Do you practice religion?
Religion is what connects humanity to spirituality. And for me, spirituality was defined by what my Mum practiced when we lived with her. Big festivals. MS Subbulakshmi playing loudly. Early morning baths. Lots of sweets and even more food. Mum loved festivals. As a practicing Hindu, she celebrated most festivals and towards the end even adopted a few new ones. She was tolerant. We used to celebrate all Hindu festivals, eat biryani during Eid, get cakes, go caroling in school, and visit the church for Christmas as well. The one festival she spent a lot of time and effort on, was Dushera. The practice was tedious and Mum loved it.
Dashera is a ten-day festival celebrated by Hindus in India. In South India, women will keep a display of gods, known as Golu Padi, and Mum had the ten avatars of Lord Ram on display. Traditionally, in the south it was a celebration of the goddesses, and the highlight were the Marupachi bommais that are gifted to a newly wed couple by their in-laws. Along with this is a display of a garden, where Mum would sow seeds of Ragi in a thin layer of soil on a tray, and as it sprouted and grew, she would use our toys and kitchen sets to make it an alluring garden or play space for kids. Every year, a couple of weeks before Dashera, Mum would walk through the markets to see what new dolls were created and would update or add one new doll. Mum’s collection were likenesses of one of the avatars of Lord Ram. Dushera in the north was celebrated as the victory of good over evil, of Lord Ram fighting and defeating Ravana. Every morning, Mum lit a lamp and moved all the Gods to their correct positions. Then she would have a bath, do the puja, and distribute prasadam. In the evening friends, relatives, and neighbors would visit us to see the set up. This would be followed by a song recital by the guests in honour of the displayed gods and this would be followed by tamboolam, where Mum would give the guests a plate with a coconut, beetlenut and leaf, banana, flower, coin, prasadam, and blouse piece. The tamboolam was prepared and placed on the plate with some turmeric and kumkum, the guest took the gift bags, applied the turmeric and kumkum, and then left. She finished with the evening arti and prayers, moved the Gods an inch off their positions, and would then switch off the lights, all after the guests departed. This was the practice she followed for the ten days the Gods were on display. For these ten days, the room the display was placed in, was considered the Puja room and you could not enter the space if you had your periods. The best day of this ten-day festival is the day we worship Goddess Saraswathi, the goddess of education. This was the only day Mum did not give us any homework, she would make us keep our notebooks in front of the display and we were allowed to play the entire day. Of course, the following day was the day of worshipping our instruments and Mum used to make up for a day of no studying with a day full of studying. Apart from wiping down all instruments and riding over lime to ward off evil, this last day was mentally exhausting for the amount we had to accomplish. A ten-day festival, with ten different avatars and different stories related to their creation. This was an amazing way to listen to the stories of Indian Mythology. You had an idol you could use as a reference and not struggle with creating an imaginary likeness.
Religious beliefs sometimes are traditions passed through generations of practice. Celebrating Dashera this way was practiced in Mum’s family. When I got married, I found that my MIL had a more practical approach to celebrations. They were less austere and revolved more around the family consensus. I have seen Mum practice these rituals, she used to be exhausted by the time she was done. And she did everything that was required to be done, Dad merely came and sat at the appropriate times and then left. Mum was a little more conservative in her approach. Mum-in-law just whittled it down completely. She believed that you did what you could when you could. It was based on your comfort level and sized down or boosted as per the number of people in the house. She insisted on being practical and reducing wastage. While Mum celebrated all festivals the same way, MIL only had a couple of festivals she celebrated. For Mum, there was Dashera, Deepavali, Lakshmi Puja, Ganesh Chaturthi, Karthikai, and Pongal, and she loved the fanfare and loved cooking for us all. Snacks, the big plantain leaf meal, the new clothes, the prasadam every day, crackers during Deepavali, sugarcanes during Pongal, the variety of sweets during Ganesh Chaturthi, all of these were expenses she added to her budget every year. She did her best, but they were all exhausting and centered around one person completing a series of tasks. MIL, on the other hand, did the basics and insisted on keeping it simple and practical. She loved to cook as well, but she never restricted her cooking to festivals, she believed that you enjoyed a meal when you had the time. Even if it wasn’t a festival.
Towards the end, Mum’s spirituality was sometimes defined by the loud bhajans she used to blast on the music system or the many temple trips she took randomly. Her visit to a new destination introduced a new set of practices around the house, new rituals she happily incorporated into her already austere traditions. Faith and worship, belief systems, devotion. Growing up I have seen versions of these words practiced and the one thing I did not understand then was the numerous arguments that crop up when you get into discussions of belief and practice. For me, religion – that unique human-spiritual connection – is acceptance- that there can be versions, differing beliefs, a variety of practices, and many unique ways to achieve the same goal. As a student at a Christian missionary college, Mum has visited churches quite a few times. And a couple of years before she passed away, she made the effort to visit a mosque. She came back in awe. I saw a different Mum. Acceptance. Now I saw her as a woman who accepted her spirituality and that of others with equanimity.
Humans are unique. Our beliefs are influenced based on our experiences in life. Religion, or the human-spiritual connection, should be the reason to bind, not the reason to break away.
“In every religion there is love, yet love has no religion”
Rumi
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