Rahu, Eclipses, Lord Anjaneya and my Hindi teacher

Today I bumped into my 'once upon a time Hindi teacher' in a nearby Supermarket. She asked me if I had read the lesson about Eclipses that she'd taught during the previous week(as part of my Rashtrabasha Hindi exam).

Jolting from my bed, I woke up to realise it was just a dream probably culminating from my reading about the 3 Solar Eclipses, the 2nd of which would happen later this month. The Hindi teacher being a muslim lady, whose name I do not even remember today, could not continue teaching us after that since we were growing up to be bigger boys then (due to her cultural reasons). But I had not forgotten some of her teaching and so decided to pen down something about Eclipses that I learnt years back.

Once the Gods and Demons (aka Asuras) decided to join together and extract Amruta or the Divine nectar, which could supposedly give immortality to whoever consuming it. They decide to use a large mountain called Mandara and churn the sea to extract it. All the while, the Gods were conspicuous of not letting the Demons have access to Amruta. However, contrary to their intentions, it ends up with the Demons.

The Gods realising that the Demons with the power to immortality will not only compromise the power of Gods but also spell doom to everyone decide to confront Lord Vishnu on this.

After much reasoning, Lord Vishnu spins his magic, distracts the Demons and steals the Amruta away from the Demons. However, it so happens that one of the Demons named Rahu, who is in the form a snake, also employs the same trick (as that of Lord Vishnu) and has a go at it. The Sun apparently observes this and warns Lord Vishnu. But by now, Rahu had already consumed a bit of the Divine nectar. So Lord Vishnu uses his chakra and decides to slice off Rahu just beneath the head. The lower part of Rahu's body drops to the earth and eventually gets called Ketu. Enraged by the Sun's act, Rahu, the now immortal head of a snake, decides to seek vengeance by swallowing the Sun. But since it didn't have a body the Sun always emerged out after a short while. Realising its folly, Rahu submits itself to Lord Vishnu who in turn forgives and allows it to swallow the Sun whenever it felt hungry. This act happened after Rahu's long fasts and that's when we experience the Eclipses.

Now to connect another mythological concept with the above - before one such eclipse, a tiny little baby monkey, carelessly left to fend for itself by its mother, looks at the Sun and assumes it to be a bright coloured attractive fruit. It then decides to jump to the sky towards eating the Sun. During the process, the monkey accidentally pokes one of the eyes of Rahu, which was just about to eat the Sun after a long fast. The injured Rahu approaches Indra who rides his huge elephant Ayravath and confronts the monkey. The monkey now sees an even bigger fruit in the form of Ayravath and turns its attention towards it. Indra now shows off his arsenal and thunder-bolts the monkey. The little monkey falls to the ground and remains lifeless.

Looking at all this, Vayu - the monkey's father gets enraged. In a fit of rage, he decides to carry the little monkey and locks himself inside a cave by sucking up all the air resulting in the entire universe unable to breath. Lord Brahmma, along with other Gods, visits the cave and powers the little monkey back to life and thereby please Vayu much to the relief of the universe. Brahmma also blesses the monkey to ever remain invincible and be immortal. That's how the little monkey, known as Lord Anjaneya, also came to be known as Chiranjeevi (meaning immortal).

I now think - had Vayu demanded a better deal, may be, we may not have had Eclipses at all. But for now, let's pray to Lord Anjaneya !

Liberté, égalité, fraternité

History had long become one of my favourite topics in life.

It is indeed an irony considering the amount of trouble I gave my history teacher. Dont ask me if I had spared the others. They all hated me as much as I did them, except for my English teachers - who liked me always.

Some years back I was inspired by reading the Chronology of the Great Wars. Starting with the First World War and immediately trench warfare comes to one's mind. In contrast, the Second world war was a strategic battle between distributed empires. As usual, abruptly silenced after the Americans illegally used the atomic siblings to show who were the bosses in modern warfare.

Having read about the effects, it was time to explore the cause and so I got hold of a Mein Kampf book. Reading Mein Kampf gave an opportunity to understand the building blocks of a holocaust and what it took to create one. The actions were still not justified though.

Incidentally, a friend of mine borrowed the Mein Kampf and had offered me another book (which was actually a Birthday gift). The birthday gift ended up with me and that's how I came to know about the Anne Frank's diary - a related book on the holocaust. It was more than a survival guide. And as you near reading the last pages, it almost carried you to the actual place where Anne & families secretly remained hidden and eventually left your eyes moist.

Recently, the Bastille day was celebrated in France and the highlight was the participation of Indian Armed forces leading the pack. This very friend who probably knew more French than me and may have eaten more croissants than I, had a lot to tell about Avenue des Champs-Élysées. So watching the Indian forces march through the long road (figuratively its a long road) I decided to march on myself with some French revolutionary history.

It all started due to a typical discrimination around the 1780s. The elite nobles and the clergy formed a mere 10% of France's population and they decided to impose Chidambaramesque taxes on the 90% peasants. Contrastingly, the elite were exempt from taxes themselves. In effect, people who were hardly eating anything for a meal had to pay huge sums of money and agriculture/ poultry produce to the elite who did nothing but frame the rules.

After a 3 course meal of Sama, Dana, and Bheda, Danda dessert eventually took control and the french revolution had begun. Guillotines were used like toothpicks and attempts were made to crush the revolution. But by now the revolution had become powerful and the ruling King Louis was executed. Neighbouring countries were now afraid of similar revolutions spreading out. Hostile reactions ensued leading to wars with Austria and Italy. France got badly defeated in the wars. A convention was now formed to focus on stabilising the economy. It all seemed fine for a shortwhile before the convention's leader got wary of anti-revolutionaries and in due course gets executed anyway.

Successive committees were created but only to be thrown over. After a few rounds of restructuring executive powers were minimalised and the Directory was formed. But it was another Cabernet Sauvignon in a new bottle. By then, the french armies led by Napolean were getting successful abroad.

Finally, Napolean leading a coup against the Directory, takes over the reins of France and there ends the French revolution.

Liberté, égalité and fraternité were born to ensure Liberty, equality and fraternity.

For several centuries to come, victory marches were made through the Champs-Élysées until the Arc de Triomphe, including after the Great Wars of WWI and WWII.