@strawsInTheWind sir had asked me to write about the tradition of Uzhavara Pani a few days back. Let me share the little I know. Uzhavarapani is a form of service where devotees take up the maintenance of temples as an offering to the deity. It is a form of Karma Yoga where /1
you take up the simplest of tasks, which anyone can do, namely sweeping, repair of wear and tear. Small town Tamil Nadu has many Uzhavara Kuzhus or volunteer groups that take this up. The Dharma Shastras place high merit on the following activities
- Maintaining groves /1
or nandavanams.
- Keeping water bodies clean and free of silt.
- Planting and maintaining shade giving trees along highways
A leading astrologer once told people, it doesn't matter what defects you carry in your horoscope. Doshas in a person's kundli are nothing but mala or /3
impurity carried over from past lives. Removing the dirt in a public place, such as watering plants, deweeding a nandavanam, cleaning a temple, desilting and cleaning a water body, cleaning a cowshed, serving food and water and cleaning the dining hall for shivan adiyaars or /4
sadhus are means of removing the mala or dirt in your lives by cleaning a public place. /END
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In Tamil movies, perversion around Brahmin women is an old phenomenon. It doesn't matter if people born into the community are involved.
- K Balachander movie Arangetram - orthodox Shastri's daughter becomes a prostitute due to poverty
/1
- KB again in Apoorva Ragangal - older divorced Brahmin woman starts an affair with much younger man, while her daughter runs away and has an affair with the father
/2
- Sila Nerangalil Sila Manithargal - Brahmin college girl is raped. She leaves the house, finds her rapist and becomes friends with him.
/3
Like Fatima Sheikh, here's a list of incidents that fail the 'smell test' 1. Breast Tax 2. Carrying brooms on the back 3. Agitation for blouses 4. Vavar 5. Women forced into sati 6. EVR's trip to Kashi 7. Throwing muck at Savitribai
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Some easily falsified stories 1. Rajaji closed 300 schools 2. Sanskrit was required to get into medical school 3. Palani had non-Brahmin priests whe were replaced by Dalavai Ramappa Iyer 4. Dr Natesa Mudaliar built a hostel for NB boys since they couldn't rent in Madras
More easily falsified stories 5. Collector Ashe was assassinated because he took a woman in labour through the agraharam
While humans may have been consuming spirits for a very long time, it appears large scale consumption is a relatively recent phenomenon. Historically, people in colder climates have only consumed beers, ale, mead in quantity. Even these were not fortified and rarely
exceeded 3% w/v. Production of spirits was not possible in large scale and hence spirits were expensive and rarely consumed. Historical records show that 18th CE was when spirits consumption picked up. In frontier regions like America, spirit consumption was very high, but low
among rural populations. In Thomas Hardy's Far From The Madding Crowd, the only character that consumed spirits was the brandy-swilling city-slicker Sgt Troy.
Trends in consumption of animal flesh in the United States over the last century. Red meat is preferred by older people. Now, ask yourself the question - Why beef politics in India?
Trends in alcohol consumption in the US. From a peak of 70% in the late 70s, consumption is declining and plateauing. The decline is more in younger age groups, which point to a shrinking market. Europe is a declining market, having maxed out (10% of adults are daily drinkers)
and also due to their shrinking populations. Same is the case with Japan, China and Korea. So, which country is home to a large, growing population and where younger people are more likely to drink? Now, watch what all State Govts in India are doing.
From Robert Conquest's The Harvest of Sorrow, probably the most comprehensive chronicle of the horror that Stalinist economic policy was.
How the term 'kulak' was conjured up as an exploiter and target of hate, with little basis in reality. It holds lessons for all of us
- How the 'Aryan' as a class was invented in 20th CE India is similar
- Same technique is used by assorted groups claiming subaltern situation and create a target of hate.
What this resulted in was that the most productive 5-6% of the peasantry, which produced 20% of the grain was hounded, dispossessed of their land and herded off to collectives and labour camps. Forced collectivization and forced grain acquisition resulted in large scale hunger.