About Kunkumatilaka
Of all the people who have queried about why
we were a dot on the forehead, the worst has to be between Tn and Bob; if Bob
were innocent it would be another matter but I had begun to suspect he had an
agenda, perhaps more than one; and Tn might just have been instigated by him -
which would be all the more stupid of her, because she ought to have known that,
being from our culture, she couldn't be asking that question in the middle of
generally being very offensive for a whole afternoon, without giving away her
hand and his as well.
And there lies the difference between those
who are wise and those who are merely smart or think they are. The former
manage to conduct tremendous affairs to a just path without any whisper, and a
chief ingredient of the whole is their doing it without their own agenda -
while the latter do it for bringing down others just for the pleasure they get
from being able to do it to those they cannot aspire to equal, and their
manipulations and so forth are transparent to those who do not give them
benefit of doubt, for that is all it takes.
I began to face these questions
when I first travelled out of India, and most of those who asked were European,
and as much foreigners in U.S. as we from India, so we were together often; and
they could ask questions to satisfy general or intellectual curiosity. I tried
as best as I could, every time, and the answers expanded as my thinking grew
more explicit. But sometimes one forgets the very obvious, precisely because it
is obvious and so one does not think of it.
They thought it was caste mark,
and I corrected that, since one could not ascribe a particular significance of
this sort to it. In fact it is regularly worn in south and rarely in north, and
while I have never asked anyone's caste for any reason, north or south,
intimate or strangers or even those who married into my family - have never had
any reason to actually, since we grew up that way, and if someone did inform
about oneself it was about as significant as a personal preference of colour
for apparel - it is more obvious that northern people do not regularly wear it,
even married women; men hardly ever, girls for strictly decoration purpose.
As for south it is approved for
girls and unmarried women, required of married women, and used to be not
allowed for widows - but that is changing as well, and now it is a matter of
one's own choice day to day more than anything else. If a man wears it in south
it signifies he has done worship at home on a usual basis, generally. At least
on a minimal scale.
Somewhere then I read of an
artistic view of it - that the forehead is the only place where the line
dividing left from right is missing, and a dot connects it artistically. That
certainly was an artistically appealing reason.
Later in Europe when I was asked
again another fact occurred to me, which is that our routine consists of
morning cleansing (brushing teeth being the second part) and the finale,
bathing or showering before getting ready - with fresh, washed clothes of
course - and then the final part is mark on the head, so the least one can
infer is that the person wearing it is clean and has bathed.
It is quite blasphemous to
imagine anyone doing it without having bathed in the morning. That would be
worse than cheating, perhaps on par with a woman I met who wore all the signs
of being a Hindu married woman and - I came to suspect - was a nun.
That was not merely fraud, it was flagrant disrespect for a culture of her ancestors which she or more recent ancestors had forsaken, and more likely for gain of some economic sort than for any other reason. Her wearing all those symbols of Hindu married women was more than a camouflage to spy on someone for no reason, which she attempted to conduct, it amounted to a flagrant contempt for the ambient society, which can only be explained by asking - how would Europeans feel if non-Christian men dressed as bishops?
In fact the answer is obvious -
the very strong antagonism aroused by Muslim women's dress in Europe has to do
with its similarity to a Christian nun's apparel, obviously. That - them
wearing their dress - however is not anything but following of their own code, in
short, they are not thinking of nuns or imitating or mocking them, just wearing
the west Asian normal wear pretty much as the women of the region - including
mother of Jesus - did all those centuries ago. So the Muslim women are just as
correct in wearing their dress in Europe or wherever as western men with their
suits in every part of the world indulging in their own foods and drinks with
no regard to local customs, feelings and so forth. In fact it is the church
that has taken the west Asian dress for its own - again, for obvious reasons,
which is, you imitate those you worship.
That digression apart, I don't
know what it is about the Kunkuma Tilaka (called dot or Bindi - former by denigrators and latter by
normal people
of north Indian descent) - there are many names for the object -
that brings up so much antagonism, I suspect particularly in France. I was
informed that French secularism is different form that in India, and here we
allow everything and they strictly forbid it - but when I was being told this I
was on Indian soil in every sense of the word; and those antagonistic were of
Indian origin too.
In any case if you insist on
others following your rules in public, that too in their own land, you have
nothing to gain from visiting their lands, and why bother? Day of imposing your
culture with colonial rule on faraway lands is over. Today belongs to learning
from others and not imposing yourself - especially when in their territory,
whether their country or their home.
I suspect a part of France has
not come to terms with loss of status as colonial ruler, although our travels
into France have been full of surprisingly friendly encounters with quite a bit
more enlightened people. Perhaps it was them being at home - not needing to
stress about keeping their culture that made a difference. Then again perhaps
we were lucky.
Britain however surprises one
repeatedly in many ways, and one such way is how the British have accepted
Bindi as fashion statement, and taken the sting out of any foreigners - versus
- natives issue, just as they adopted not only Indian food but also lifestyle
choice of some people of being vegetarian. So, not only Indian restaurants in
Britain but British ones too, have vegetarian sections on the menu; and the
supermarkets carry stickers to indicate if it is suitable for vegetarians or
not, apart form explicit list of contents.
Ok, that was another digression,
so to come to the finale - when Tn irritated me beyond limits of tolerance for
the nth - not the last - time, and I was sorely tempted to throw her down the
few flights of stairs, I calmed cold turkey, and distancing myself from the person - her - I was supposed to be meeting at her own behest (she had been pleading with her colleague to make the meeting happen, and how were we to know it was only so she would have an opportunity to insult and humiliate someone perhaps older than her parents? that takes a mentality we lack and she did possess and we did not suspect at all), began to answer
calmly and this time it was the definitive, the only possible answer at the
root of the matter.
The one major difference between
our culture and other religions, the really big difference between how they
perceive God and we do, is that we do not think it is a matter of attending
once a week in a public great big building to do a duty - or even several times
a day put aside for the purpose - and then forgetting about it.
We in fact do not require temples
to be big, and a deity in a small temple is just as much an object of worship.
More often than not people have temples at home, small or as large as they can
make it - but it is not size of temple or deity that makes it a temple, the
Divine is not only to impose and awe by human limits of imaginations of
grandeur.
Divine is not in any building
alone, consecrated or otherwise; Divine is in any and every particle of
creation. And Divine is just as much, latent, in every human, to be found in
the heart for one - and the spot on the forehead between brows, slightly above,
for another.
When one bathes every day, one is
worshipping the Divine in oneself, and that culminates in applying
Kunkumatilaka, which used to be made with sandalwood paste and saffron by
another generation (if not everyone until then) which also makes if of great
medicinal value. Our system of medicine is not separated from our indigenous
cuisine or our routines to follow. Just as our life is not separated from
Divine, and work does not come to a standstill for a holy day or a festival.
Work is, can be, and should be, worship too; and done in that spirit, it is.
This all pervading recognition of Divine in everything and in every action is a
significant mark of our whole culture.
When one eats, it is an offering
to the Divine within and to be done in that spirit, not for indulgence or
stuffing or self aggrandising. When one sleeps it is to rest the body and mind
and be one with the Divine within - if one could get that far - with no human
actions and interactions to disturb the process. When one interacts with
others, does work or any action, even marries, too, it is with that spirit, of
doing it for the Divine.
When we have ritual social
occasions, applying Kunkumatilaka to guests is an important part, and it is
with the spirit of recognition and worship of the invoked Divine - and in even
casual visits between married women in some communities an exchange of this
mutual applying of Kunkumatilaka between hostess and guest is the mark of
mutual recognition and goodwill. (These are followed more in south than in north, since north suffered from foreign occupation far more, destroying much of indigenous culture apart from languages while imposition of ruling culture and languages was happening simultaneously.) Even the last
journey takes place only after a bath, full dressing up as per status (the
latter very particularly with full jewellery and Kunkumatilaka as a married
woman, for a woman who has left a husband behind) and a Kunkumatilaka for the
departed.
Marriage ceremony not only
invokes Divine as witness but also into persons of the groom and bride, who
receive worship accordingly from various elders - that being the only occasion
when this would happen from elder to young in a social ceremony - and also from
groom to bride.
Come to think of it, even the
church ceremony retains that spirit, in the groom intoning "with my body I
thee worship", which is generally forgotten but ought to be remembered. It
makes all the difference between worship and indulgence, and should be remembered
more than the part of bride's promises of love honour and obey - for the spirit
of the former transforms the relationship and life to where the bride is bound
to follow the groom, promise or no promise.
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