My First Visit to the Sri Venkateswara Hindu Temple

The following is an excerpt from a short memoir I drafted about my early cross-cultural exchanges during college. Here I talk about my first visit to the Sri Venkateswara Temple in Pittsburgh.

My personal photo of the temple was accidentally erased, and it's quite a pilgrimmage to get there without a car (though I've done it once), so for now I am shamelessly borrowing this picture, and with a citation

"Bharath... first brought me to the Sri Venkateswara Hindu temple in Pittsburgh, and I followed him like a shadow through the rituals.

The entrance inside the temple. You're not allowed to take pictures beyond this hall.

We removed our shoes at the entrance, we bowed first to a murti statue of Ganesh, the elephant-headed god for overcoming obstacles, whose invocation precedes all other worship. Then we thrice circumnavigated the heart of the temple before we joined the lines of worshippers and approached the shrines of Sri Venkateswara, Lord Balaji, and shrines of two others, one at each side, each of them surrounded by wreaths of flowers, gold-colored bowls, and food offerings of fruit. Bharath bowed with his hands and knees on the ground. He took the red powder from the dish and dabbed it on his forehead. After a moment’s hesitation I did the same. We sat before the main shrine. Sri Venkateswara is embodied in an ebony black statue whose eyes were covered with paper, metaphorically sparing us the intensity of his gaze. We sat as yellow-robed priests chanted long verses in Sanskrit. I could only discern a recitation of his incarnations. The priests blessed the people, even me, asking each of us for names of family members, and then placing a bowl over our heads. I left pondering what I had seen, a red bindi on my own brow.

This was the painting I saw in the entrance hall - Krishna and his mother, Yashoda. Here I realized how amazingly beautiful Hindu art is - the combination of realism, mysticism, and fantastic beauty astounds me.

 I was enamored of all the rituals, and I tried to compare them to what I knew of Christian Lutheran worship, my own religious foundation, close to Catholicism. Just inside the temple there was a painting on the wall of baby Krishna in the arms of his mother, both of them painted angelically like Madonna and the Christ child. The priests were robed too, but in yellow, and their Sanskrit chanting was like the Latin Kyrie. The priests gave blessings, the people gave offerings. Instead of God the Father, Son, and Spirit, the Trinity here is Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva. And yet the infinity of differences between Hinduism and Christianity are more profound than I could have realized or understood. Although the stories of gods and rituals of worship are more complicated, I think Hinduism is arguably more free. One need not take the straight and narrow path that leads to Heaven as in Christianity, but any path toward enlightenment. Hinduism for Hindus is more literally understood as philosophical experience – darshana. Divinity also embraces a wider meaning - why, Advait challenged, should God have one specific, human form? A Hindu "idol" is not an idol in the biblical sense, but it is a representation made to form a connection between a deity and one’s self.  Later, further challenging ideas of divinity, eternity, and the self, Buddhism, literally and ostensibly, emerged as an "awakening", partly a reaction to Hinduism (also, as with the development of other religions, as a political challenge, taking a stance against things including the caste system). According to some forms of Buddhism, maybe there is no god, no eternity, and no self, and thus one finds enlightenment. Although I do not pray to Christ, Krishna, Buddha, or Allah, I hope someday to realize in myself a universal sense of spirituality that transcends the specifics of East and West. I want to understand how these different stories and values complement each faith and culture.

Religion, like language, is a vehicle for communication and understanding. I felt marked by the temple experience in a way that was much more permanent than the spot of powder. I entered the temple afraid of being out of place, but I have been brought there with enthusiasm, and the Indians there were so quietly welcoming. When I later brought an Indian friend to a church, he joked about being worried of catching fire. But in the Hindu temple, I was just welcome as anyone else. Bharath said I looked good with a bindi. 

 I knew that even besides the temple visit, I would always be in debt to him. He introduced me to India, by sharing his food, his music, and some of his stories. I used to sit with him in the restaurant while he talked about his family, his life, and the lives of other Indians like himself. Like Bharath, many Indians were raised to be engineers or doctors, and then many come to the United States for graduate school, and then to find a job for supporting their families back in India. Coincidentally somewhat near to New York’s Chinatown, the highest concentration of an Indian population is in Edison, New Jersey, through which most of Bharath’s own friends passed through at some point. Bharath introduced me to Kiran, Raghu, Kiran P., and Nikhil, who all became my friends. I broke bread with Kiran (literally, Subway bread) and we talked about each other’s families as we worked the quiet summer night shifts. He was nicer than anyone I'd ever met. Nikhil showed me his silver Sikh bracelet that a North Indian friend had given him, and I noticed, on the other wrist, a scar. He explained with a sad smile that it was from an attempted suicide, after his girlfriend of six years was forced into an arranged marriage. I was speechless. And yet such tragedy blurs when I remember watching him sing and dance to songs in Telugu and American hip hop, and how he yelled at me playfully in his fast-talking South Indian accent, and then taught me to counter with “Angle chupistunnavu kaddha!?” – “Are you showing me an angle (literally: Are you making fun of me)!? 
And one by one they moved on with their lives. Bharath moved to New Jersey, and then left his search on the job market to go back to Hyderabad, India. Kiran found a job in New York City shortly after his graduation, which Maria and I attended wearing his gifts of colorful, Punjabi Indian dresses. Raghu is in Florida. Nikhil and Kiran P. are in Michigan. And I've been such a poor friend at keeping in touch..    

And though my Indian friends from Subway had moved away by the time of the crisis of failing the Japanese program, I was still given by hope by my new Indian friend Advait, the only one who could tell me that I wasn’t a failure. Advait came to the United States as an engineer who decided instead to study Physics. It might seem like the quintessential American sense of independence, and yet his own philosophy is quintessentially Hindu. His name A-dvait means “non-dual” representing a school of thought that divinity of deity and self are manifestations of one entity. Such a manifestation, he realized, is similar to that of mass and energy. When I first asked him what his name meant, he wrote E=mc². Once while he was studying the laws of the universe, I had approached him admitting I couldn’t grasp a second language. Advait, who speaks Hindi, English, Marathi, and some Telugu and Sanskrit, answered gently, “I know that pain.”

For these friendships and these experiences, I wanted to forever honor my Indian friends. I owe them so much, and I wanted to speak their language, write with their letters, and appreciate their sense of aesthetic. I first wanted revenge, and now I wanted my own redemption. My college didn’t have a class teaching their language of Telugu, but there was a class for Hindi, India’s national language. And so I had changed sides again. To switch from Japanese to Hindi was to switch from short grain rice to long grain rice, and from anime to Bollywood. Even my ideal of feminine beauty and mystique portrayed by traditional courtesans flowed from the kimono-robed and white-faced geisha to the bejeweled and sari-swathed tawaif. I went from austere Shinto shrines to decorous Hindu temples – and to the source of Buddhism."

\Since this draft of writing, I have become further indebted to and inspired by Indian friends and Indian culture. The relationships and experiences have been invaluable. Throughout college, a small group of Indians have been my close friends when I otherwise have had very few, and they gave so much. My Hindi professor and my former partner are among the most personally inspiring people in my life, and I will never forget my other friends, nor the others I have looked up to more distantly, such as Harish Saluja and Azam Ali (Ok, she's Iranian, but she introduced me to Urdu poetry). 

Lately, I have been watching more Indian movies, reading more Indian-based novels, and studying more of the language - as if I am afraid of losing that small part of India in my heart. I really hope to make it there someday, somehow.

Selected Poems from "Gitanjali" by Rabindranath Tagore

After another long absence, I am again going to try to resurrect this blog. I think, though, that I will spare you, dear reader, certain personal details of my life for now, and simply promote this bit of literature. I will decline commentary so that the poems will speak for themselves and to you. These were just my favorites for this time of my life.

This week I read Gitanjali ("Song Offerings") by Rabindranath Tagore. For this work Tagore won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1913 (the first non-European winner). I had read a little bit about the famous Bengali author and playwright Tagore in my Hindi class, and I finally got around to reading this famous work over Thanksgiving break. It's actually a rather short book of poetry - shorter than I expected - but each poem is profound, with an epiphany of life, and death. I couldn't help thinking that they sounded like biblical Psalms. There is so much spirituality, so much gratitude and devotion to God. I would have asked what was the name of the God he worshiped, but the question is irrelevant. This man was truly spiritual, very enlightened. I think it was rather apt to have read this book over the Thanksgiving holiday. Even though Tagore had apparently written this book during an awful period in his life - in a few successive years he had lost his father, wife, a daughter, and a son - there is so much hope, faith, and love.

These were my favorite poems of Gitanjali:

13

The song that I came to sing remains unsung to this day.
I have spent my days in stringing and in unstringing my instrument.

The time has not come true, the words have not been rightly set; only there is the agony of wishing in my heart.
The blossom has not opened; only the wind is sighing by.
I have not seen his face, nor have I listened to his voice; only I have heard his gentle footsteps from the road before my house.
The livelong day has passed in spreading his seat on the floor; but the lamp has not been lit and I cannot ask him into my house.

I live in the hope of meeting with him; but this meeting is not yet.

18
Clouds heap upon clouds and it darkens. Ah, love, why dost thou let me wait outside at the door all alone?
In the busy moments of the noontide work I am with the crowd, but on this dark lonely day it is only for thee that I hope.
If thou showest me not thy face, if thou leavest me wholly aside, I know not how I am to pass these long, rainy hours.
I keep gazing on the far away gloom of the sky, and my heart wanders wailing with the restless wind

19
If thou speakest not I will fill my heart with thy silence and endure it. I will keep still and wait like the night with starry vigil and its head bent low with patience.
The morning will surely come, the darkness will vanish, and thy voice pour down in golden streams breaking through the sky.
Then thy words will take wing in songs from every one of my birds’ nests, and thy melodies will break forth in flowers in all my forest groves.

20
On the day when the lotus bloomed, alas, my mind was straying, and I knew it not. My basket was empty and the flower remained unheeded.
Only now and again a sadness fell upon me, and I started up from my dream and felt a sweet trace of a strange fragrance in the south wind.
That vague sweetness made my heart ache with longing and it seemed to me that it was the eager breath of the summer seeking for its completion.
I knew not then that it was so near, that it was mine, and that this perfect sweetness had blossomed in the depth of my own heart.

28
Obstinate are the trammels, but my heart aches when I try to break them.
Freedom is all I want, but to hope for it I feel ashamed.
I am certain that priceless wealth is in thee, and that thou art my best friend, but I have not the heart to sweep away the tinsel that fills my room.
The shroud that covers me is a shroud of dust and death; I hate it, yet hug it in love.
My debts are large, my failures great, my shame secret and heavy, yet when I come to ask for my good, I quake in fear lest my prayer be granted.

29
He whom I enclose with my name is weeping in this dungeon. I am ever busy building this wall all around; and as this wall goes up into the sky day by day I lose sight of my true being in its dark shadow.
I take pride in this great wall, and I plaster it with dust and sand lest a least hole should be left in this name; and for all the care I take I lose sight of my true being.

35
Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high;
Where knowledge is free;
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments by narrow domestic walls;
Where words come out from the depth of truth;
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection;
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way into the dreary desert sand of dead habit;
Where the mind is led forward by thee into ever-widening thought and action -
Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.

37
I thought that my voyage had come to its end at the last limit of my power, - that the path before me was closed, that provisions were exhausted and the time come to take shelter in a silent obscurity.
But I find that thy will knows no end in me. And when old words die out on the tongue, new melodies break forth from the heart; and where the old tracks are lost, new country is revealed with its wonders.

85
When the warriors came out first from their master’s hall, where had they hid their power? Where were their armour and their arms?
They looked poor and helpless, and the arrows were showered upon them on the day they came out from their master’s hall.
When the warriors marched back again to their master’s hall where did they hide their power?
They had dropped the sword and dropped the bow and the arrow; peace was on their foreheads, and they had left the fruits of their life behind them on the day they marched back again to their master’s hall.

91
O thou the last fulfillment of life, Death, my death, come and whisper to me!
Day after day have I kept watch for thee; for thee have I borne the joys and pangs of life.
All that I am, that I have, that I hope and all my love have ever flowed towards thee in depth of secrecy. One final glance from thine eyes and my life will be ever thine own.
The flowers have been woven and the garland is ready for the bridegroom. After the wedding the bride shall leave her home and meet her lord alone in the solitude of night.

Source:
Tagore, Rabindranath. Gitanjali. London: Macmillan and Co., Ltd. 1913. Print.

Superheroes in Asia and America: Clawmarks made by Shivaji, X-Men's Wolverine, and Japanese Ninjas

First, an apology. I abandoned my blog. Honestly, when I was working on this post two months ago, I became insecure, and I have since fallen into doubt over being a writer, language learner, Asian culture enthusiast (not even a graduate student..), while starting on these first confused steps after my bachelor's degree. But I began an internship at Silk Screen Asian Arts and Culture Organization, and I realized that I still want to write.

A few months ago my partner introduced me to the story of Shivaji, a famous and legendary Maharashtrian hero and king in the seventeenth century. Shivaji was a warrior leader for Hindu people who rose against Muslim Mughal emperors and Bijapur sultans and ultimately became the sovereign ruler of a new and independent Hindu kingdom of Maratha. He has been romanticized as emblematic of the struggle between Muslim and Hindu powers - when in fact politics and cultures were more intertwined, and there was a political necessity to mark the new kindgom's independence - but more importantly, as a patriot for all of India, even an example of a leader in religious tolerance.

His life was full of action and adventure that's widely known and celebrated today,  full of raids and battles defying his more powerful enemies, escaping house arrest by deception and disguise, and other deeds done with great cunning.

In his first great act of defiance and heroism - which became the first known ballad of Marathi literature -and under the pretense of submission, Shivaji killed a Mughal general Afzal Khan - by stabbing him to death with metal claws.

Click for larger image

Shivaji met with Afzal Khan in a tent to agree to begrudgingly cease fighting and accept service as a vassal to the Muslim sultan Adil Shah. Afzal Khan purportedly moves to embrace him, then stabs him with his own concealed knife. But Shivaji, who had secretly worn chain mail, stabs Afzal Khan, and then beheads him with a sword. Shivaji's hidden men swarm in and overtake the army. It seems unclear which weapon killed Afzal Khan, but death or wounding by claws is widely accepted. My guess is that this is at least the most famous story of the bagh nakh, whether Khan died by the claws or the sword. It's still wicked awesome.

When my partner told me this story, I was naturally reminded of X-Men's Wolverine. But 300 years earlier, this was the first legendary and recorded use of the bagh nakh (बाघ नख / वाघ नख ' wagh nakh' in Marathi), "tiger claw" weapon. Unlike Wolverine, this weapon was worn with claws coming from under the palm, with two fingers through rings at the end, and sometimes with another blade attached on the side, according to the blog of a weapons enthusiast. It's easier to wield that way unless claws are part of your mutant skeletal structure enhanced by lab experiments.

Of course, Shivaji was not the inspiration for Wolverine. Wolverine was commissioned by the editors to writer Len Wein and art director John Romita Sr., together they were to create a character that makes a brief appearance in The Hulk series as a Canadian hero to be named after the native woodland wolverine - of which artist John Romita Sr. read described as a small, ferocious and catlike creature with claws - to create the basic inspiration. Wolverine wasn't intended to become so famous, but he evolved to be an icon for the concept of the dark, violent, and brooding Western antihero, independent of everyone and everything.

Coincidentally, Shivaji also had animal nicknames - "mountain rat" and "hell dog" to the enemy leaders he marauded, battled, and defeated (Laine 26). And although I haven't read of Shivaji being short in stature like Wolverine, the legends portrayed Afzal Khan as big and imposing in comparison. Shivaji's defeat of Khan was likened to the battle of Ram and Ravanna, the Hindu epic battle between god incarnate against a demon king.

I find it intriguing that people have thought of metallic animal claws as a sinister idea for a weapon in 17th century India, 20th century United States, and again in  for Japanese ninjas, who used them in a wider range of designs and purposes - small shuko claws and footspikes for climbing, nekode like metal fingernails for female ninjas, and larger tekagi-shuko for slashing and disarming.

 Yuriko Oyama - Lady Deathstryke

More than any Indian warrior type, samurai and ninja have crossed over to American popular culture. Wolverine himself takes ninja training in Japan (so does Batman), and there encounters Lady Deathstryke, who also has claws. And then there's Kill Bill, and America's anime subculture.

Also, Wolverine's time in Japan is going to be the plot for the upcoming X-Men movie! Fingers crossed that it's better than the other Wolverine movie... Fingers crossed really, really tight..




I find it ironic, though, that Japan and India today present themselves less as warrior cultures and more as peace-loving countries. They both wield great soft power (appealing political standing through cultural presentation) such as in romantic Bollywood and in more lighthearted anime. India has waded through centuries of bloodshed, having resisted and defeated oppression of the Mughal empire, the British empire.. As my charming Hindi professor put it, "India has been invaded for ... kind of forever." Even today India faces threats and acts of terrorism.

But it seems that India currently presents itself as a nation of peace, and Americans follow that idea a little more blindly. Popularly, when Americans think of India, they might think of Gandhi, yoga exclusively as a means of stress relief, and India itself as a place of expected spiritual renewal. Consider that even in this year's comic book-based film The Avengers, Bruce Banner, the Hulk, traveled to India not for warrior training, but to learn to find peace. The twist is that Bruce Banner "is angry all the time." (Yet, perhaps ironically, a lot of Indians also have an inner rage against their own national injustices, especially against the current threats of terrorism, and against political corruption.) I don't mean to say that there is a peaceful India or a violent India, but that it's important to recognize that there is a history full of exciting legends and true stories that we sometimes fail to recognize.

Many Indians were also miffed that Hollywood once again presents their country exclusively as a place of slums.

Japan has also waded through centuries of bloodshed, historically. Since World War II, Japan also presents itself as a nation of peace. Today Japan advertises cute kawaii culture - Pikachu and pop stars - and world peace devoid of nuclear warfare. Japan and India want to be seen as peaceful countries, but there's also pride in the fact that both have had inspiring tales in history and classical literature that are really just as intense, violent, and heroic as comic books and movies today, and we can always take inspiration from these. And these countries have their own comic book cultures: Indians have comics with stories of Hindu gods and heroes, and Japan has produced an incredible wealth of  manga and anime. These rich histories and literatures, and the subsequent crossculturalism of comics and films will fuel imagination for the future of crosscultural entertainment - and maybe to ask differently what it means to be a hero, and what it means to save the world.

Sources:

Laine, James W. Shivaji: Hindu King in Islamic India. New York: Oxford University Press, Inc., 2003. Print.

LoCicero, Donald. Superheroes and Gods: A Comparative Study from Babylonia to Batman. McFarland & Co., 2008. Print.

Lovece, Frank. "Wolverine Origins: Marvel artists recall the creation of an icon." Film Journal International. Film Journal International, 24/04/2009. Web. Jun. 2012.

Misiroglu, Gina, and David A. Roach. The Superhero Book: The Ultimate Encyclopedia of Comic Book Icons and Hollywood Heroes. Visible Ink Press, 2004. 624-626. Web. Jun. 2012.

"Shivaji." Encyclopaedia Britannica. Encyclopaedia Britannica Online Academic Edition. Encyclopaedia Britannica Inc. 2012. Web 21 Jun. 2012.<http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/546953/Shivaji>.

Tharoor, Shashi. 2009, November. Shashi Tharoor: Why nations should pursue soft power. [Video file] Retrieved from http://www.ted.com/talks/shashi_tharoor.html

http://thedarkblade.wordpress.com/2007/08/02/the-truth-about-cats-and-tigers/

Tazo Hindi is Not My Cup of Tea

This box of Tazo Chai drives me crazy. I do like Tazo's "Zen" green tea, and this "Chai" isn't bad either. But in some aspects, this brand is not as authentic as it advertises itself to be. The writing on this box was written by someone or some people who didn't know Hindi (that's OK, only about 180 million do), but, what's worse, didn't check the homework. I appreciate the outreach towards Eastern cultures, but the mistakes on this box are kind of silly.

First of all, chai is the Hindi word for "tea" (चाय), which makes "chai tea" sound kind of funny to its speakers. However, Chai does seem to have distinctive core ingredients such as ginger, cinnamon, and cardamom, among others. So it is a kind of specialty, special tea.

That being said, what irks me is in this description on the side of the box:

"DID YOU KNOW?
Chai has long been served by tea wallahs to travelers along the trade routes of the Himalayas..." 

TAZO, DID YOU KNOW "wallah" is just a suffix?

Yes, a man who sells tea is a "chayawala"* (चायवाला). This literally means, this only means "the one with the tea". "-Wala"( or "-vala", as v and w are the same letter in Hindi) is a suffix that roughly means "the one that (has)". In the same way "konewala" (कोनेवाला) means "the one in the corner", and "aanevala" (आनेवाला) means "the one coming". It can be attached to nouns, adjectives, adverbs, or verbs. It's not a specific title - it's what you add to a word to make something more specific.

And yet this TAZO box advertises "wallah" as a specific title! They even use this in a second description on another side of the box:

"TAZO CHAI is nothing if not wondrous in its ability to gather flavors of Asia, Africa and Central America to be served in a tradition born of chai wallahs in the shadow of Mt. Everest. Who knew? (Most likely the wallahs did. They always do.)"
Again. "-Wala" is not specific enough by itself. "Kaunsa vala?" - "What kind of one?" Even "chayavala" sounds more generic than mystical.

The problem is that mistakes in translation used like this might echo that ignorant Western attribution of mysticism and exoticism towards Indian culture - "Orientalism". It's good to inspire Western consumers with curiosity and an interest in Eastern cultures. It's good to appreciate that something you bought came from a very different place. I think Tazo means to inspire that appreciation, which is commendable. But I feel that there is a potential bad joke in the mistakes. This could have been corrected if only someone was considerate enough to consult someone who actually spoke the language, before they sold it in the mass market.

And as if to add insult to injury, there's Hindi letters on the box lid that also don't make sense. There is a vertical list (Hindi's Devanagari script is not usually read vertically anyway..) of vowels which literally reads as: "ii, -ii, u, -u, uu, ru".  These are only a few of the vowels (why not add "a", "e", or "o"?) and has no apparent meaning except to "look exotic". I find this frustrating, enough to rant about it on Blogger.

My father says we live in a world where you can't get away with mistakes in translation so easily anymore - there are so many people around the world who speak multiple languages, and we are more able to easily contact each other across the world. My partner also made a point that perhaps in the days of the East and West India Companies, earlier times of global trade, merchants were more responsible to have direct and personal relationships with their providers and consumers - after all, there was no Google Translate. And yet aren't we more responsible now than ever before to understand each others' languages - or at least to find someone else who does?


*I am not spelling these romanized Hindi words with textbook accuracy, but for basic understanding. My textbook would tell you that the words are spelled "chaayavaalaa", "konevaalaa, and aanevaalaa" (that vertical line you see signifies a long "a" sound), but I think it's distracting from my argument. What's more, my Indian friends probably wouldn't casually spell it "chaayavaalaa" either. I learned from them to be more relaxed about romanized Hindi.

First Hindi Song I Heard

This was the first Indian song I ever heard. It was actually performed at Calvin College's Rangeela event when I was in middle school. At that time I tried to burn the song into my memory, because I liked it and I was afraid I would never be able to find the foreign song again. But memory faded quickly, and for at least 7 years all I could remember was a chorus of "dola re dola re dola re dola.." Who could have predicted that since then I would not only find the song, but through Indian friends and classes I would come to understand the Hindi lyrics? And who could have guessed that two Michigan friends would be dancing in future Rangeela events? If none of this could be predicted in those years, then who can say how much further we'll go in the future experiencing what we never thought we'd find..