How the cucumber connects with cosmos?

Maha Mrityunjaya Mantra -
- from Rig Veda 7.59.12 (1500-1200 BCE)
https://greenmesg.org/stotras/shiva/mahamrityunjaya_mantra.php

Om Try-Ambakam Yajaamahe

Sugandhim Pusstti-Vardhanam
Urvaarukam-Iva Bandhanaan
Mrtyor-Mukssiiya Maa-[A]mrtaat ||

Meaning:
1: Om, We Worship the Tryambaka (the Three-Eyed One),
2: Who is Fragrant (as the Spiritual Essence), Increasing the Nourishment (of our Spiritual Core);
3: From these many Bondages (of Samsara) similar to Cucumbers (tied to their Creepers),
4: May I be Liberated from Death (Attachment to Perishable Things), So that I am not separated from the perception of Immortality (Immortal Essence pervading everywhere).

http://mk.skycoded.com/watch/DIrvM1gcnPU#

Squirting of cucumber seeds
Ecballium elaterium

We have been reciting this mantra since young without actually knowing its meaning. We were told it is dedicated to Lord Siva and is recited during anxiety or ill health. It was a kind of a shield to be used in precarious and life-threatening situations. No one actually taught us what the whole Sanskrit recital actually meant, what more its deeper meanings. 

Now there is guy, Praveen Mohan who has delved into the secrets of lost temples and many of the forgotten pearls of wisdom in Hinduism. He is quite prolific in making videos. Some of his claims are quite outlandish and got chaffed by content providers. Youtube and Facebook, at one time, even temporarily suspended his account. Nevertheless, they are food for thought and totally worth considering. He brings out mostly the marvel of ancient Indian builders, their building techniques which were way ahead of their times and how these technologies predate modern Western knowhow but somehow got forgotten in the annals of time.

In one of his presentation, he ventures into the Maha Mrityunjaya Mantra. It is one of the oldest mantras, taken from the Rigveda which was composed as way back as between 1500-1200 BCE. Of course, it is paying homage to Lord Siva but it does not request to save us from death or danger. The way I look at it, it is making us realise that life and death is a continuum, an essence of the soul. Now, what is the 'cucumber' (Urvaarukam) doing in all these, of life and preservation of life?

Here is where it becomes profound. Uruvarukkam is a poisonous variety of cucumber that explodes when ripe to extrude its seeds of life. This, in a way, can be viewed as immortality as one transmits his elixir of life, the DNA, to the next generation. His body dies but his legacy lives on forever.

There are other things related to this mantra. The pattern of seed distribution and the placing of the seeds in the fruit suggests that the ancient Hindu scholar knew about Fibonacci numbers (which was actually thought of by a 2nd century Sanskrit scholar, Pingala). Fibonacci sequencing in nature ensures the best placement of leaves of the trees for sunlight and seeds on a flower for best dispersion.

Fig 1
ratio of the length of the longer 
segment to the shorter one is φ

Another intriguing thing about the recital of this mantra is that, on special occasions, it is recited 108 times. Why 108 times one may enquire? Besides having 108 beads on prayer beads, it has much more significance than that.

The diameter of the Sun is 108 times the diameter of Earth. The distance from the Sun to Earth is 108 times the diameter of the Sun. The distance from the Earth to Moon is 108 times the diameter of the moon. In ayurvedic practice, it is said that there are 108 vital points in our body.

Fig 2

In certain prayers involving Lord Shiva, elements of nature are invoked and are represented in the form of a pentagram. Even though the Western world dismisses this as invoking of satanic worship, there is much involved in it. Again, the outer angle of the pointed star is 108.

As seen in the diagram in Fig 1 and Fig 2, the ratio between intersections of shorter and longer lines corresponds to the golden ratio, φ, of 1.618. The golden ratio, in turn, is seen everywhere in Nature. The ratio between subsequent numbers in the Fibonacci sequence is also φ. The pentagram, hence, is the visual representation of life much like how Fibonacci numbers represent the pattern of sustaining life.

So, in short, the take-home message, at least me, in all these prayers is not to change the course of Nature but instead endeavour to use our intelligence to fight the offending agents whilst appreciating that death is not the be end. Life continues with or without us.

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Of time, space and life...

Tenet (2020)

This is another movie in which one may go in and come out of the theatre asking, "what was that all about?" It is about time travel and would make sense if one has a little background about time, space and bending time. Viewers of Interstellar should be at a better place understanding the flow and the plot of the story. They would not find it too confusing.

Time and space have fascinated man since the beginning from the Hindu tradition to the Greeks right down to modern thinkers. Time is just an arbitrary human construct to keep track of earth's rotation around the sun as to plan seasonal preparation of agricultural activities. It went on to permeate all over our day to day activities. Our mass occupies space and seems to move together with time. Somewhere interspersed in all these is life. And it is all moving forward in an ever-expanding universe, or is it?

In an alternative universe, time could be moving backwards as seen here in Tenet, the movie. A palindrome in its title (and some of the characters) suggests that events in life can be altered by moving forward or backwards as and when the situation warrants. In this film, Armageddon is averted when the Protagonist travels through time to get hold of an algorithm that can potentially destroy the world. 

This is a cerebral offering for those who are looking for something beyond poetic justice and lovey-dovey display tear-inducing display of emotion pathognomonic of Tinseltown. 

(P.S. A curious mind would still be puzzled. If an alternate universe where everything moves backwards and the Protagonist had to don an oxygen mask as even respiration is reversed, wouldn't all bodily functions be changed? Heart sucking blood into the heart, bile fluids retrograde into the liver parenchyma and reverse peristalsis in the human body just like the bullet being sucked back into the pistol barrel!)

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It takes one but which one?

Untouchables (2019)

The start of the fall of something big is always the same. The journey to the top must have been an arduous and an honest one. It would have been avant-garde or revolutionary then. Everyone would have liked it. Given the herd mentality that we all subscribe to, the response would have been palpably obvious with praises and felicitations that would rocket them to high heavens.

The fame would have gone to the head of the progenitors. They would think that they are God-sent avatars beamed on Earth to change Mankind. They could do no wrong. 

Those suppressed demons suddenly spring out. The rapacious appetite which was instrumental previously in launching their earlier fledgeling career now seems to have been diverted to satisfying their own primal decadent desires. The unabated admiration showered to them now is used paradoxically against the very people who put them up on a pedestal.

Everyone can see their nefarious activities but are fearful of spilling their beans as they hold a powerful position in society. It is their tiny squeak against the mammoth establishment.

It only takes one exposè. One squeal that reverberates so long that it takes down the kingdom of the evil. 

Repeatedly we have seen such occurrences. We fail to realise but continue doing the same, burning our fingers, apologising and repeating. Look around, see it done in politics, businesses and creative industries.

Harvey Weinstein

This documentary is the narration of the life and times of Harvey Weinstein, his brother Rob, their production company, Miramax, their rise to stardom and Harvey's subsequent call from grace. This film puts the accusers in the centre stage to allow them to tell their side of the debacle. As we know, Weinstein's trial opened the similar stinking bag of worms the world over. Through the #metoo movement, victims from Hollywood all the way to Bollywood, victims started voicing about their assaults. 

But beware! The #metoo movement was also fraught with conniving individuals who maliciously used it as a victim card to mar the image of people in authority. Empowerment given by resurgence of women empowerment had been misused as a 'get-out-of-jail-free' card.

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Lynching in the 21st century!

Our world has become one which is ruled by mobs. We thought we had cancelled mob behaviours when we started engaging in intellectual discourses and discarded our weapons for civilised dialogues. We were made to believe so. The muffled undertones of passive-aggressiveness were always there in the background. It never really disappeared. In those days, the dominant ruling forces called it resistance, reformation or revolution. We learnt that numbers matter and recruiting the masses worked best to overthrow a seemingly impregnable and cruel regime. Most new religions came about through these ways - show the unthinking inebriated public the virtues and purpose of existence, riled their emotions to unite them against a particular cause, sometimes a self-serving one. The major Abrahamic religions began thus, creating a sense of fear, perpetually assuming that they would be besieged.

Fast forward to the present time. We thought that in modern times, with the ease of information at our disposal, we felt that we would be widespread in the depth of our knowledge and be empowered to choose what is best for us. We were never so wrong.

The law of the jungle and the Neanderthal code of ethics, if there ever was, is the law that prevails in cyberspace. The loudest, the most devious and the most insincere, wins the arguments hands down. Anyone who does not conform to the voice of the majority is mercilessly crucified. The 'voice of the majority' is not actually the plea of the most, but narratives of ringmasters of who are paid tools of their puppetmasters with vested interests. If in the medieval times, muscle power, blood and gore put the weak statehood in submission, modern-day cyber warriors do the same through cyberbullying, mass hypnotism and peddling of fake news. Oft-repeated nonsense gains credibility via mere repetition without giving opportunity for critical assessment. Anyone who even utters whispers of differing viewpoint is instantaneously shot down through cybertrooping activities, public shaming and cancel culture. Lynch mobs on social media are out for blood to sow communal hatred, assault on scientific knowledge and insult to our thinking faculty.

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What is the definition of 'normal'?

Paromitar Ek Din ( A day of Paromitar, Bengali; 2000)
Direction: Aparna Sen

Society has defined what is normal and what is not. It has decided social mores on how to behave and what is appropriate. It has set arbitrary levels of what is expected of a family. It determines how it should be portrayed to the world. It is all a facade, a smokescreen, the foundation that is laid on unfinished brickwork to give a final smooth concealing the imperfections beneath. 

The community expects a family to be of certain expectations and to behave in a specific manner to be one of them. Human beings, being social animals, clamour to belong to a group of certain similarities that they go to great extents to showcase what the rest accepts as normality. 

So, despite being trapped in a loveless marriage, we are expected to labour it through, hoping that love will conquer it all. We want to be proud of offspring, immerse in their joys and growing old, aspiring to have brought them up as perfect adults for the generation next. Despite the social etiquette, we sometimes find connections in people of the opposite sex whom we are not supposed to be intimate. We sometimes bond with people who are no longer related by society-sanctioned unions or blood or because of circumstance. Maybe because of unexplainable celestial attachments, we still find platonic relationships with the very people tabooed by society. Life is a maze with all its intricacies and no perfect answers. We make our solutions as we go on.

The story of Paromitar is unveiled as she attends her mother-in-law's (or rather her ex-husband's mother) funeral. Paromitar is now remarried and is currently pregnant with her second child. She entered the house seven years previously as a young bride. Her life turned murky after she delivered a child who was diagnosed to have cerebral palsy. Caring for the handicapped child proved too stressful for Paromitar and her husband. Their relationship grew apart. The mother-in-law also had an empty marriage. Together, they found commonality in each other and develop a strong bond. They discovered that both of them have left a joyful life in their 'previous lives' to fulfil their roles as spouses. The child dies, and Paromitar meets another man and leaves her husband.

Also in the background is the mother-in-law's old flame who showed up at the doorstep ever so regularly to chat. We soon discover that the meeting was not merely platonic.

After Paromitar's departure, the mother-in-law becomes sick, needing constant care. Breaking all conventions, Paromitar had returned to the household to care for her before her death.

Aberrations from the norm are common in families. Even though we would like the ocean of life to be smooth, we occasionally encounter high waves and inclement weather. That, in essence, is the meaning of life - to deal with the problems and the unexpected tragedy that are hurled upon us periodically. That is normal. Every family has its own quirks and skeletons up in their closets.

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Nothing is what it seems!

C U Soon (Malayalam; 2020)


The human imagination has no boundaries. Even at a time when all of the movie-making industry has come to a grinding halt, storytellers still managed to squeeze out a full-length feature film.

Who cares if there is a lockdown or a need for social distancing? There are smartphones and all the drama online in social media. Why look far? Necessity is the mother of all inventions and desperate times spur innovations.

This Malayalam offering was made utilising the i-phone and screens of the computer. The whole film was shot in two rooms and with minimal human contact. The storytelling involves a lot of reading off WhatsApp messages, Facebook posts and emails as well as eavesdropping on video calls.

Kudos to the director who managed to keep the attention of the audience. At the same time, they maintained the suspense of the story.

Jimmy, a bank executive in Dubai, hooks with Anu on Tinder. They get along quite well and even contemplate marriage in such a short time. Jimmy gets his cousin, Kevin, to do a background on her. Everything is okay, and so is Jimmy's mother. Just then, Anu makes a frantic call for help after being beaten up. Slowly things become bizarre as she is given asylum with the Emirates police hot on Jimmy's trail. Like an onion peel, the story slowly unveils, showing us the vulnerability of our identities in cyberspace and the complicated web of deceit that humans are masterminds. Even though a lot of the story is told in texts and acting merely involves facial expressions, not once does the audience feel bored.

A few learning points from the movie. It is no secret anymore that many educated Indian girls are duped into working as maids in the Arab countries but end up as call girls. These type of shenanigans not only in Godless nations but even in states that proclaim to upholds God's law on Earth.

Proponents of Islamic Law insist that Islamic brand of justice and jurisprudence will not affect the Non-Believer way of life. Apparently not as seen in this film of the legal system in the Emirates. Co-habitation of an unwed couple, even of non-Muslims, it seems is a serious crime. The enforcers of the law would say this is the law of our land, the others have to just oblige. On the other hand, it does not work the other way around. Immigrants and refugees to Non-Muslim lands (Dar al Harb) are hellbent on implementing sharia law in the newfound land that gave them a helping hand out of their self-created pit of hopelessness.  

Maybe it is just this particular movie, but I get the vibe that the police in Dubai creates the element of fear in the eyes of the public, particularly the foreigners/expatriates. Perhaps, the director is generalising policemen as the Indian population's perception of the police. If indeed, justice is carried out to the true calling of the religion, should the citizens be empowered, not being fearful of getting embroiled with police?

The final take-home message is that despite all the adversities that the human race may be exposed to, we will rise to the occasion to stamp our dominance. No matter what the nihilistic naysayers may say about the dystopian future that they paint, we will never perish. We will always find a way to stay relevant.

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The man behind the spirit!

One thing I have noticed over the years is that there are some of our activities that reaffirm our propensity towards herd mentality. One is our appreciation of haute culture. Just because a movie star is seen wearing a transparent tunic which does not leave anything to the imagination of lies beneath (her undergarment or therein lack of), everyone wants a piece of the action. 

Some people take great pleasure in their vintage wines and spirits. It has become a fashion statement of sorts amongst the high societies to serve single malt whisky of a particular age which boasts of a specific amount of character and complexity from the cask. Guests would all nod in unison after the first sip. I wonder if they would still be able to discern the difference if the liquor was unceremonious replaced with a younger whisky or for that matter a blended one, after their third or fourth drink.

In 1976, Steven Spurrier, a British merchant who sold only French wine, had a blind wine tasting competition in Paris; involving French and Californian wines. The Californian wine industry was considered a Lilliputian in contrast to their French counterparts. Hence, it was unwelcomed results when the creme de la crème of France's oenophiles turned in the Americans as the winner. The organisers were so embarrassed by the outcome that they suppressed the news from the French public. A lone reporter from the Time magazine leaked out the information to the world of what was later to the 'Judgement of Paris' in reference to the Greek mythology. In the Iliad, Paris was appointed as a judge to a beauty contest involving three Goddesses - Hera, Athena and Aphrodite. The best candidate did not win as Paris was he bribed by Aphrodite.

Rihanna
covered the bare necessities?

Lately, Malaysians were pleasantly surprised to learn that a Malaysian-made blended whiskey had won a silver medal at the 2020 San Francisco World Spirits Competition. Pleasant because we are always trying to find accreditation outside to convince ourselves that we are doing alright. Surprised because no one knew that we were brewing whiskey in this country, with the new wave of religiosity creeping in and all. 

The point to note is that it is spelt 'whiskey' not 'whisky'. Whisky is sort of patented for whiskies brewed in Scotland, much like whiskies from America are bourbon. Elsewhere, it is just whiskey for you.

Timah is here and is selling faster than you can google them. The packaging honours a certain Captain Speedy who had served the British East India Company well. I was perplexed. Even though I cannot claim to know the Malayan history in and out, a famous figure that deserves recognition for a Malaysian product ought to tickle my brain cells, I thought.

A little search and there, I discovered that Tristram Charles Sawyer Speedy a.k.a Captain Speedy was quite a flamboyant character who led an illustrious life. Born in Meerut, India, to a family with army traditions, he was trained as a soldier in England. He returned to India as an Army Officer and went on to serve in the Northern Frontier Province and Ethiopia.  In 1871, he was summoned to Penang as the Superintendant of Police. He must have been quite a character for getting quite a caustic remark from the then Governor of the Straits Settlement.

Journal of the Malayan Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society

Vol. 26, No. 3 (163), Captain Speedy of Larut (Nov 1953, pp 3-103).

Speedy went on to be a mercenary to provide Indian troops to squash the Larut clash between Ghee Hin and Hai San gangs. He went on to become the assistant to JWW Birch, the first British Resident of Perak. He was instrumental in the development of Taiping town.

Later, he and his Mrs went on to explore and live in Sudan. 

                                                         

(P.S. 'Timah' is tin (Stanum, Sn, atomic number 50 on the periodic chart, in the Malay language. Tin brought in Chinese immigration and an excellent opportune for British meddling of Malayan affairs. Chinese immigration also brought in the triad, namely Ghi Hin and Hai San. Originating from different part of China with different dialects, Cantonese and Hakka respectively, each wanted the stronghold of the mining business. Caught in the middle are the local chieftains who also wanted to collect levy (without working!). The chiefs turned to the British for mediation. Speedy, the maverick, who by then had resigned as the Superintendent of Police of Penang, was roped in the squash the disturbance. Speedy brought in Indian soldiers for that purpose and billed the Malay chief handsomely). 

That is Tin (Timah) and Speedy are linked.

The bungalow in Matang lived by Speedy.

The Baobab tree in the Jalan Macalister- Jalan Residensi junction in Penang. 

Planted in 1871 by the then Superintendent of Police of Penang, Captain Speedy. 

It is the oldest planted tree in Malaysia and is still surviving.

Captain Speedy of Larut
John M. Gullick

Journal of the Malayan Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society

Vol. 26, No. 3 (163), Captain Speedy of Larut (November 1953), pp. 3-103 (107 pages)

Published by: Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society

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