Trip Back Home

Some people don't know the first thing about fashion. But I have converted this weakness into strength. No, not by taking time to learn about five different ways to tie a tie knot. I am not an 18th century butler. But by taking pride in what I don't know and labeling everybody who does as vapid and superficial. Yeah, I know, they laugh behind my back. But at least they don't do so at my face. Believe me, there is no one as intimidating as a shabbily dressed pseudo-intellectual.

But why do we take so much interest in fashion? As babies we are used to adoration, but as we grow up compliments become more and more difficult to come by. You walk into a party and people come to you and say - "Hey! Nice tie!" – and you know that’s the highest compliment you are going to get for the week. It’s a bit different for women though; they ignore everything and compliment each other's shoes. (Gosh! What is with women and shoes? Who cares about shoes?) That's what you want - compliments. You know there is no other way to get it. No matter what you do no-one will walk up to you and say - "Hey! Nice person" or "Hey! You are so humble and kind" - until you are dead. Once you are dead, you are made for life. But while living, as Seinfeld says - it’s much easier to be a bastard and match the colors well.

But you know who loves fashion? Women. So I go back home after a long, long time and as usual my sis & mom took me out to shopping (them shopping me watching them shop). Now don't get me wrong - I love them. But you would need the patience of a rock to go out shopping with some people. I don’t mind the six hour marathon walking, or the constant questioning whether something looks good on her, or whether something looks good on her with something else, or the endless discussions about whether the price is right. What I mind is the fact that for all their enthusiasm, they don’t seem to buy much. For some reason that’s very disconcerting to me. Some time back I made the big mistake of buying my mom a saree (bye bye bucks down the drain), so this time I took herself. It was like buying the ticket to a very bad and very long horror movie. I had tea, I had a nap. I wake up and all the shelves are half empty, sarees are haphazardly spread about on the tables and the floor and yes - all the mannequins had been stripped down. Three tired staffers, one exasperated owner and about two hours later, we walked unashamedly empty handed out of the store.
M: “There was nothing good in there." 
S: "Yaa they have no sense of latest style." (from the 70s)
M: "And it was all very expensive."
S: "A daylight robbery!" (It sure looked like the shop was being robbed.)
M: "Nobody is taking my son's money just like that!” 
S: "I have the best mom!" (Wait a minute, how did she assume I would buy?)

Another thing I do only at home - watching TV. I am really not used to seeing ads. I watch pirated downloads with no ads, and I have long since lost the patience that honesty requires. But I can see that I am missing so much. Ads really tell us so much about our society. Like the concept of a good husband. Now in all these ads - the boyfriend is never shaved; his hair looks like he hasn't showered for days. And he is always, always wearing a shirt over a t-shirt! But the husband. Ah! The husband. He is clean shaven. No, he looks like he never had facial hair in the first place. (In college we used to call such guys as "juice" and the best looking "juice" in the campus was given the Miss IIT crown. Yes our Miss IIT was a guy – ha ha big surprise). Coming back to the husband, one more important thing - he is always always fairer than the wife. That's the dream Indian husband.

But do you know who the best husband is? The pain relief balm guy. Yes, Zandu Balm or Iodex or MOOV or what have you. Now, this guy is usually just sitting around pretending to read a newspaper even as his wife is fighting fire - preparing two kids for school, cooking Tiffin as well as attending to her in-laws' wishes. The kids are late for school, the cooker is whistling urgently in the background, the mother-in-law is coughing her throat out but this guy is just sitting on his ass - he has found inner peace. Like Buddha. But as soon as the wife breaks down with a back-ache and lets out a loud - "aaah", he does not wait for a second in picking her up and rubbing MOOV on her surprisingly thin waist. A couple of minutes later the dutiful wife is "fixed" back to work, and the husband is back to reading his paper. 

And what is up with the soap ads? Seriously, it looks like soaps have everything except - well, SOAP! First they show this stream of milk flowing in, it has almonds, cashews and walnuts, then there is a second stream of honey flowing in and then rose petals too. Then come the models - it doesn't look like they need the soap anyway - with perfectly made up hair even in the tub, seductively rubbing all this tasty stuff all over her body. After a minute or so I don't know whether I am hungrier or hornier!

You see...

So what does Veda mean. No, screw the philosophy, what does the word Veda mean? "Ved-a" in Sanskrit means "I see" or "I know". The root word here is vid - "to see" or "vision". Yes vision has also been derived from vid, as have been the English word wise and German wissen "to know". The common word vidya or "what is to be known", has also been derived from vid. The word video which also deals with seeing, is also a very famous derivative. Why do I believe that the Mahabharata is a made up story? Its all in the names - they are just so appropriate. Dhritirashtra, the blind king of Hastinapur, was so "blind" in the love of his sons, that he lost all sense of justice, even turning a blind eye when his sons disrobed Draupadi in his presence and in full court during the Game of Dice. In the story, he was advised by Vidura, his dutiful half-brother, who basically managed his empire and was the only voice of reason in his court. The name Vidura is also derived from vid, and means "knowledgable" or the one who can see. Vidura's sage advice is lost on Dhritirashtra. Dhritirashtra's blindness is a metaphor for his lack of moral compass. He is being urged in the right direction (albeit unsuccessfully) by a person named Vidur? I am sorry, but such beautiful metaphors happen only in stories (and in Gulzar's poetry).

But in the Mahabharata, Arjun is the dude. He is Indra's son (king of Devas), the lead archer (very fashionable), the 3rd of the 5 Pandavas (neither too old nor too young), the best friend of Krishna (well connected), the favourite disciple of Drona, and Draupadi's true love (that is revealed later). Shiva gave his bow to him, Krishna gave up his vow for him. He is the debonair prince who has young princesses across the Arya-varta swooning over him as he travels for forging pre-war alliances, he is the brave warrior who once fended off the entire Kaurava army single handedly. Vyas makes it very clear - he is the Man. No, quite literally. He is the Nar (Man), to Krishna's Narayana act (see here). He is the knight in shining armor. No, quite literally. In Sanskrit, arjun means "white, shiny". It also means silver. The modern scientific name for silver is Argentum, a Latin word derived from the Sanskrit arjun.

The Krishna of Bhagvat Purana and that of Bhagavad Geeta are two very different characters, almost as if he has dissociative identity disorder. The Krishna of Gokul and Vrindavan is a fun loving chilled out lad who spends his days playing with his flute and his nights playing with the girls - Raasleela, yes that is the word! As a kid he steals maakhan (milk cream) from his neighbors and then tells his mother that her friends themselves applied the cream on his lips to frame him. As he grows up he gets some sense. He now steals girls' clothes as they bathe in the pond, telling them it is a punishment for bathing totally naked. The entire Bhagvat Purana is a picture of Krishna's indulgence. Never before, or after, in any religion, was God portrayed as so "human". From there he suddenly comes into the main story line of Mahabharata, as a shrewd politician, a masterful strategist, the maker of kings and the destroyer of dynasties, who with his Machiavellian moves runs the entire nation into a head-on, bloody civil war. The story of this transformation is rather short and very tender. Akroor, a Yadava chief comes to Vrindavan to urge Krishna to leave his playground and deal with his evil uncle Kansa, the king of Mathura. As the Gopis (Krishna's many many girlfriends) come to know about it, they attack him the way women do - a big guilt trip, accusing him of using Krishna to fulfill his own political ends, of being heartless, insensitive, very cruel. He is painted as Kansa's ally, who was taking Krishna to Mathura only to get him killed. As Krishna's chariot drives out of the village, it leaves in its wake a swarm of love-lorn Gopis bare foot, stumbling, crying out to Krishna. Akroor is the person who tears apart that picture of Radha-Krishna in Vrindavan. But Vyas elaborates this character by his name. The word cruel came to English from Old French, where it came from Latin crudus which in turn comes from Sanskrit kroor. A-kroor, then, means one who is not cruel. Tell me that's coincidence!