saidevo,
good post. i think perhaps what you are trying to say, is that we should be true to our values, and any mockery from the outside will have the teflon effect on us.
much as you imbibe some mystic powers to the gayathri, which i ofcourse respect, the strength of those vannia brahmins, came from the discipline of the chant, and the stubborness in refusing to give it up as well as the fortitude that came along with such action.
saptha,
hope you read my admiration ditty of you in another post here
just to show, that i admire your presentations, including the lengthy ones with nara. such erudition and belief do not come lightly especially for one of such an young age. God Bless.
now to asokamitran, i am fan of his. follow him regularly either in hinduonline or chennaionline. his reminiscense of chennai of old is awesome, along with s.muthiah who is a srilankan tamil, but adopted chennaivasi.
let us read the article in whole and let me give you my take on his. considering that mitran is in his 80s.
there is his experiences with kanchi mutt which are very similar to that of mine. for the previous mutt head, for whom there is almost universal reverence here (if i am not mistaken MK & CNA also admired him), mitran had no use. neither did i.
after all, we all tend to personalize our expectations and experiences within the confines of our faith, and when it fails, we turn our backs. is this not the human syndrome?
then mitran focuses on our inability to get a break in the movie scene. not so sure what he means. certainly the movie world has become more pluralistic than the old days of sivaji mgr (both non brahmins) and gemini (who still played third fiddle to mgr, sivaji).
nowadays we have madhavan, ajith, kamal (by the state terminology he is a brahmin whether he eats beef or not). we have a swarm of female actors including my favourite trisha. mani ratnam, is he the only director? i don't know.
once upon a time all the music directors were TBs. but times have changed, and unless we moved in with the times, and tunes, we lose out. how can one compete against a.r. rahman? he is world class. should we bemoan it?
in this pluralistic world, we cannot expect to be the sole dominant in any field. with the spread of education,there will be more competition. this is to be welcomed for the sake of the country.
on the other hand, we are moving further up in the field of corporate and science, all over the world. we should take care not to discount those achievements. mitran does not touch that.
our rituals are just that. rituals. personally i think they are onerous and mere actions, backed not by faith, but by money and grandeur.
a poonal, in addition an occassion for family get together, is an opportunity to show off the strength of the parents' purse. ask any of those youths to say their abhivaadhey and witness that idiotic grin.
does it mean that we are becoming morally lightweight? perhaps. should we mourn over it? perhaps not. there were probably only a cream of intellect among us. the rest were the ones who occupied the திண்ணை and soda shops.
does the abandonment of the குடுமி mean the cast off of values? or a saratorial adjustment? you can still have a crop head with a string குடுமி at the end. all this is superficial.
the times they are changing and we as a community, have done a remarkable feat in adapting to the blowing new winds. had we not done so, what would have been our plight?
in this modern india, we would have still populated our isolated agraharams, done our daily visits to the temple, and filled the திண்ணை with அரட்டை. i think, the current situation is any day better to those scenarios.
to sum up, i think, mitran is going through the angst of the elderly - the apparent losses due to rapid changes. it might not be a bad idea to remind him, that the only constant in life, is change. when he was a young man, he too was a force of that change. now he has slowed down. but change has not.
நன்றி சப்தஜீவா
