DailyOh! How Assam’s Ambubachi Mela ‘celebrates’ periods, to story of Mogambo Khush Hua
With the coronavirus spreading rapidly inside the country and Chinese forces at the borders of the country, doomsday could appear near, but the exact date set for doomsday has passed and we have survived this round too. After prophesying that the world would come to an end on December 21, 2012, the Mayan calendar rescheduled the due date to June 21, 2020. Now, both dates are behind us and we are looking ahead.
In the process of looking ahead, the annual Ambubachi Mela began today at Kamakhya temple in Guwahati. The mela is being held without the usual mele wali bheed. What is a mela without its bheed (crowds)? A tradition that must go on till the bheed can return. So, this year the rituals that are performed inside the temple would be performed but there would be no fair and fanfare. With all entrances to the temple shut, the rituals would happen on June 25.
The Ambubachi Mela is the celebration of the annual menstruation of Maa Kamakhya. For women, menstruation is a monthly thing but then maybe with goddesses it’s different. The annual menstruation course of Maa Kamakhya is celebrated during the monsoon season that falls during the Assamese month of Ahaar. Assamese Ahaar coincides with the Roman mid-June period. This is the time when the sun is believed to transit to the zodiac of Mithuna and the Brahmaputra river is in spate. Maa Kamakhya, who is believed to be the Maa of goddess Shakti, along with all her believers, is not worshipped for three days when she is believed to be in the course of her periods.
The temple doors remain locked for those three days. During these three days, the devotees enjoy the fair but can’t enter the temple. On the fourth day, the devi is bathed and temple doors opened. This year too, temple doors will close and open like they did every year. But the devotees would be missing.
Even as the mela has kicked off in Northeast, the eastern state of Odisha will see the historic Lord Jagannath’s Rath Yatra commence tomorrow in Puri. This again without devotees. The Supreme Court had earlier said that Lord Jagannath wouldn’t “forgive us if we allowed the yatra”. Then the state government told the Supreme Court it can hold the yatra. The court has told the government to hold the yatra while remembering that holding the spread of the virus is paramount.
People would still be needed to push the rath so that Lord Jagannath, his brother Lord Balabhadra and younger sister Devi Subhadra can all go visit their aunt’s home (Mausi Maa temple). They stay there for a week and then return to the Jagannath temple in Puri every year. That yatra is called ‘Ulto Rath Yatra’.
You can’t return if you haven’t reached. And we all know how bad staying in has felt. The only problem with helping Lord Jagannath reach his aunt’s home for a week-long break is that a lot of people would be required to push and pull the rath even if those who gather just to watch people push and pull aren’t allowed to stand and watch.
People coming in contact with people or things touched by people are dangerous in the times of corona. In Odisha’s Jharsuguda, one woman alone spread the virus to 17 others. All 17 attended a birthday party and a wedding anniversary celebration over the last two weeks, in which a Covid-19 positive woman also took part.
Now, imagine if even one of the people who gather at the Rath Yatra is positive. We don’t mean to scare you; the virus has overtaken that job. We regret to inform it has been doing fairly well at it. Over 13,000 people in India have died due to the virus as the number of positive cases has surged to over 4,30,000. Some 2,37,000 have also recovered but that is no excuse to not practice social distancing. There is no better and cheaper Covid-19 cure than prevention. Remember, the virus is a high achiever and yet not done achieving. Our sickness is its triumph.
But one man is done achieving – The Undertaker. World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) star The Undertaker, aka Mark Calaway, has announced his retirement after claiming he has "nothing left to accomplish" in the ring.
You may have seen The Undertaker land fellow wrestlers on the ground in the ring holding them by their throats after raising them high in the air with loud thuds, you may have seen him bleeding and making others bleed in the ring and outside, but do you know what the man did when he hadn’t entered the ‘bloodbath business’?
Mark Calaway was a solid athlete. Standing at 6 ft 10 in, he spent a couple of years playing basket at a college in Texas. From there, he headed to Texas Wesleyan for the 1985-86 basketball season with the Rams of TWU.
It was here that he found a career option in wrestling. The 55-year-old made the announcement in the last episode of The Last Ride, his documentary series. Where he goes from here remains to be seen.
But Sonam Kapoor is going all out on Twitter scoring some self-goals. Anil Kapoor’s daughter had been facing heat being a star kid, so Sonam decided to own up to her privileges and wear it all on her sleeve. Yesterday being Father’s Day, Sonam decided to credit her father for what he has done for her and then went on to credit her karma for being deserving of having Anil Kapoor as her father.
Karma, our Word Of The Day, finds its root in the Sanskrit word karman where it means action, effect, ‘fate’. To say that a privileged person was born privileged because of her karman implies that a less privileged or marginalised person was born so because of her karman.
In Bhagvad Gita, Krishna implores Arjun to perform his karma and not bother about 'its phal'.
Karmanye Vadhikaraste
Ma phaleshou kada chana
(You have a right to perform your prescribed duty
But you are not entitled to the fruits of actions.)
But the belief is good karma gets you good fruits, bad karma bad ones. What is a bad fruit? Maybe the rotten one.
Indian caste system is modelled and justified around the same illogical logic. One theory says there are 84 lakh yonis into which one can be born. Being human (no advertising intended) is considered being on top of the yoni system. Within humans then, Brahmins were considered on top of the system. Shudras, you know, were considered at the bottom. Those on top justified keeping others at the bottom by calling it a result of their karma.
So the oppressor oppressed because the oppressed ‘deserved’ to be oppressed while the oppressor had some good ‘karma credit’ so she was well within her rights to do so. Sonam Kapoor feels she has good karma credit, so she should not be called out for being stupid. That argument is low on logic. But those who think calling out can involve a free use of abuses and profanities are low on IQ too. Twitter has a policy to serve instant justice for this sort of ‘karma’. As for who is born in which yoni, we say, the question is out of syllabus.
But talking about birth, actor Amrish Puri was born on this date in 1932. He passed away on January 12 in 2005, but his work lives on. Part of his work is the dialogue he delivered, “Mogambo khush hua.” Puri delivered it but who wrote it? That question we would say is within the syllabus.
Director Shekhar Kapoor has entrusted writer Javed Akhtar with the task of developing Mogambo’s character in Mr India (1987). One day Kapoor reached Akhtar and asked about the progress made. To this Akhtar said, “Mogambo khush hua.” Together Kapoor and Akhtar had zeroed in on Puri’s name to play Mogambo.
Mogambo's khushi was short-lived as he loses at the hands of Mr India but all of it left the audience happy. Was that Mogambo's karma? Who knows.
That will be all for today.
Stay happy and stay safe!
We will see you tomorrow.
Also read: Why Sushant Singh Rajput's death is a wake-up call for Bollywood