According to United Nations Development Program's 2008 poverty index, Sri Lanka ranks at 99 and India at 128 out of 177 participative countries. 17.8% percent of Sri Lankan and 31.3% percent of Indian nationals are statistically determined to be under the poverty line. Even if you're not a math whiz like me, the writer, it's easy to presume that Sri Lanka and India fits at the bottom half of this index.
According to a UNICEF report about 148 million children in the developing world are malnourished or under weight and half of these children live in South Asia.
Although these statistics paint a raw and painful picture, the real situation may be worst in most cases due to complex demography, remoteness of this population and challenges in gathering real information.
Now, let's switch gear and relocate to Longitude 44N and Latitude 77W to a divine place in Rochester, New York.
The Rajarajeswari Temple is located in the Rochester suburb of Rush on 23 acres of rolling verdant ground. This Hindu temple with an approach to allow non-Brahmins and even women to conduct pooja ceremonies is famous for equal opportunity and oceans away from traditional temples' hierarchical methods of priesthood. The temple follows the Sri Vidya tradition of teaching Sanatana Dharma rituals to all, regardless of cast or creed. The expansion of the temple is visible and impressive. Every year the temple conducts youth camps to enlighten westernized children with Hindu culture and philosophy.
The equal opportunity status also extends the visitors and devotees, regardless of differences, to perform Abishekam on godly idols. An Abishekam, for non-Hindus, is similar to bathing a religious idol with liquefied items (milk, yoghurt, honey, sandalwood, crushed bananas, etc.) however, is only a ceremony of ablutions and symbolic offerings, according to the Hindu Temple of Rochester (no relation to Rajarajeswari temple).
However, a recent visit to the Rajarajeswari temple gave me a jolt on one of their rituals.
During this visit, while the Yaga being conducted at a big hall with huge exhausts, the devotees were asked move on to an altar to perform Abishekam on the main idol, Sri Rajarajeswari Amman. People lined up in colorful saris, veshtis, children hanging to the tail ends of their parents. As they reached the altar, there they witnessed a line up of milk cans, about forty of them, each with four liters of fresh milk. A young man constantly poured milk into a metal container and handed over to devotees who in return poured the milk over the main idol. All forty gallons of them!
I too stood in line, watched the events then asked someone if the poured milk is collected at the drain-end and reused. This person didn’t know the answer but looked at me in amazement of my question. When I got close to the altar, with a feeling of guilt spiking through my backbone, shouting that ‘this is wrong’ when 140 million children go hungry every night, I backed off.
For the record, I am a born Hindu, brought up a Hindu and have practiced Hinduism extensively during my early years. I believe and trust that Godly things are to be delivered through human beings and that it’s human responsibility to spread and spend God given wealth to the most needed. And mainly when it comes to food, wastage is crime when millions are malnourished with no hope of revival.
I do not think that God asked us to pour forty gallons of milk on his visuals. I don’t think the God will become angry if we give him or her a symbolic offering and donate the rest to the needy and vulnerable of our society. I don’t think the God, which is sometime a statue carved out of stone; sometime a framed picture and sometime just a thought in our frame of mind will punish us for doing humane things.
Instead of following rituals of abundance and flaunting our wealth based on how many gallons of milk we pour on an intricately sculptured statue made out of black stone, the temples of modern society must guide their membership in righteous thinking; just like how the same Rajarajeswari temple dissolved cast, creed and sex discrimination to learn and perform pooja ceremonies.
An email sent on August 3, 2009 to get the Temple's side of view remain unanswered at press time.
Chinnaiah was taught to drink and smoke by my father, so I've been told, when they were in their early teens, behind their house, hidden in Palmyra forests and near railway tracks, sitting in between parked railcars that carried provisions to Jaffna from the South. They both got immersed in many non-curricular activities together, again - I've been told, that their parents almost gave up in controlling and disciplining and that both were let to live and learn from their life experiences alone. The schools they were enrolled would have seen only a less than acceptable attendance. The girls they befriended would have had their hearts broken many times over. The pranks they played may have wrecked havoc in many lives. Yet, they remained committed friends for a long time.
Years moved on. Teens became adults. My father became a journalist and Chinnaiah formed himself as a pharmacist, working for Doctors, clinics and hospitals.
Chinnaiah also had a son, amongst other children, who was a Major with the Tamil Tigers during the mid to late eighties. Major Naren - the nom de guerre given to him by the Tiger leadership - if lived, would have been my age by now, with a family and possibly wife and abundance of children. During the Indian Army's involvement in the Sri Lankan affairs in late eighties and during a conflict in the North West Mannar region, Major Naren took his life by swallowing cyanide capsule to ensure not to be captured alive, a non-written pronouncement of committed Tiger cadre.
A devastated Chinnaiah and his wife moved to India and then onto Toronto, to live with their other children and extended families. Few more years moved on with monsoons, draughts, snow storms, riots and peace times. Then one fine day in late summer Toronto, I got married to Chinnaiah's older brother's daughter - not by arrangement for the record - thus becoming a relative-by-marriage to him.
Chinnaiah, a fan of Scotch, when under little influence would tell us stories about his past endeavors and experiences of meeting people and places. We would sit around him, during family gatherings, BBQs and wintery evenings to indulge in these past that we never saw, of the dusty streets of Jaffna peninsula, of the beaten path of railway tracks and palmyrah forests.
Chinnaiah is also known to have faced the LTTE supremo one evening, at their house in Navalar Road, during the times when Mr. Prabhakaran was free enough to roam the lanes of Jaffna, without much security and pomp. During this intersection, knowing Chinnaiah's "state of affairs", Mr. Prabhakaran apparently had made a comment stating that "Chinnaiah would continue to drink whether the Tigers are alive or dead". Then Mr. Prabhakaran laughed heartedly and patted Chinnaiah's back to go off and have dinner with Major Naren at their kitchen table.
Few days ago - let's let go of the past for a while and move to present day - I read a blog written by a former Indian Military Intelligence Chief named Col. Hariharan. This gentleman had served and spent three years in Northern Sri Lanka during the IPKF time, from 1987 to 1989, I think. While reading the blog, something struck me as if I have already knew the story that Col. Hariharan tried to describe and detail in his writings.
Immediately I called up Chinnaiah in Toronto and asked him to recall few incidents that were in Col. Hariharan's blog. Now, what you need to know is that Chinnaiah has already transformed himself into a teetotaler. No scotch, no Gold-Leaf, and no beetle chewing. And as such and unfortunately his memory isn't as crispy as before. So, he noted down what I said however didn't say much in return. Disappointed, I emailed one of my cousins to print and deliver the article to him to jog his 'sober' memory.
Then the next day, while I was sitting at the lounge of Renaissance hotel of Atyrau, in Kazakhstan, looking out at the frozen streets, sipping an Efes, I got a call from Chinnaiah. He was in rather anxious mood with a broken voice. I noted emotions through the receiver that was abnormal to Chinnaiah's usual calm and cheery manner.
He apparently had met the "killer of his son" - a second time over, in black and white, in precise print and in writing. However, this time the presumed "killer" himself seems to have come to terms with war and tragedy and that with emotions of reminiscence he's trying to heal, reconcile and reach out.
I expressed to Chinnaiah that we must eventually reconcile our past and move on. He paused for a while then said, "Look Thambi, Col. Hariharan was a friend of my son before he passed away tragically. So, as long as I have fond memories of my son, I too will have fond memories of the Colonel. I wish him well with all my heart".
[Please read Col. Hariharan's blog to dot and connect the lines]
