A Vaishnavite wedding in the Valley: Reflections on the sundara-kaandam as a tale of human love

[Guest guest]

Dear friends,

 

Last week, business took me from Kuwait to London.

From there, quite simply on sudden whim, I decided to

fly to Los Angeles to mix pleasure with business for a

few days. The purpose was to be present at the wedding

of a very young and lovely cousin-sister of mine, Sow

Kavita " Cande " (Americanized equivalent of

" Kandhaadai " ) (a favorite neice of my late mother

Sangita Kalanidhi (Dr) Mrs Mani Krishnaswami).

 

Kavita, born and bred in Los Angeles, is a Harvard

alumni of outstanding academic accomplishments and a

source of real pride to the family. I had not seen her

for many years and when news of her wedding was

announced, I decided forthwith I would attend the

family event to which I was pretty sure all of the

members of what indeed is a very large and extended

first- and second- generation diaspora of

" Kandhaadai " , " Maadabushi " and " Kadaambi " immigrants

-- all living and working in cities spread across the

length and breadth of the USA for several decades now

--- would surely congregate to celebrate the joyful

occasion.

 

Another reason was that a rather bemused curiosity

took hold of me as I considered the prospect of

attending a Vaishnavite wedding in the USA. Many years

ago in Madras, India (now known as Chennai), as a

young boy I had watched a a hilariously light-hearted

Tamil stage drama titled " washingtonil tirumaNam "

(i.e. " Wedding in Washington " ) penned by the famous

Tamil writer of yester-years the late " Saavi " or

S.Viswanathan. The play was about a Tamil orthodox

Brahminical wedding conducted in Washington DC and the

challenges and obstacles, both serious and farcical,

that are encountered by both the bride's and groom's

family members in the course of 3 days when quaint and

traditional rites and practices get to be performed on

wholly foreign soil. That was over 40 years ago... and

forty years later I was amused at the urge I had that

I should want to witness yet again another wedding

conducted in the USA: this time for real on the stage

of life rather than in drama-theatre! Was I about to

witness, I silently wondered, a " los angelessil

tirumaNam " that would turn out perhaps to be every bit

as memorable and eventful as its Washingtonian

precursor.

 

Furthermost, while I had visited the US East Coast

sometime in the recent past, I never had had the

opportunity to visit the western extreme of the great

country. I thus readily and whole-heartedly seized the

oppotunity to attend a Vaishnavite wedding in the very

heart of San Fernando Valley, California, USA circa

2007.

 

**********

 

As my airplane began its descent into LAX I gaped with

awe at the sheer vastness of the Californianian

valley, all brilliantly illumined by the shimmering

city lights that stretched across the dry, desert

landscape and as far as the fading dusk sky would let

my dazzled eyes see.

 

Amidst the swathe of neonine fluroscence hanging over

LA, alas, I perceived too what seemed a pall of smog

so great and thick and noxious that it could hardly

have been mere wisps of traffic emission or industrial

pollutants rising from below. The BA pilot announced

it was actually big forest fires that had been raging

like infernos now for days on end all across the hills

ringing the valley of San Diego and Malibu. As I read

later in the Los Angeles Times, the forest fires were

the worst ever ecological disaster to visit Los

Angeles after the devasatating earthquakes that had

struck the city way back in the '80s.

 

*************

 

It took all of 17 hours to get from Kuwait to LA

airport via Heathrow London. It took half an hour to

alight, get on board a tarmac coach and join the

tail-end of a long serpentine queue winding its way,

inch by laborious inch, to one of several US

Immigration counters submerged as it were by what

seemed to me a veritable sea of air-travelling

humanity arriving from all parts of the world

imaginable -- India, China, Philippines, Spain,

Europe... It was the first time indeed that my mind

truly grasped the meaning and significance of the

ubiquitous cliche journalists use to describe the

world we live in today -- " global village " .

 

It took me all of the next 2-1/2 hours to get to the

head of the queue and then to be told politely by a

smart, uniformed officer, " Sorry, Sir, system down.

Should be up any minute now. Don't mind waiting a

while, d'ya? " .

 

After 18 hours of near non-stop flying from the other

end of the planet, I could'nt help a feeling of

self-congratulation wash over me when I saw I could

still manage to muster, even in numbing

travel-weariness and repressed vexation, a semblance

of patience and light-heartedness which under the

circumstances was certifiably monumental. " Not at all,

Sir " , I said, " It took 17 hours to get here to this

point from home. Two-and-a-half hours from the back of

the line to the front. And here I'm with you finally!

But seems US Immigration is a little late and

reluctant in its welcome, isn't it? Never mind. What

really does an extra 10-15 minutes matter to a lost

traveller like me? I can certainly oblige, no problem,

Sir " .

 

It was plain to me that LAX too like most

international airports --- not to mention all the

governments, central banks, politicians, legislators,

trade-councils of this great wide whirling world ---

LAX too is truly struggling to cope with the

confounding, sometimes paralyzing demands and

challenges of the new, golden age which we all live,

love, hope and work in -- the Age of Globalization.

 

**********

 

At my uncle Dr. Sri Kandhaadai Sridhar's typically

sprawling Californian residence (in California, I was

surprised to see every home has more cars than it has

garages; far too many bedrooms than people living in;

and a swimming pool in the backyard no one ever seems

to use!) in one of the poshest quarters of Northridge,

I was welcomed warmly by everyone and especially by

SrIman Venkatraman, the bride's octogenarian maternal

grandfather.

 

" ThAtha " , as the bride Sow.Kavita calls him always

with affection, is 86 years old; a retired Govt. of

India servant of many years who, as several of those

his age, generation and widowered status from Madras,

now lives alternatingly, for varying periods of the

year, in and out of India and USA.

 

Sri Venkataraman lives a traditionally Sri Vaishnavite

life-style in the middle of Los Angeles. His dress,

mien, food, conversation and relationships are all

reminiscent of an 'agrahAram-vAsi' somewhere in the

interiors of any non-descript temple-town in southern

India. I was amazed to see he wore his

" urdhva-pUndhram " proudly and un-apolegetically even

at the wedding reception held days later in the Four

Seasons Hotel LA, where he strode about the

banquet-hall, rubbing shoulders easily with the

tuxedo-clad,

suited-booted-coiffured-perfumed-half-inebriated

glitterati of guests who had turned up in large

numbers.... Watching him at home, I thought silently

to myself, Sri Venkatraman is verily an epitome of the

well-worn cliche we love to mouth ever so often: " You

can take an Indian out of India but you can't take

India out of an Indian " .

 

The daily regimen of this retired " thAtha " in Los

Angeles begins with morning ablutions, performance of

the " sandhyAvandanam " , recitation of Desika " stOtrAs " ,

performance of the " tiruvArdanam " ritual, offering of

salutations to the symbolic " pAdukA-s " of his

venerable " AchAryan " back home in India, His Holiness

Srimadh Andavan presiding now over the Sri Rangam

Ashram and lastly, reading of a few passages from the

" sundara-kAndam " of the Valmiki Ramayana.

 

This daily regimen, his daughter and my aunt, Dr Smt

Bama Cande, informs me, is unbroken and unvarying

whenever " thAtha " " comes and lives with us in Los

Angeles " . So regular is he and so involved in the

Ramayana particulary, that sometimes " we have seen

him " (this the son-in-law, my uncle, Dr Cande Sridhar

informs me) he gets rather emotionally charged and

visibly worked up while reading out some of the more

poignant passages of the " sundara-kAndam " .... " .

 

*************

That night in LA as I lay my bone-weary body down in

bed I listened to the stilled silences of the Valley

outside.... My jet-lagged mind kept refusing to shut

off and slip into sleep. It kept replaying and

rewinding within itself, again and yet again, the

first images and impressions of LA it had gathered in

the very first few hours since landing at LAX; images

that perhaps were now being added to the archival

album of the subconscious ---- the images of those

raging forest-fires on the hills around Malibu, the

crowded, seething humanity at Bradley airport, the

life beats and rhythms of a prosperous Indian diaspora

in the age of Globalization... and of course, the

image of an old widowered sri-vaishnavite, deftly and

vigorously navigating the evening of his life

negotiating two cultures

--- one that belonged to his home back in India and

the other that belonged to the home of immigrant

children in the USA --- and the image of his enduring

fascination with one of oldest love stories ever told

on earth: the tale of the " sundara-kaandam " ....

 

Speaking of " sundara-kAndam " , that night as I slowly

slipped into the blissful embrace of sleep in the

great Valley of San Fernando, my last thought was: Can

there be a better, apter occasion than a wedding in

the family --- even if it is " los-angelessil

tirumanam " --- when it's best to recollect, re-tell

and rejoice over the wonderful tale of the most

romantic couple ( " divya-dampati " ) ever to marry and

live on earth: Rama and Sita? A moment later my mind

blanked out completely. In the morning yet, I promised

myself, I'd surely awaken to tell that fresh and

beautiful story....

 

(to be continued)

***************************

 

dAsan,

Sudarshan

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Warm Regards,

Sudarshan

 

" A life is perhaps worth nothing; but nothing certainly is worth as much as

life " .

(Andre Malraux)

 

 

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[Guest guest]

Dear Mytri Acharya,

 

Unfortunately due to heavy committments on the work

front, I have been travelling a lot and hence was

unable to continue the postings on the subject theme.

 

I am back now in Kuwait and I will hopefully continue

the postings and conclude it soon.

 

I did post Part 3 on the List last week. It did

appear on the Tiruvenkatam Group and Oppiliappan Group

lists but for some reason known only to the Moderator

it did not appear in the SriRangasri Group list of

which I gather you are a member. Perhaps you should

contact the Group Moderator.

 

In any case, I shall forward to you soon all the

postings once the series is concluded.

 

I am very grateful to you for the interest shown in

the subject postings.

 

Best regards and good wishes for the upcoming holiday

season.

 

daasan,

Sudarshan MK

 

 

--- Mytri Acharya <mytriacharya wrote:

 

> >

> > I was wondering if I had missed the concluding

> chapter of your

> >

> SriVaishnavite wedding. I was enjoying it. Can you

> please email me

> the last one? I had read the one where everybody was

> busy with

> the preparations.

>

> thank you

> Mytri

>

 

 

Warm Regards,

Sudarshan

 

" A life is perhaps worth nothing; but nothing certainly is worth as much as

life " .

(Andre Malraux)

 

 

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