The Other Sarathys

I mentioned in an earlier blog my friends the Sarathy. The term sarathy refers to a chariot driver, and specifically to Krishna, who offered his services as a chariot driver to Arjuna in the epic Mahabarta, which was penned by none other than Ganesh himself.

Traffic is so crazy in Indian cities that many people forego the hassle and hire drivers or sarathy for themselves. Despite the godly connections and the neccesity of these folks, their social status is rather low and several have been surprised by my talking to them.

My driver comes to pick me up at 7am each morning, and is sometimes late, or maybe I'm early. (Stop laughing please) At such times I sit in this nice little open air pavillion by my building's security gate and wait for my car.

The Indian caste system may be disappearing, but the class system certainly is not, and I caused a bit of a stir the first week I sat with the boys. They all saluted and stood up and wouldn't sit down even when I motioned for them to do so. A couple of the residents gave me very worried looks. Everyone has now written me off as a crazy foreigner, though they do still all rise and say good morning when I walk by. (sheesh)

Anyway, these are some of the guys. One is in the standard white of the chauffer class. There are a couple of the security gaurds and another driver in his street wear.

Apologies to Kausik

While there is nothing more universal than smiles and laughter, there is little as ethnocentric and culturally nuanced as humor.

I've mentioned before my friends Kausik and Viji. A list of all their kindnesses this past year would overflow the 300 Gig limit on Blogger. They have made do with such poor remittance as my thanks and a trinket or two.

Really, I would not have survived, much less grown here in India without their help oversight and support. From setting up bank accounts and providing lunch, to explaining the nuances of a business conversation or a theological point, to welcoming me into their family activities and making sure I wasn't lonely on the weekends, they have been incredible.So trying to balance the equation, when Kau asked about my blog and about setting one up for all his intricate knowledge of parts of the Hindu pantheon, I jumped at the chance. You might think to check it out, it is well written, nuanced and insightful. http//www.kausiksarathy.blogspot.com

Anyway, he wanted to check to see if it actually came up in a search engine, so he googled himself and found my previous post. Unfortunately with my droll humor I cribbed about him getting me out of bed to see the goings on at his temple. He pointed out that I said I had enjoyed it.

Sigh. If my best friend in India doesn't get the humor, what chance is there for the rest of them?

I've been meaning to tell the world about these folks who have been guiding my chariot through the tour, and in singing their praises as the kind, generous, witty and intellegent folks that they are, I hope I make up for any unintended slights.

The S Word

The other day the Safety Team at the job site finally got around to taking their consultant's advice and had a seminar on the possible prevelance of certain reptiles who the call nag here, but for whom we have a name starting with S. They contacted the city S Park which is walking distance from my apartment. The S park educators brought some of their live specimens for show and tell. They have all sorts of critters including the chameleon shown here. You REALLY have to see these guys live. Their eyes move independently - it is really creepy!

After the show I ran into the guys packing up. Their non-venemous guys are in the basket in the back of the car. The box I'm leaning on, the one with the screen top, is where the cobra is sleeping. Didn't get to touch this one!

Rahu Gets Lunch

I got a phone call halfway through the Friday afternoon meeting, and took the opportunity to go look at the eclipse. The clouds had parted and the sun was truely blinding. No sense looking right at it.
So I grabbed two pieces of paper and tried to make a pinhole camera. I got the image focused, but it was WAY to small to see clearly.

So this really nice guy at the site, Bala, who does the Tom Selleck eyebrow thing, comes out and he's concerned that I'm outside in the eclipse. I look around and there's nobody else around.

It seems that since fire purifies (per Indian definition) and the sun is fire: ergo the sun purifies. Consequently when the light of the sun is obstructed, it's purifying power is also eclipsed and bacterias can grow. That's why we weren't suppossed to eat during the eclipse and we were suppose to bathe afterward and why, in general, the eclipse is a bad thing.

Since the pinhole camera wouldn't work, I had Bala hold the paper and used my reading glasses to focus the image of the sun.
All the engineers in the office got very curious and came outside to see what we were doing.
Unfortunately I gave one of them my camera to take a picture of the image, and the poor guy didn't know how to operate it, so the snapshot is poor.
But if you look at the lower right side of the bright dot, you might notice that it looks like someone took a nibble out of it.

No issue: there's not only the lunar eclipse coming, but also a conjunction between the moon and Mars! (see next post)

Scientific Rahu & Ketu

Gupta the Indian astronomer lived around 300 a.d. He understood that eclipses were caused by the shadows of the Earth or Moon. The story of Rahu and Ketu is just a simplification for the masses.

He also understood that an eclipse occurs when the Sun and Moon are close to the point in their respective orbits where the path of the Sun crosses the path of the Moon, or the node point.

The Sun moves against the background of stars around the entire sky in the course of a year. This path is called the ecliptic.

The Moon moves around the entire sky in the course of about 27 days, and its path is such that it crosses the ecliptic in two places. The place where the path of the Moon crosses the ecliptic moving northward is called the ascending node and the place where the path of the Moon crosses the ecliptic moving south is called the descending node.
Thus the Moon crosses the ecliptic at the ascending node, roughly 14days later crosses the ecliptic again at the descending node, and roughly 14 days later it is back to the ascending node crossing.

Things are somewhat complicated by the fact that the nodes move very slowly from one month to the next making it more difficult to predict eclipses.

However Hindu astronomers discovered that if they kept track of the location in the sky of the nodes, then they only need to check the proximity of the Sun or Moon to the nodes in order to be able to predict an eclipse. Since the nodes are theoretical points they are referred to as "shadow planets"

The ascending node is called Rahu and the descending node is called Ketu. Added to the seven visible planets, Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn, Hindu astrologers count a total of nine planets.

More about Rahu & Ketu & Garlic & Onions

So this is an especially odd month because there is not only a solar eclipse, but also a lunar eclipse (more about that tomorrow)

The brahmin castes eschew the use of garlic or onions in food. I've been told that it's because they 'excite the passions'.

Turns out that as Rahu and Ketu were drinking the elixir of immortality, interestingly called soma, and Visnu, dressed in drag as Mohni, cut off their heads with his/her chakra - if you have no idea what I'm talking about go look at yesterday's post -

So the elixer dribbled back out of Rahu's & Ketu's necks and spilled on the ground.

From where the drops fell grew garlic and onions. The elixir gives these plants wonderful and healthful properties, but they've been tainted by the demons and cause excitment among men.

Friday an Auspicious Day for Rahu

There's a solar eclipse today between 4:40 & 6:07 (that's 8am - 9 am EST). It's a 60%coverage here, more up north in China & Iceland (?)
In Vedic (Indian) astrology besides the western planets there are two 'shadow planets' or nodes: Rahu & Ketu.

It seems that after the flood - yes, that flood - the gods needed help from the demons to churn up the oceans to retreive what was lost. Out of the churning oceans the Sun, Moon, many goddess, and magic things were produced along with Soma, the elixir of immortality.

Vishnu, disguised as a woman (how drag!) took charge of distributing the soma to the gods. While it was being passed out the demons started battling with the gods for a taste of the elixir and in the confusion a couple of the demons, Rahu & Ketu, disguised as gods instead of their usual snake forms, drank some of the elixir.


The Sun (Surya) and Moon (Chandra) spotted the imposters and told Vishnu. Just as Rahu & Ketu were swallowing the soma, Vishnu sliced off their heads with his disk (chakra). Since the soma had passed into the throat the head of one and the tail of the other they had already become immortal and remained alive.

Because the Sun and the Moon were responsible for squeeling about their misdeeds, Ketu and Rahu chase the Sun and Moon across the sky and try to eat them. Occasionally one is caught and swallowed, causing an eclipse.

But the victim quickly falls out of Rahu's throat and the eclipse ends. Let's not speculate too much about their passing through Ketu. Some believe that banging on drums or utensils during the eclipse helps to scare the demons into releasing the Sun or Moon.

Anyway, we had to have an early lunch, and they won't be serving coffee at the 5pm meeting (who has a meeting at 5 on Fridays!?!) because we should all be practicing austerities, praying during the eclipse, bathing and then going to temple when it's over.

I'm hoping to skip out of the meeting and go watch!