November 8, 2011
According Edgar Thurston's "Omens and Supestitions of South India" (1912), seeing a tiger when one setting out on a journey is considered inauspicious. What journeying is left if a tiger crosses your path?!
The book mentions the superstition about the direction of placing one's head while sleeping. I remember being asked about it in College Station. Or may be it was in Houston. There was much confusion and nobody was sure. That is a rather unfortunate fate to befall a superstition. May a crow flew left to right across its path when it set off on its journey to America. I wonder if anyone reading what I am quoting below would change their bed orientation tonight. Here's the superstition: Head to the east for health and wealth, head to the south for long life, to the west fame and north brings sickness!
It rained late into the night yesterday. Amma made karipetty (unrefined palm sugar) kaapi (brew) with thulasi (basil) to soothe my cold. Sipping on the hot kaapi, while reading the scorching story of Mascrenas by Kakkanadan as the rain drums up a frenzy outside. Memorable night! Congestion free chest and throat in the morning.
I was reading Thurston's work along with Rev Samuel Mateer's "Travancore: The Land of Charity" (1871) from archive.org before I got carried away by a neat little essay titled "Some aspects of Nayar life" by K.M. Panikker (1918) published in the Journal of the Royal Anthropological Society of Britain and Ireland. Panikkar, 23, was at Oxford when he published it. I need to reread this essay before I can summarize it, but even in the first reading it was very interesting to notice the evolution of "traditions" over the last century.
Rev. Mateer, though the thrust of the second half of the book is about bringing some Jesus love to the heathen inhabitants, cannot stop gushing about the beauty of this land in the first half. The book contains some excellent sketches that compliment his wonderful word-pictures.
I was half way through Panikker's paper when my cousin came with the MD of his company. An hour long discussion on the future management of their mutual funds and capital markets business. The immaturity and lack of transparency in the Indian markets were much lamented. Looks like I will have fun researching select Indian stocks over the next few weeks. Delusions of grandeur that invariably come with any stock market related reading hopefully will accelerate my recovery.
While I was talking to them, my paternal aunt arrived. She brought a plastic bag full of garden plants. Leafy additions for our garden. These are the low-lying varieties that form excellent floor cover with their multi-colored and patterned leaves. In exchange, she collected some anthurium and other plans from our garden. I went back to reading. Achan and aunty watched a few minutes of the old Tamil movie Mahadevi (1957) starring MGR. Apparently both of them seen it in the theater in their schooldays but they could remember precious little.
"You don't have to come to the hospital. It'll be pointless." Achan told his sister as she got ready to leave. "I will decide that," she replied asserting her seniority. The same request to not come to hospital is being made to all the relatives who have visited me already. If all goes according to plan, I will be admitted on Thursday, unconscious for most part and in a stupor for the rest of Friday, undergo tests to confirm discharge orders on Saturday. Amma is worried about hordes of relatives invading the hospital in this three day period. When Achan was admitted 11 years ago, after his surgery, the doctor had chided Amma for not letting him rest by having all the relatives around. "We are not going to disturb him. We'll just socialize outside the room," my uncle had said on Sunday, "besides weddings, this is the only time our extended family gets to get together." He laughed and added quickly, "of course, I am not wishing for more of us go to the hospitals!"
Don't forget to sleep with your head to the east or west or south or between something too wonderful to care about such things!
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