Ayudha Puja

This past week Bangalore was celebrating the Indian festival of Dasara. Of the many Indian holidays I am trying to learn-figure out, this one is slightly clearer than the rest, as at least I understand the general message to be “Triumph of good over evil.” Each day of the Dasara festival involves special prayers, food offerings and celebrations. The ninth day of the festival seemed to be the most visibly significant in the city of Bangalore; it is dedicated to something called the Ayudha Puja. This literally translates into the “worship of implements.” During this day workers are supposed to take time to clean, honor and bless the tools of their profession. The purpose is to see the divine in one’s tools and daily work as an offering to God. With the passing of time and the mixing of regional cultures, various customs seem to be celebrated simultaneously and the tradition has acquired a few superstitious rituals as well as acts of prayer. Nonetheless this puja is practiced by all types of workers during this day; from farmers, teachers, drivers, and soldiers to tech nerds… Yes, in the “Silicon Valley of India” even computer software gets blessed! On the streets you can see buses, rickshaws, motorcycles, cars, vegetable stands, ironing carts, not to mention restaurants and all kinds of businesses with flowers and puja markings on them.

So on this day my driver, I’ll call him Krishna, had some very important car puja to do as a part of his Ayudha Puja. He insisted that I could not go to work today, seeming to imply that even driving on this day, without doing the puja was not a good idea. Although the idea seemed a bit superstitious to me, I wasn’t about to object to a widely upheld local custom. Plus I work as a volunteer and when I told my supervisor that I couldn’t come to work because my driver had to do his puja it was immediately understood. This is actually the second blessing my young car has received and considering the absurdly insane traffic we are subjected to every day, I can see the value behind a blessing or two.

It took Krishna the better part of a day to buy goods, set up and perform this ceremony for the car. 

Here’s what it involved:

Meticulously washing and scrubbing every inch of the car, exterior and interior, floor mats, tires included.

Setting out plated offerings of fruit; bananas, apples, pan leaves, turmeric covered rice in a bowl, puffed rice and two coconuts.

Covering the car with garlands of marigolds, roses and tuberose. In addition every door had a rose taped to it.

Collecting grass and then sticking it into what looked like a clay mound to make a mini tree for Ganesha. 

White and Red powdered paints: streaked in various places across the tires, windows, doors, hood and bumper of the car.

Small lemons covered in red powder carefully placed in front of each wheel.

Somehow over the hours of this arduous preparation a few random gardeners and local drivers had gathered on my lawn to keep Krishna company and to participate in the ceremony. They each seemed to have their own idea and record of how everything must be performed, in a few cases they would argue over whose idea was more correct (I interpreted their comments in the local language to be); “you should peel one banana, then put the sticks in”, “you need red powder here”, “you have to split open the coconut with one hit!”, etc, etc. The actual blessing involved Krishna encircling our car inside and out with burning incense.

He then smashed a ‘sacrificial melon’ against the pavement which had been previously filled with red powder and a few coins through a small opening inside. The remaining red melon pieces were then strategically placed facing out, flanking both sides of our driveway. Krishna starts sprinkling the rice onto the car and then asks me to do the same, but then tells me not to hit the car so hard with the rice. After this everyone gets red powdered puja dots on their foreheads and a piece of the fruit offering, or puffed rice to eat.  

The end of this puja is finally completed with lemon squashing. No ritual seems to be complete here without a few lemons. Lemons covered in red powder were placed in front of every wheel of the vehicle and these had to be crushed as the car drives out in order to be protected from the evil eye.

Offerings made, windows marked, four lemons crushed, we resumed business as usual with the driving. In an ironic twist the next day, a hefty cow casually bumped the side of our car when we were stopped in traffic by a procession. We found it amusing as there was no real damage done and made a light joke that maybe it was some kind of Hindu blessing to have a cow graze your car. Krishna laughed and said “not a blessing” but, we could see by his face that he was clearly a bit peeved at this small act of fate. Considering all his efforts with the puja, this probably seemed completely unacceptable. After all, the car was as blessed as it could be…Well maybe some bigger lemons next time…  

Keeping it in the family...

This was an actual conversation I had with a local man about his family and his recent marriage. He was trying to communicate who he married in broken English.

“I married the dodder of my sister" (man with very thick accent)

         “You married your sister’s doctor?”-Me

"No, I not marry my sister doctor, my sister dodder" 

         "Do you mean your sister is a doctor?”-Me                                         

“No, no she not a doctor… I married my sister dodder”

         “OH, your sister's DAUGHTER?"-Me

"Yes, yes, yes" He says with a pleased smile.

        "Really? Are you sure?….that can’t be possible.”-Me

We draw a few stick figures of the members of his family for reference and after some definitive circles and arrows I realized that indeed he is telling us that he married his sister’s daughter. He married his niece.

       “REALLY??…Wow…okay...wow…you can’t do that in the US…” -Me ( So much for cultural sensitivity.)

I look at my husband for some sort of suggestion of how to move forward in this conversation and get nothing but a mirror of my own expression. The man's face displayed such a mixture of innocence and pride that this confounded us even more and left us a bit speechless. We eventually prodded him a bit with a few questions and discovered that this marriage was arranged when he was a child. It was the only way for his family to avoid paying for the dowry of his niece as they were too poor to afford it. This was a pragmatic decision that was essentially made for him, but he appears to be completely content with the outcome. This was an eye opening experience that put a whole new spin on the concept of family sacrifice. I left the conversation dumbfounded, but with a new found gratitude...happy that I got to choose my mate and I didn't have to search through the family tree in the process.     
 

Nordic Heritage

     There is a neighborhood park a block away from the hotel we are staying at in Bangalore. In an effort to get more comfortable in my surroundings, I go on walks there daily. It's a large gated garden, with nice plantings and you'd be hard pressed to find trash in the place, which is a rarity in this city. There are about ten rules ascribed to the park, one of which includes, “no playing”, “no walking on the lawn”...Okay, it sounds, harsh, but it's one of the few pristinely beautiful places in the city, so I'll take the rules. You'll find women power walking in white tennis shoes and saris, and older folks sitting on benches chatting it up. The other side of the fence is a cricket field and several matches take place simultaneously, seemingly all day long. It's the kind of place where people are so busy socializing they don't feel the same urge to stare at the foreigner as they usually would.

   One afternoon on my way back from the park I was greeted by a small toddler running in the street. He was not more than an year and a half old, dressed in a little orange torn tee shirt, and blue shorts that were barely covering his plump little body. When I smiled at him, he took off running after me in his bare feet. A man shouts out, “watch out, he's a fast runner” and indeed he was. After a minute of walking, I looked back to find him still running, so I stopped, to direct him back to his guardians. There was an elderly man dressed in a sort of cloth skirt and a middle aged man in western clothes who start walking in my direction to collect the baby. Meanwhile the baby at this point has reached my legs and starts firmly tugging on my pants, almost climbing my limbs to be lifted up. For some reason I didn't think twice about scooping him up...you can't do these kind of things in America, but it India it seems totally acceptable to pick up a random baby who is chasing after you. This really pleased him, and when I spoke to him, he seemed to be utterly transfixed on my face. This was probably the closest he had been to such a pale creature speaking a strange language. He started imitating my words, and wobbling his little head back and forth as he spoke (a very authentic replication of the head wobble I might say too).

    The middle aged man approaches and starts chatting with me, asking me where I'm from, and then tells me he is an ethnologist. He proceeds to give me a very confusing and detailed account of ethnographic “half-castes”. I'm not sure who he his talking about at this point, possibly referring to the baby who has down syndrome and who is from a very poor migrant family from Tamil Nadu. After a few minutes of conversation (and after he has quoted several random historians and made a few nonsensical remarks) I realize he himself has some kind of mental disability and our conversation has no sign of an end. I've grown accustomed to spotting talkers quite quickly from my years at a food coop and after several minutes I try to find the best way to interject that I should be leaving. I go to give the baby back to the elderly man, who appears to be a grandpa of sorts, and the baby refuses to leave, clinging to my shirt and shaking his head defiantly.

    At this point we've drawn a small crowd of a few other curious elderly folks who were quite amused at the sight of a baby attached to a foreigner. They were crowding around, laughing and making comments in Tamil. We manage to pry the little baby's fingers loose from my shirt and the middle aged man remarks to me with a completely serious manner “Oh he does this with everyone... even with me.... oh no, it is not your Nordic heritage nor your electric blue eyes.” He had such a straight face and delivery I couldn't help but laugh. He continued to stand there expressionless, leaving me a bit confused with how to read his remark and then he says quite jovially, “give my love and regards to your husband, and please come and visit if you want I'm at apartment 214”.

A welcoming moment in India....