coming back to Bhishma , the great son of goddess Ganga - He was so upright that the gods decided to give him the choice to decide his death! So live long he did , but never once desired for the throne which he gave away to his brothers , nephews and grand nephews happily! Yet it was his shrewd mind that kept the kingdom up and running through the unstable periods of times. If everyone had been like him - there would've been no need for Mahabharata. When he decided to die during the great war - both sides paid homage to him and even adjourned  the war for him and his death anniversary is worshipped as Bhismar shanthi , where everybody has to do the funerary rights for him as he left behind no children . 
Even though bhismar was undoubtedly the greatest administrator and warrior , the epic teaches us that he couldn't control the greed of his grand nephews and couldn't side with the 'right' people in the war.

Remains anonymous

2. Yuyutsu , yes you hear me right! I am not referring to any chinese epic here but our very own Mahabharata  He is one of the least known characters of the epic - partly because he is mentioned in maybe 2 verses of the 100,000 versed anthology.   Still he stands testimony to the fact that stereotyping is always innacurate and there is always good in bad and bad in good (yin yan xP ) He is one of the 100 kauravas - yes the evil , greedy , malicious ones. He is the 100th brother or some say 101th kaurava (they didn't have calculators back then) and he was a good man. During the evil game of dice , where the pandavas were lured into gambling away all their wealth xP , freedom and were exiled to the forests , he was the only one who stood up and said what was happening was not fair. We don't know what happens to him after all that - he only has a line. A pretty poignant one if you ask me.  And he also switched sides during the war and joined the pandavas :O I readthatjustnowinWIKI. What a man link-----------> here 

credits - some awesome website-> here

3.Mahabharatha is a very male dominated story . There are few women who can be called brave in the story and among them AMBA stands tall. Hers is a fascinating story which i am going to share . Our great Bhishma was an unmatched warrior and hardly did any mistakes during his lifetime. However , when he decided to find wives for his step brother vichitravirya - he went to the swaymvar ( brides pick their husbands) of Amba . Ambika and Ambalika. Their people misperceived that he himself had come to marry them and ridiculed him - calling him old. This enraged him and he defeated every kshatriya there and abducted the princesses . Sadly Amba was attached to king Shalva and refused to be forced into marrying vichitravirya. Guts. Bhishma sent her back to Shalva , who refused to marry her as he had been publicly defeated by bhishma. Obviously honor > love. Now vichitravirya already had two wives and didn't want another one - who had someone else in her mind (irony of it) and even the old Bhishma had to refuse as he had his vow to uphold. Sick of being played volleyball with , Amba turned her hatred toward Bhishma , as she felt that he was the root cause of her suffering. As no man could beat him , she did a long penance to lord shiva who said she can defeat him in her next birth. She was born a girl in her next life - daughter of king drupada. Annoyed that she was born a girl ( girls can't fight)  , she further penanced and became a man - Shikandi and got her/his moment of glory when she defeated bhishma ( with the help of arjuna) during the war.

This is the closest we get to a courageous women story and must applaud her determination and penance.

p.s - Wow all my spellings are underlined in red o.O


Someone who missed the list by an inch - Veera Abhimanyu :') _:'(

Hope the #trend stays 

Quoting the truth

"Whatever happens , life must go on" 

My heart will go on and on <3 :*

There are a million quotes decorating all the languages. Yet i choose this one to start my post ; this is a very special post for me , and i am saying this before even writing it .Developing the 'seventh sense*' i guess. Firstly , the quote is awesome  because it is quite simply the truth. And truth is what this post is gonna be all about. Also , (forgive my awestruck -ness  ) This line was delivered by 'daddy' surya to son surya in vaarnam aayiram :P Surya surya everywhere <3 [ Maattrraann is releasing this friday , don't miss it! ]

* - hope the surya fans go the 7am arivu reference xD

There lies the book , which cooly changed my life :P 

Moving on to the actual topic , I am going to talk about this book i picked a while back ; which happened to change my life or atleast how i look at thinks quite remarkably. ( please don't sigh already) It is the " Life of Mahatma Gandhi " by Louis Fischer  - wohoo! I think Gandhi is the first Indian name which auto correct didn't mark in red for me. This book as the title suggests is about the father of our nation and it gave me a rough idea why he was called 'bapu' . Apart from  just mentioning the events which featured in his rather dynamic life this books gives us an understanding of the gandhian principles of Satyagraha and ahimsa . Simply put as truth and love.

Some ppl are just too cool pa 

Being the lucky person i am , I've got this golden opportunity to study history in my higher classes. And very recently we finished covering a lesson devoted to Gandhiji. And to my sad surprise , most of my friends found it cool to mock and criticize him as a person and his methods. I am nowhere near being called his blind follower , but having got the chance to read some real content about him , I want to clear some common  misconceptions and put forth some oft asked questions about him here.

Disclaimer - These are my own set of views on Gandhi and I totally welcome open debate.

First charge - He delayed our independence. 
When he first came into the fray of Independence struggle , our nation was in desperate need and search for a single leader who could represent the masses. Yes ,he was intermediary caste , hindu , middle class and a lawyer. Yet , the way he lived and practiced what he preached , inspired millions. And proved a point which desperately needed proving - caste and class doesn't determine how you live and shape your lives , it is your own actions that speak for you.
The people flocked to him ,seeing his actions. His principles were simple and unique. Speak the truth and love everyone. He was a humanist by nature. He did not want violence. Human lives were too precious to be killed and toyed with in the name of war and mutiny. All humans were well , basically human. Life of an European brother or African brother wasn't more important than that of an Asian , Indian one. Yes , there was right and there was wrong , but we are no ones to judge or kill in people in the name of god. He followed the same theory with hindus , muslims or parsis.

He really wouldn't have fought against the British rule if they were fair and just. He would have approved the new Indian rule after the independence only if it was following the righteous path to resolve the riots. His methods were done in a way not to produce immediate results , but to actually change the very structure of Indian society , which we all know is a product of thousands of years of culture and civilization. So what he achieved in the years he did was what critics should call a monumental success , what is 40 years in the thousands of years of Indian civilization and almost two centuries of British rule?
And ponder upon this. If we had overthrown the British as we wanted to in the 1920s or the 30s , would it have granted the smooth functioning of the new government? Surely the replacement of British in the top wouldn't have ended all the problems lol We had to work from the wide bottom and that's what Gandhi did.
He gave hope , inspiration and faith to millions and before attaining independence in the material sense , most Indians started behaving like their land belonged to them. And that is what was required i think.

Father of the nation ; wasn't exactly the best father to his own sons 

Almost everyone who tried to dissuade me from supporting the Mahatma quoted his personal life as a means to reduce his reputation.
a) Where did they get these intimated details about his personal life? His autobiography of course. He must first be appreciated for daring to accept the truth.
b) He is not a mahatma of course. He never liked the title Rabindranath Tagore crowned him with . He was very much aware of his own flaws and took upon self reflexivity rather seriously. And surely a title can't be given that much importance. Don't tell me you would sit and ponder upon why rajini is the 'superstar' . You just don't.
c) What he did in his personal life is private and called personal for a reason. You just cannot judge someone with that . It is wrong. And cheap
d) surely what is right and wrong in parenting - is very subjective. We must also take into account the context of the period he lived in .

Well that is my modest attempt to defend Gandhi. As i said - open to debates. I will put across my points , you put across yours. Surely no harm can be done.

As i said before , there are two lessons to learn from his life and perspectives.

• Truth
• Love

Truth - Lets face it. We all lie too many times a day - sometimes consciously and sometimes almost unconsciously. We are all liable to lie at some point if not at this point. Still truth is always safer , stronger and a more powerful weapon. That is why the most experienced liars most often mix a large amount of truth with a little amount of  realistic lies. Some wisecracks like "Truth is stranger than the fiction " , "her story was crazy enough to be true" tells us the queer status quo of things. Why lie when you have the truth beside you? :) 

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Love - Ahimsa   

Blimey me! I could write about this word all day. Basically developed by the jain school of thought , Ahimsa refers to non injury to living and non living things. Especially humans , animals , plants and insects. Like Jesus says show your left cheek after the right one is done.  Quite impractical one may think. But it is all the more useful in today's democracy. 

The current scenario of Anna Hazare ' fast against corruption and the Jal satyagraha against various nuclear plant and dam projects are deserving examples. The African continent where Gandhi first experimented with his unique methods is in shambles now. Nelson Mandela is an inspiring story. But the rest of the region there and the 'arab springs' seem to lose any semblance of humanity in the name of violence. For peace to be restored , love for the fellow being must be catered to. 

Talking about animals and love - I have a dog for a pet now!! Surely that is a big turning point in someone's life . More specially so , if the someone hated aesop fables for the mere fact that it was about animals . Well laika entered my life through the backyard of my house and its persistence to not leave our place. Along with the winning combination of a dog wanting brother ( he has been begging for one since the time he started learning how to talk i guess) and

Hi humans. 

 Who said mongrels are not cute? :O <3 

and yes its exactly a week after Gandhi Jayanthi.
semi

Caste Discrimination for dummies

its pussy's post! x)

Hello there readers! Firstly a huge thank you for making this kutty blog reach 10000 views! =) Never would have been possible without your support xD As promised our very own Rhea also known as pussy and always surrounded by them has finally graced us with a post of hers. The 'post' is actually a rip off from her sociology project, which unlike the usual ones makes sense! Read it , laugh / swear and do whatever you want but don't forget that this is  for fun and fun only.  Before I buzz of - pussy is such a stud muffin that she actually submitted this!! :O 

Human beings have for centuries been on the lookout for bigger and better ways to discriminate their counterparts.Among the more popular forms of discrimination, like racial discrimination (eg."Come hea' ya filthy nigger") , gender discrimination ( eg. "Go make me a sandwich woman") and religious discrimination (Eg. "He's just a money - grabbin' Jew"), lies a form of discrimination known as 'caste discrimination' , which is unique only to the Indian sub continent. Yes , adding to the long list of superlatives in India's pocket , (including most number of malnourished children , some of the worst roads and the most number of homeless people ) , is a particularly vicious form of discrimination known as caste discrimination.

If you haven't heard of caste discrimination , well you're probably one of the NRI's who stock up on toilet paper when making their token visit to India. In this project , we shall go through the whole process of caste discrimination, in so much detail,  that this report would be more aptly titled,  were it called 'caste discrimination for dummies '.
What does caste discrimination comes from?
Caste discrimination originally wasn't discrimination at all levels.  If you travelled back in time (although I don't know why you would want to,since they did not have running water back then), you would find a society in which every member belonged to one of four occupations - unless they were a dead beat person, who lived off his familys earnings. These four occupations were a) brahmana b) kshatriya c)vaishya d) shudra
Although people weren't discriminated according to which occupation they belonged to,  there was a definite hierarchy to this. Brahmanas were highest regarded people. These lucky people did all the praying and chanting and assumed the role of  messengers of god. Now since the olden day people were not stupid (they did not have twilight back then to deaden their brain cells) , they knew that no one messes with the gods. So, they awarded the brahmanas with the highest status in order to appease the realm of supernatural.
Next in line , were the kshatriyas. In the event that the gods were unable to keep the ancient societies free from invaders, they appointed the kshatriyas. The kshatriyas were stud muffins who put on their suits of armour and rode their horses to conquer the world. Being all macho and putting their life on the line, these daredevils got the admiration of all the jasmine scented ladies. But they felt this wasn't enough. The kshatriyas couldn't be sidelined either, for they had pretty sharp swords. So to keep their bodies puncture free, the people awarded them the second highest status.

The vaishyas were the merchants. As any materialistic person knows ,  god and peace are not enough to lead a happy life. Even Pontius Pilate would probably not have subjected jesus to crucification if he was shown a million dollars ( and was declared australia's next master chef ) The people were nervous that their merchants would protest against not being given a definite status and go on strike.Whatever  would they do without any money to buy the world's finest dhotis and chilli powder? To avoid this the grim prospect of an ancient society recession,  the vaishyas were bestowed with the third highest status.
At the bottom of the hierarchy were the shudras. The term 'errand boy ' is more appropriate. If there was a slipper to fix or a leaky roof to be sealed ,  there would be a shudra ,  with his handy tool belt. The shudras also dabbled in agriculture. But in their backyards ,  they were hard at work, creating the deathly hallows.
SEEMS LIKE DISCRIMINATION TO ME 
well it isn't, okay. Discrimination would entail rigidity, common practices and the occasional finger pointing. Back in the day however,  none of these characteristics came into play.  For instance,  if a boy was tired of his kshatriya family's murderous and violent ways of,  he could snap his fingers and ta-dah!  he could become a holier than thou brahmana.
So when did this change?
Roughly around the post vedic period,  the elders decided to become mean old gasbags.With their mood swing ,  came a whole host of reforms to the system.  They decided they would no longer tolerate indecisive people jumping like pogo sticks from one caste to another. Caste systems became more rigid than snooki's hair and there were more rules in the caste system than there are in jail.
Meat was snatched away from the brahmana's hungry mouths and was replaced with less satisfying vegetables.
If a shudra fell in love with a nubile vaishya girl , well that was too bad,  because now only marriages within the castes were allowed . From then on ,  if a child was born in a brahmana family,  he was destined to become a brahmana ,  irrespective of whether he wished to fight ,  bargain or plough.
By 
Rhea 'Jane'