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“The Deity Ganesh”

Nationality: Indian, American, Iraqi
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Portland, OR
Performance Date: April 2013
Primary Language: English
Language: Persian

            The informant first heard the myth of the deity Ganesh on an audio cassette tape when he was seven years old. His mother was born in India, and although he acknowledged that she would likely identify as Indian-American, she also maintains strong ties to her Indian roots, which is why he was exposed to Indian legends and myths as a child. He also explained that the stories, due to his age, had in large part a simply entertainment value to him, but he did state, “As I got older I realized that, underneath them, as with many different stories and folktales, there were moral teachings. . .and they showed how people think.”

            The stories appeared to him again in the form of comic books, which he said was a popular adaptation for many Indian tales; any bookstore in India sells a number of these comics. The informant also explained that, with many Indian stories, the class of the Indian child can dictate whether or not he has access to the story. Because of the strict structure of India’s caste system, the informant shared, most lower class children and their family did not have the time or leisure to prioritize and share folktales. Work and survival take precedence in value, and thus myths about deities that live in excess and wealth are not as appealing nor as relevant to those in the working classes.

 

            Like with the Greek gods, the Indians gods have this, like, realm that they live in. In this realm, there’s the most powerful god who is Shiva. Oh! And also kind of similar to the Greek gods, these gods resemble human beings. Shiva has a wife, whose name is Parvati, and in this story Parvati is taking a bath. Whenever she takes a bath she says that no one can enter the house, and she appoints one of her vassals in charge of the house to guard the entrance and make sure no one enter. This vassal is Nandi, who has the head of a cow and the body of a human. In the comic he’s, like, armed with a trident and wearing very traditional clothing.

            As he’s guarding and standing watch, Shiva (who’s the head of the household and in charge of all the guards) walks up and Nandi lets him go by because he’s kind of intimidated, I think, by Shiva’s power and his own role is obviously a lot lesser. Shiva walks in while Parvati is bathing and she’s embarrassed. Shiva, though, has kind of a sense of humor, he pokes fun at her and laughs at the situation. She then becomes angry that she doesn’t have any vassals that are loyal to her above her husband. So what she does is she takes the sandalwood paste that she’s been bathing in off of her and she puts it into this, this golden dish. And using that paste she molds a figure of a very handsome, very beautiful boy that she names her son, and she gives that statue life.

            And so the next time she bathes―and this is unknown to Shiva―she posts her son outside of the door of the house and Shiva tries again. He comes back home and tries to enter, and this time the son doesn’t let him enter. Shiva doesn’t know who this is, he’s, like, “Why are you stopping me from entering the house? You know who I am. . . obviously you need to let me go.” But, the son, who has a staff, hits him and throws him out on his ass, basically. So, Shiva becomes absolutely furious and he summons all of his army and all of his commanders and has them attack this one child. But, all of his armies could not defeat him, he took out general after general and all of the other soldiers until the armies were completely gone. So Shiva decides to fight with them, and he uses―in a lot of Indian comics you can tell who the person with the highest spiritual rank, I guess, is because they use this chakra. It’s like a spinning disc that you spin around your finger and you send it out and it goes to wherever you want it to go. Shiva uses his disc and it chops the head of the kid right off. . . so maybe these weren’t the best comics to read as a child, but, anyway, Parvati is enraged. She decides she is going to destroy the entire universe unless this slight is made right in her eyes.

            Basically one of the other high ranking gods, Brahma―who is in charge of creation―begs Shiva to bring the child to life. And by this time Shiva has calmed down; he’s taken out his anger (by killing someone). He grants Parvati’s two wishes―one, that the god be worshipped above all other gods, so basically to elevate her son, and that he obviously be brought back to life. So Shiva uses his chakra again and sends it down to Earth and chops of the head of an elephant. He takes the head of the elephant and places it on the headless body of the child, and so the child comes back to life. Shiva proclaims him, and that’s why Ganesh has the head of an elephant and the body of a child. Shiva then declares that Ganesh is his son, too, since he gave him life as well, and this elevates his position to the foremost and front of the gods.

 

            Recognizably a form of myth, the story of Ganesh incorporates divine figures in a sacred realm, which the informant helpfully analogized to the gods of Greek mythology. While the myth contains quite a lot of entertainment, including nudity and war-related violence, the teaching that lies “underneath,” as the informant said, seems to be the conflict of the power dynamic between a man and his wife. Much of the myth’s action is propelled by Parvati’s feeling of slight; her vassal serves her husband over her, Shiva mocks her embarrassment, and her rage is worrisome enough to the other gods to make them appeal to Shiva. The lesson taught at the end of the myth, then, is one of compromise and equality. Shiva recognizes the error of his ways and uses his power to make things right and satisfy his wife; the equality of genders plays an unusual role when compared to, say, Greek mythology, where Hera is often duped by Zeus only to exact petty revenge on his (many) lovers.

Instant Karma

Nationality: Indian
Age: 50
Occupation: N/A
Residence: New Jersey
Performance Date: March 18, 2013
Primary Language: English
Language: Hindi, Gujurathi

Contextual Data: Over Spring Break, I was at dinner with my family, and my dad accidentally bit his cheek. He cried out and my mother, who was sitting next to him chirped out, “Instant Karma!” I had heard her do that once before, and so I asked her what she meant by it and where she had heard it. The following is an exact transcript of what she said.

“It’s the saying that if you bit your tongue or your cheek that means you were either having bad thoughts about somebody or thinking bad about somebody…or cursing somebody. That’s why in… uh, karma you got bitten — because of bad thoughts about bad [Laughs]… As soon as you get bitten, you — first thing comes out of your mouth is ‘Ouch!’ and then person across from you knows that ‘Oh, you did something wrong. That’s why.’ So they assume you were having bad thoughts about somebody that’s why you got…”

– End Transcript – 

Karma (the general idea of what goes around comes around) is a big part of Hindu culture and that can certainly be seen in this little saying. For the most part though, it doesn’t seem as though this saying is meant to be taken seriously — partially because it’s not a wholly accurate representation of Hindu ideas of Karma. Beyond this, most of the times that it happens, the person “accused” usually isn’t actually cursing someone else. When it happened in this particular situation, my dad just kind of laughed it off. It therefore seems as though this saying is meant to be passed on as more of a joke. It’s teasing and can make people very defensive, particularly messing with them if they were thinking bad thoughts about someone else. My informant enjoys sharing it just to poke fun.

Hindu Myth: How Ganesh Got His Elephant Head

Nationality: Indian
Age: 50
Occupation: N/A
Residence: New Jersey
Performance Date: March 18, 2013
Primary Language: English
Language: Hindi, Gujurathi

Contextual Data: My family isn’t particularly religious, but my parents both grew up in India and they were raised in Hindu households, and so, over Spring Break, I asked my mother if there were any Hindu myths that she remembered particularly well—if there was one she wouldn’t mind recounting for me. The following is an exact transcript of a myth she told me about how Ganesh, the well-known elephant God, got his elephant head.

“So Shiva is the destroyer, right? So he was supposed to have a temper… or flare-ups or whatever. So Ganesh is Shiva’s son. So Shiva went away to the mountains—Shiva’s wife is called Parvati. So, and their son is Ganesh. The elephant god that everybody’s house you see in. So when Shiva went away to the forest for whatever — I don’t know what reason, but he was away for a while, and then when he came home, Ganesh was a little kid, so they — living in the mountains in the Himalayas or whatever. So Ganesh was playing at the entrance of the cave, and he didn’t recognize his father, because he must have gone away — he was a little kid and he must have gone away for a certain period of time or something. So when he came back, he wouldn’t let him enter the cave. He’s saying, ‘Who are you?’ And, you know, ‘You can’t come in,’ and that kind of thing. So apparently Shiva got angry at him. Like, ‘Who are you to tell me not to come into my own house?’ kind of… And in his anger he’s supposed to have chopped away the kid’s head [Mimes cutting across the throat]. And when the wife hears the commotion and comes out and says, ‘What have you done? This was our son.’ You know… So then to bring him back to life, he cuts a head off the nearest thing he finds, which is an elephant—cuts off his head and puts it on Ganesh’s he—this thing [Gestures to neck].”

– End Transcript – 

When I asked my informant about the significance of this, she said that it related to ideas of Ganesh as the “god of obstacles”—that he’s the figure in the Hindu religion that’s traditionally thought of as either introducing or removing obstacles from an individual’s life and from a family’s home. Many family’s hang up pictures of Ganesh as a way of honoring him and respecting these obstacles that he’ll either introduce or remove from the home. It also may speak to the perceived relationship of the son to the household—that when the father is away, he is meant to protect the household and act as a protector to his mother.

When I asked my informant where she first heard this story, she mentioned that it was just something she kind of grew up with—it was everywhere. In India, these types of myths were often rendered in comic books, so she may have first either encountered it in one of these books, or heard it from her parents. For the most part, she says there’s little, if any, variation in this story. In general though, the myth is one that people in India tend to know really well because Ganesh is so meaningful to them and because the Hinduism is an important part of the culture in many regions of the country.

Indian Wedding: The Groom’s Arrival

Nationality: Indian
Age: 50
Occupation: N/A
Residence: New Jersey
Performance Date: March 18, 2013
Primary Language: English
Language: Hindi, Gujurathi

Contextual Data: Over Spring Break, my family received an invitation to attend a wedding. I was a bit curious about what it would be like, as I hadn’t been to a wedding — specifically, an Indian wedding — in a really long time and couldn’t remember very much about any wedding traditions. I asked my mother to tell me a bit about Indian weddings and some specific aspects of the weddings that stood out to her. She mentioned the parade that happens when the groom arrives to the venue. The following is an exact transcription of her description.

“The groom is supposed to come… It’s called a barat—B-A-R-A-T — so him and his family are supposed to come to the girl’s house for the wedding. The wedding takes place generally in the girl’s house. And so they come in that procession… The groom is usually on a horseback or something or walking ahead. There’s a band playing in the front first, then the groom is behind—on either a horse or a car or something — and then behind that there are like people dancing. And then… behind that is all — everybody else who…is just walking. It’s usually a short distance. So they set it up such that it’s a short distance from wherever the girl’s family decides to host the wedding. And…uh. That’s what it is. And they come and when they enter the venue (either the house or wherever they’ve set it up) then the groom — the bride’s mother does a pooja, welcoming the groom. And then the bride is supposed to put a… necklace — mala, a flower one — a flower necklace around the groom and the groom does the same I think… Uh. I think so. I think the bride does it… And, at least in our tradition sometimes they make it difficult for the bride to put it, because men are generally taller. So they lift the guy up so it makes it even harder for the girl to do it [Laughs.] That kind of little stuff goes on.”

– End Transcript – 

When I asked my informant what she thought the significance of these traditions were, she attached no particular symbolic meaning to them. Mainly, she suggested the groom arrives with a parade because he’s essentially coming to take the bride away, and so, he’s arrived with all the accompanying “fanfare” — it’s a way for him to announce himself to the bride’s family.

Additionally, there are certainly symbolic meanings that can be attached to the act of the bride’s family throwing a flower garland around the groom (thinking about concepts of virginity and the term “deflowering”). The fact that the groom’s family might make this difficult by lifting the groom seems to speak to the idea of a wedding as a liminal, transitory state and the importance of being able to complete these rituals properly and wholly in order for the transition to be complete. But beyond this,  the parade seems primarily to speak to the fact that weddings are considered special, celebratory, joyous occasions — the parade is what kicks off the wedding with this air of festivity, particularly through the music and the dancing and the fact that it happens in a very public place; this is an important day for the groom and one on which he deserves some attention and which he should be happy for.

Food: Ras Malai

Nationality: American-Indian(from India not Native American)
Age: 20
Occupation: Graduate Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: March 26, 2013
Primary Language: English
Language: limited Spanish

Ras Malai- it’s dessert reserved for special occasions. The dish starts out as a mixture sweet milk with pistachios.  It is cooked with saffron and sugar. Lastly, a sweet baked cheese mixture(she couldn’t remember the name) is added to the sweet milk.

My informant states that the last time she had this dish was when her cousin got married. Whenever a couple gets married they go to the mother’s brother’s house for dinner shortly after the wedding.  This is special occasion because its supposed to welcome the couple to the family. At this dinner there are a lot of special foods served. At this dinner the informant’s mother made most of the food. However the informant’s father generally makes this dish on special occasions. The dish does not have to be made by anyone in particular. It’s a dish that’s generally saved for special occasions, especially if their related to weddings. However the dish is also served in fancy restaurants so its not purely a ceremonial dish.

This dinner reminds me of a concept we learned in class. When a person gets married they are marrying the whole family. I find it interesting that the dinner takes place at a member of the extended families house. In contrast to western society(at least in my experience) where important dinners are reserved for members of the nuclear family unless it’s a reunion or Thanksgiving.