..thou art that..

Slava Kavadi @ Penang Thaipusam

The actor-director who made the much-talked-about Kannada film 'Kantara', is said to have performed some of the stunts himself. One of the scenes that he had to carry out was a particular dance for a diety. In an interview, he admitted that he followed the prerequisites before delving into that pious act. The rest, as we know it, is history.

These types of dos and don'ts are rife in many Indic practices. All have them have a said ancient scientific to them.

Growing up, I had seen many who religiously performed annual penance for Lord Muruga on Thaipusam. I heard they had to undergo a gruelling 30-day or 14-day regime before going anywhere near the tent to initiate the ritual involving body piercings and feats that would befuddle them later. 

It involved consuming two simple vegetarian meals a day. Abstinence from the luxuries of life is a must. That would mean no personal grooming, no manicure and pedicure, no footwear, no hot showers, avoidance of self-indulging activities, no entertainment, no TV and in the present day, it would mean no YouTube! The devotee can only sleep on a floor mat with no mattresses or pillows. All these were intended to prepare one mentally for the monumental task at hand. I heard of another person who would undergo similar self-torturing rituals to partake in the temple's annual fire walking ceremony to fete Goddess Kaaliamman.

The fantastic thing is that they would complete the task, return to everyday life the following day, and carry on as if nothing had happened.

Recently I heard a clip that gave a somewhat scientific explanation of why a Swami Ayyappan devotee fasts for 48 days. It seems that it took that much time for all the cells in the body to be replaced. That means that after 48 days, one is essentially walking with an entirely new set of cells in his body, hopefully as a rejuvenated, unique individual. 

The breaking of a coconut is the best symbol of what we aspire to. The rough, uneven exterior is broken to reveal a pristine white interior that can generate something new -a life. As the ancient sages used to quote, 'tat tvam asi', meaning 'you are that'. You are what you want to be. In other words, you are the architect of your life. Sometimes we do not know who it is 'that' we want to be. The Greeks also appreciated that.

At the entrance to Apollo temple at Delphi, is inscribed 'know thyself'. Sometimes, that can be a problem. We really do not know what we are capable of until we are pushed to the limit. The maxims that followed 'know thyself' were 'nothing to excess' and 'surety brings ruin'.

P.S. Masons who carved out murtis (religious sculptures) in ancient India are said to also go through vigorous fasting routines to attain a trance-like state to chisel out an error-free product. They never have a second chance attempt at their task; invariably, these figurines last many generations and are still awed today.

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The many roads that converge...

Kanthara (Kannada; 2022)
Director, Writer, and Actor: Rishab Shetty

Through this movie, I learnt about the 1.8 million people from the districts of  Udupi and Dakshina of Karnataka and the Kasaragod region of Kerala who call themselves the Tulu people. These cultural occupants of Tulu Nadu believe that their land was salvaged from the sea by Vishnu's 6th avatar, Parasuraman, the sage warrior. He is said to have yielded his axe to reclaim the land from the sea. To neutralise the land of salt and change it into a lush, fertile land, he employed the venom of Vasuki, the Snake King. The Tuluvas, as a gesture of appreciation to the guardians of the land, the boars, snakes and tigers, have celebrations called Bhuta Kola, an annual ritual performance. This type of their merriment was what Hollywood thought was exotic when it decided to depict eye-ball gobbling Thugee believers in their second instalment of the Indiana Jones franchise. 

I also learned that there is a movement towards the demand for acceptance of the Tulu language as another accepted language of India and a Tulu land.

Since its release, this film has garnered the attention of many moviegoers and even academics. In the current rage of cinema buffs wanting to know many of the long-forgotten cultural beliefs of Indians, this presentation is trying to erase the colonial mindsets that the cultural practices are animistic and pantheistic. A rational explanation is that people are trying to live in a symbiotic relationship with Nature, one of self-respect. Whichever way people show their reverence to the Almighty, it all refers to one distinct entity in different names or avatars, as is known in India. 

Cultural flag of Tulunadu (Wiki)

During the era of the British Raj, in their rapaciousness to reap the wealth from the lands and jungles, they passed a law to make forests restricted areas. The tribal people, who live off the ground, protested. The British vilified a particular group of Thurgeeswari-worshipping freedom fighters as bogeymen. They painted them as members of a secret cult that robs and kills people. They created such fear among the speakers of the English Language that the word 'thug' had been appropriated into the language and is synonymous with violent crimes.

This storyline follows the same vein as what the British did back in the day if one were to analyse it critically. 

In 1847, an unhappy King was looking for the meaning of life. After searching near and far, he realised that happiness was in his backyard. He found solace in a deity worshipped by the tribesmen. He took home the deity to honour and verbally agreed to let the nomads roam freely in the forest owned by him. Such was the arrangement till the new generations of the King, now landowners, no more royalty, wanted to reclaim the forest.

Guliga Daiva, the Protector.

This time, the descendants used the guise of the Government wanting to reclaim the forest to usurp back the land. The Government is painted as bad and the tribes as troublemakers. The movie shows this showdown in many graphic portrayals accompanied by spectacular cinematography and mesmerising music. The shenanigan is exposed with the help of the Protectorates of the jungle, and the symbiotic mutual-respecting way of existence between the tribals, the beasts of the wilderness, and the authority continues. Everyone agrees that God is One, albeit our different pathways to reaching Him.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.