I was born into a religiously liberal family. Let me explain: We were religious because we followed all the festivals that were applicable to our culture and community. We did this with as much sincerity as we could. Our family had a working father, a homemaker mother, and two kids. Liberal because we chose the festivals we wanted to celebrate with both cultural outwardness and ceremonial grandeur. Some were meant for us alone and some would involve a great deal of social interaction. I imagine that’s how most middle-class families function that are running a tightrope of time v money. Limited time and limited money means you pick and chose where you want to spend how much.
I grew up in the 80’s and early 90’s in a Savarna family. Our predominantly Telugu culture was deeply influenced by decades of generational settlement in Karnataka. I remember celebrating Sankranti, Ugadi, Gowri-Ganesha, Navaratri, and Deepavali with pomp and splendour. This meant you were in for a feast and a siesta. There was also social mingling with new clothes. Meanwhile, the elders performed the rituals at home (in the puja room). The eldest patriarch in the family, who had knowledge about the rituals, would lead the ceremony. It could also be led by a professional priest (shastrigaLu in Kannada). Or to the sound of a cassette player or (as technology progressed) a YouTube video with detailed instructions. We could go to a puja samagri angadi (a shop meant solely for provisions that are used in such rituals) and get whatever we wanted by saying ‘Ganesha habbada puje ge samagri beku’ (we need the provisions for performing Ganesha puja) and it would be handed to us in a pre-packed flimsy plastic bag (Not green, I know. Wait till you read about the visarjane!).
We weren’t allowed to eat until the rituals were done. The Gods were offered the food first. The women of the family prepared a gajillion items. My mother did this singlehandedly in my house. They began the preparation a few days ago, from planning groceries for the month to meal prep. They even got the new stainless plates down from their carefully paper packed and dry attic. The breakfast was meant for mortals – so we could eat it before the Gods were invoked. So you would have to get up early, take a head bath (go figure what that means!), and wear your home clothes first to have breakfast. Then you waited for the puje to be performed. You could wait in the house itself or you could go out and play as you were too young to feature in the sacrosanct puje. You couldn’t touch a million things or you had to use your right hand alone in the event it was worthy of human touch, you had to stand/ sit facing a certain direction, so on and so forth. So, children were better off playing while the elders pleased the Gods as per the centuries old prescription.
The elaborate nature of the puje is again a choice left to the peformer (male patriarch). Usually the more elaborate process is followed by the more religious and they share a linear downward relationship meaning less elaborate means less religious. You get the ‘drift’! My guess is that we were somewhere in the middle. As the rituals would start after breakfast and end well before lunch so that we could all eat together at once. I didn’t know at that time, but now when I look back at it I think we managed the balance of tradition and tummy pretty well. I would always look forward to the food that was made to be consumed. The love for food hasn’t changed and it shows.
The food was pure vegetarian (I am tempted to write High Class Pure Veg but I shall resist). In fact on festival days it would be cooked without the presence of onion and garlic in them. Those two were considered tamasic in nature [Link]. You could have them on other days – it was okay. But not on festivals and ocassions. Even some vegetables like Brinjal were considered tamasic. This was something we saw on a daily basis. Never thought too much about it because we got such great quality and tasty food at home that it never even occurred to wonder if there was better food elsewhere.
Apart from food, there was a very personal but prominent daily aspect to religion apart from the celebrations. As soon as we got up, we had a shloka to recite thanking Gods. Then once we took bath and got ready in our school uniforms, we had to prostrate before the Gods in the Puja room before breakfast. After a certain age, when the upanayana was done, we had to do our sandhyavandhane [Link] twice – once in the morning before breakfast and once in the evening before dinner. Followed this book. I did that for 3 years, every day, under the guidance of my paternal grandfather. This also brought in the concept of parisanchane [Link if you want to know more about this] before meals. Then, once we were back from school, after studies and dinner, we would recite the Vishnu Sahasranama. We did this as a family along with a casette player of MS Subbalakshmi amma’s version [YouTube] playing. In fact, I still remember this would start for some reason with Rajaji [C. Rajagopalachari] explaining the importance of Bhaja Govindam starting with the words “Adi Shankaracharya wrote a number of vedantic verses…” [YouTube starts from 0:32] and goes on to explain how knowledge (gnana) and devotion (bhakti) are one and the same. We used to listen to this everyday in silence and then begin our recital with the help of a small book which had the entire Vishnu Sahasranama in a small palm-sized landscape aligned book. After the recital and before going to sleep we would recite another shloka, mainly to Lord Rama, which relieved us from the impact of bad dreams. In fact, if we happened to wake up in the middle of the night we would be asked to say this shloka again and then sleep peacefully.
Around me, I saw a lot of my family members practice a lot of other religious practices. My father used to read the Ramayana daily before sleeping. Atleast a page of it. My paternal grandmother would write “hare rama hare krishna rama rama hare hare” in kannada (if i remember right) continuously in a book. And her house was filled with books where she had written this infinite number of times. I think my mother completed all her rituals before I was even woken up. My maternal grandfather had saligramas that he would wash daily along with giving a bath to all the idols. And he would do a elaborate puje at the end of which we would all be called for the mangalarathi [Link]. I was usually the bell ringer for this ritual.
Then, there was the spiritual side to this. The philosophies of Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa, Swami Vivekananda, Ramana Maharishi and a few others were quite tangible felt in the house beyond just calendars and books. My parents would go to the Ramakrishna Ashram every Sunday to listen to the evening 5.30PM to 6.30PM discourse by the local Swamiji of whichever city we were in. I have tried to read the thick and fat books that used to be in our book shelves and wondered what they were talking about. Specifically remember M being the author and him writing about his experiences as a close follower of Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa. And such detailed answers to the daily queries of the devotees by Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa. Most of the details would go over my head but they also made sense at some vague level. I know that is contradictory but there is no other way of putting it. The dichotomy of this nature would be solved only much later in my life.
It was the first 15 to 17 years of my life and I was steeped in religion without my knowledge. It just seemed so natural. A way of life, if you will. No specific disregard or contempt to other ways of lives but this one was what we had been living and it was evident to me through the generations I saw – from my great grandfather to my parents and friends around me – that religion was culture and vice-versa was obviously true as well.
At 18, I left home. I went to live in a hostel for my engineering course. I stayed at Bettadapura Sankethi Sangha Hostel [Google maps link] during my first year. This was a community hostel where we had people from similar ritualistic backgrounds differentiated in flavour by our geographic origins. I made two friends who were again from the similar but geographically differentiated background. We remain close friends till date despite evolving in our own thought processes significantly. However, unbeknownst to me I was in a sort of a very large Groupthink [Link].
Will write about 18-26 in the next post. Keep watching this space for more.