Rising

 Today is Pongal!

"Pongal-o Pongal!", as one would say in India! Or "Happy Bungle" as my coworkers awkwardly greeted me with contorted expressions as they tried to pronounce the word. 

While the name itself, "Pongal", refers to the festival celebrated by Tamils, people all over India celebrate this day with different names: Sankranti, Makar Sankranti, Maghi, Magh Bihu, Lohri, Khichdi, Shishur Saenkraat, etc.

"Pongal", is rooted in the Tamil word "to boil", or "to rise", which is the reason the festival is celebrated throughout India.  Uttarayan, or the northern movement of the sun, is what is celebrated during this festival...and it is no coincidence that it falls so soon after the winter solstice.  This harvest festival is the first occasion after the days begin to grow longer, the nights grow shorter, and there is more Vitamin D-giving sun.

Pongal is celebrated with many foods and traditions that depict this rising.  The common dish, "Pongal" itself, is made from boiling milk, sugar, and rice.  Homes are filled with pots overflowing with grain.  Kids wake up early to fly their kites in the air.  Many families even stand outside in the morning silently...taking in the wonder of the sun rising over the horizon (or the wonder of the earth turning towards the sun, for those literalists).

This "rising" vs. "falling" metaphor is a common theme in all religions.  You have the dichotomy of "fallen angels" vs. "Christ arisen".  You have the "Ushnisha" of Buddha, where the top of his head literally rose, forming a bulge, when he attained enlightenment.  We associate the rising of the elements as a symbol of spiritual rising and attainment.

Pongal fell (or I guess "arose") during a very interesting time.  A very interesting point of my life.  If I could bring together the feelings I've had these past few years into a few words, it wouldn't be "spiritual rising"...it would be "complete anger".  Not just irritation, but a pure, blinding, white-hot, wrath.  The type of anger that makes you spill your coffee, only because you were holding your thermos too tightly.  The type of anger that makes you get up three times in the night to drink that expensive Kave tea that promised to soothe even Lord Voldermort's soul.  The type of anger that makes you perfectly in place with other Floridian drivers.  Kali-ma style anger.



Oh yeah.  Indiana Jones-style Kali-Ma anger.

As a digression: I won't lie how much I enjoy that movie. I even love the Kali-Ma scenes, the stereotypical nondescript Asian boy yelling "Doctor Jones", and large boulders bouncing through small cavern passages. But Kali, although depicted in Hindu scriptures as wrathfully avenging injustices done to innocent women, children, and elderly people, isn't a goddess of anger.  My dad understood that.

My dad has been a venting outlet for me recently.  I guess he realized during my constant conversations about how "pissed off I was", that I was going over "the edge". He told me to take a few deep breaths, go to bed, wake up early, and read a prayer to the Mother: "Bhavani Ashtakam", he recommended. I awoke, already angry as my head swirled with nightmares of various scenarios that had already occurred while I was awake.

I was unsure how the Bhavani Ashtakam would help me.  It was not a familiar prayer, but I had always heard it recited in almost a battle-chant style.  How does such a fierce prayer release a soul from anger? I think I was better off with the Kave tea.


I hadn't completed the first verse of the stotram when I began to cry.  The words, although in the ancient language of Sanskrit, are easy to understand for most Hindus.  The first stotram is translated as:


No father, nor mother. No friend, nor relation. Neither son, nor daughter.  No husband, no wife, no knowledge, no way of life, do I depend upon.  Dependeth I, Dependeth I, Dependeth I on you Mother.

Doesn't the desperation of this writer hold the root of all anger? Is that not the feeling of helplessness? Feeling like you are trapped in an unrequited love, an unfair world, an unappreciative job, an uncaring family...an unwanted life?  Where every path you turn onto for comfort is prefaced with the word "no?"

As I was half-crying, I could only help but laugh at how pathetic of an Indiana Jones extra I would have been.

Casting Director: "Where's the guy who is supposed to be tearing hearts out of live chests?"
Other Extra: "Oh he's crying about the meaning of life again."


I'm not as cutout for "white-hot, blood-thirsty, hate", I guess.

I remember when I was young, my mother would recite another prayer to the same deity: The Mahishasura Mardhani Stotram.  I loved the way the song sounded, but the Sanskrit words were too hard for a young kid to pronounce or memorize.  There was only one verse that I could ever follow along with, since the words were so repetitive.

"Suratha Samadhi samana Samadhi,
Samadhi Samadhi sujatharathe,
Jaya Jaya hey Mahishasura mardini ,
Ramya kapardini, shaila Suthe."

Hail to you, my goddess, She who is pleased by the "Samaadhi" of the great ones.

 I'm guessing that my mom smiled because if there was only one word I could pronounce from the entire prayer, she was happy that it was "Samadhi".

A word that means peace.  A word that means the coming together of people. A word that could describe the enlightenment that Buddha felt as his head "rose".  A term that Indian Christians use to describe a place where martyrs are laid to rest, and where Christ arose from the dead.  A word that inspires souls to..."Pongal".

<<to be continued...>>