Of Cows in California

I accept that the title of this post is somewhat pretentious - but believe me it is not. This is about one funny incident which happened when I went to attend a house-warming (Grihapravesam) in California.

In South India house warming is an elaborate ceremony with lots of rituals. There is the boiling of the milk (Paal Kaachal), which is then served to the guests - symbolizing a flourishing domestic life - and also ensuring your guests don’t get pissed off - slightly different but essentially the same as the salt and bread of the western culture. There are prayers offered to every deity for ensuring good health of the residents of the house, success in all their endeavors and peace and harmony. There is also a prayer to the earth goddess - very important in California. There is a prayer to the god of fire - a small fire is lit and offerings of rice and ghee (clarified butter) are made.

Anyways, one of the important rituals is bringing a cow and its calf into the house - to symbolize the flourishing of the progeny. Now obviously this is one thing difficult to replicate in CA. Not so for this enterprising vadyar (priest) who brought along a cow and a calf into the second floor living room of the apartment - a small figurine of a cow and calf made out of silver. It was so funny that it took all I had not to burst out laughing - and the vadyar was very serious about the whole thing.

Also the vadyar had brought along some "smokeless wonder" - no, not weed - it was the usual material which would be burnt to make the fire - but in a highly powdered form so that there was no smoke during combustion. As I and my friends would say back in the good old days - "Technology da machi".