The ordinary ways of enjoying the TiruppAvai - 8

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Dear friends,

 

Unexpected and sometimes quirky indeed are some of the ways in which ordinary

people enjoy the TiruppAvai.

 

A lover of Carnatic music in Mylapore enjoys the verse " orutthi maganaay

pirandhu " as rendered in the " raagam " " behaag " ; in Dubai a child's fancy latches

on to the phrase " thumani maadatthu suttrum villakku-eriya "  to describe the

grand sight of a mall glittering under night-time illumination; and common folks

like you and me love to turn the verse " ongi uLagaLandha uttaman pEr pAdi " into

a spiritually charged incantation ( " mantra " ) or prayer to increase personal

networth!

 

All these are different " ordinary " ways people enjoy and celebrate the

TiruppAvai but a common characteristic is their utterly non-theological,

doctrine-free approach to AndAl's great work which otherwise is the most

treasured of all the " naalaayira " (4000) " divya-prabhandham " verses that

SriVaishnava religious order and orthodoxy venerates as holy scripture.

 

In this posting I want to narrate just one more funny example of a

non-theological approach to the TiruppAvai after which, in the final few

postings to follow, I will wind up this series with a brief account of how this

year during the month of " maargazhi " I too indulged in my very own personal

pastime: delighting in the TiruppAvai in my own " ordinary " way.

 

                     ****************

 

A dear friend of mine in Chennai is a successful retired banker. Being an ardent

lover of TiruppAvai, his favorite stanza is of course Stanza 3:

" ongi-uLagaLanda... " .He never tires of quoting, reflecting upon and penning

personal " vyAkhyAnam " about it whenever the " mood " seizes him. Having been a

" money-man " all his working life, dealing with " other people's debts, deposits

and dividends " , it hardly surprised me that his favorite stanza in the

TiruppAvai was the one which spoke of " neengAtha-selvam " , abiding wealth in this

world and the other.

 

What however did surprise me was his recently conceived  " commentary " on the

subject. After he explained it to me in the course of one evening over tea at

home, I was convinced it was yet another instance of an " ordinary " man trying to

look at the world through the eyes of AndAl and interpreting it in completely

non-theological terms. Interesting and humorous, it was also an unusual way of

expressing tribute to the versatility and unfading relevance of AndAl's poetry

to our lives even in the modern era.

 

Knitting together some of the famous expressions and phrases found in Stanza 3,

my ex-banker friend essayed a brief and ironical history of the world circa

2007, battered as it was by a financial crisis, mired deep in economic recession

and mass unemployment and struggling to cope with the near-collapse of its great

banking institutions.

 

Here is how he described it:

 

(1) " You know for about 10 years before the financial crisis in 2007 hit us, all

the world knew only one way to " measure " its wealth ( " uLagu aLandu " ). It was by

tracking the ever-rising stock-market index: Dow, FTSE, Nikkei, DAX, CAC... They

did the calculations of " market-capitalization " and announced the " world's

wealth " to be something like US$63 trillion! And who created this great

worldwide Wealth? Oh, they were the " gods " and " heroes " -- the " uttamans " --- of

Wall Street! And they were so many with fair names ( " pEr " ): " Lehmann, Morgan,

Stanley, Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae, Merryl, Lynch, Bear and Stearns... "  And so

everyone kept singing their praise!   

 

                    " ongi uLagalanda uttaman pEr pAdi "

 

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

 

(2) Euphoria enveloped the world following rising stock-prices. People began

seriously believing that making money for themselves, after all, was not the

impossible dream it had seemed always. All they had to do now was to " be bold,

look beautiful and borrow blind " --- borrow to buy a house, borrow to buy more

stocks, borrow to buy a new car, a second car, a second home, a holiday in the

Caribbean... People everywhere embraced the brave new gospel of the brave new

world: " Borrow and be blessed! " The Good Life was now within everyone's grasp

for it simply meant " living life in equated-monthly-installments " !

 

So a great big global wave of properity came and hit a world awash with debt! In

a world where the " Consumer was King " it became " cool " to borrow to consume more

and more! To splurge and splash, to soak and wallow in debt and evermore debt

--- " nAngal nam pAvaikku sAtri neerAdinAl " --- became Virtue by some strange

logic of modern macro-economics!   

 

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

 

Mortgage-houses, investment banks, securities trusts, credit-factors ... all

manner of lenders now ruled the  world. With their fancy loan-products and

persuasive talk they seduced for well over 10 years the whole world into

believing one could borrow one's way to 'Thy Kingdom Come'. These banks were

like " fat cows " with bloated udders and taut teats all primed and ready to

disgorge their load of copious milk into the eager throats of borrowers who were

like greedy, frisky, hungry calves:   

 

          " tEngAdE pukkirundhu seertha mulai patri vAnga ....

              " kudam niraikkUm vaLLaL perum passukkal

 

                     ****************

 

All of humanity, for a brief while in modern history, seemed to have turned

itself into a roiling sea of rampant, reckless borrowers swarming around

mortgage-bankers, realtors, credit-card lenders, consumer-debt purveyors,

refinanciers, loan-sharks.... It was like millions of tiny fish -- " kayal ugala "

-- writhing in an orgy of feeding out at sea.... Or like an infinitude of

inebriated bees swarming thick as a cloud over a turbid pond full of

honey-dripping lotus-lilies!

 

                " pUnguvalai-pOdil pori vandu kan paduppa

 

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

 

And as for the lenders -- the big banks, investment and mortgage houses,

refinanciers, securitizers, realtors, brokers, risk-cover providers,

intermediaries, deal-makers, commission agents, lawyers, accountants, government

regulators: the entire " community of co-conspirators " against the common man,

the gullible borrower on the street --- as for these lenders, they had never

seen better times in life! Business grew and grew and grew. And so did their

harvest of profits, year after year after year... " ongu perun sennel " ...

 

                   ****************

 

For well over a decade, until the end of 2008, the world indeed became one big

happy fairy-tale Wonderland of Milk and Honey where Borrowers and Lenders alike

" lived together happily ever after " --

 

              " teenginri nAdellAm tinggal mummAri peyydu... "  

 

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

 

And then came September 2008 and it all came crashing down!

 

The world's seemingly immeasurable wealth, indexed as " market capitalization " on

stock-markets, shrank to a third of its size in a matter of weeks! Lenders and

borrowers went bankrupt overnight. Chaos and ruin spread everywhere.

Balance-sheets destroyed. Lifetime savings in pension and hedge funds wiped out

without a trace!

 

The world became a different place all at once at the end of just one fateful

day in September 2008. It was rudely brought to its senses by a cataclysm that

taught it a painful but historic lesson: There really is no such thing as

" abiding, undiminished Wealth " in the world. The " Wealth of Nations " is nothing

but sovereign short-term illusion, conjured up for mutual benefit and mutual

destruction in equal measure, by greedy lenders and greedier borrowers locked in

embrace in a great cosmic dance of death.

 

So much for " neengAtha selvam niraindhu ... "

   

Best Regards,

Sudarshan MK

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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