A hectic cleaning spree

and putting away tons of long overdue laundry.  There was a time that would have been the most boring day ever.  Now, staying home that long to finish stuff like this off with no pressure to 'fit' it between 'appointments' is luxury.


Tomorrow is my daughter's 'hindu' calendar birthday.  Found out because MIL told me.  Said daughter asked me after her classmate celebrated his 'gujurati' birthday and I had to hem and haw because I don't even have the apparatus to find out.  And if I did have the almanac, would need a reader to read the language and a translater to figure out the technicalities to the gregorian calendar!  Can you say 'western'?  Yes, we are.

The kannada-tamil combination in our family has not messed anything up.  It was all messed up way before!  Born to kind of westernish parents, I saw poojas and ate the food associated.  Did the basics of sitting/standing/prostrating as applicable before escaping to do whatever else.  Husband's family does more in terms of pooja with a functioning pooja room that sees some serious action (my parents' is the basic one diya model!).  Still, I don't see too much in terms of rituals that have made their way down.

We picked a few festivals that we celebrate with lots of fun and every other one is an opportunity to sack out and/socialize.  These days of scheduled friendships means that it takes a lot to see a good friend enough times in the year.  Diwali has always been a big one for us - we put ourselves through a lot to get people together.  In the US, we plodded through freezers of meat to lay hands on that Looooooong amazonian banana leaf for a huge dinner at home. Yes, with a crate of kingfisher.  We were going 'native', were we not?

I wonder what my kids will pick as their 'culture'.  It seems to be so important to so many people.  I wonder why it leaves me cold.  I see the same pooja samagri toting culturistas having barely functioning human relationships, that sathyanarayana homam seems to be to appease for some sin rather than for the sake of doing it with piety.  Oh, the silver giveaway shows mercenary goodwill?  Yeah, because I went for the silver....either to receive it or be at the point of show-off?

The rituals of any religion leave me disgusted.  Because at the end of the day, people seem to be okay with killing to 'uphold' that principle of inclusiveness.  Yeah, there is only one God but that is MY God!?  So we have been talking to the kids of not asking God for anything but thanking Him/Her for what we have.  The chance to make a difference another day in another's life.  If we are so lucky.

My kids understand several languages in bits - Tamil, Kannada, Hindi and Bengali.  Tamil and Kannada to the extent that we can't speak it and depend on them not understanding, Hindi just enough to do damage.  And Bengali enough to know if they are being called names (which they are not :-D)!  To all languages, they react in English.  This pisses the culturistas a lot.  Again, I am proud to show you off as my 'whatever is the relationship' so long as you do, speak and be the way I want you to be.  I will use English as the distinguishing factor to show my 'superiority' when I so choose.  This hypocrisy really gets me.

My 'culture' is to be humane.  A cliche?  Absolutely.  Now try and live up to it.  My religion, absolute kindness.  And I fail at this everyday.  And yet, dust off and live to fight another day in this cause.  Oh no, I am not mean.  Not even close.  Just not absolutely kind.  And language - who gives a....oh, sorry, family blog.  I don't really care, so long as they can make friends and keep them.  And talk enough to communicate and function well in society.  Simple things that sound so corny, except when you try to practise it.

G'night!