Education & addressing people

Education presupposes attending school & using the dictionary at some point to know the exact meaning of words. The dictionary meaning of uncle/aunt is a sibling of one's parent. Similarly grandfather/grandmother is a parent of one's parent.

But what is happening in India since the last 50 years or so, is that even unrelated people perceived as slightly older than oneself are addressed as uncle/aunt. Those with even a strand of grey hair are addressed grandfather/grandmother (or its regional equivalent.) This started in South India with the influx of Hindi speaking people from the north, who are more at home in Hindi than English.

The semantically correct way of addressing people, used in countries where English is the first language, is by their name, prefixed with Mr./Ms. If the name is not known, Sir/Madam may be used. Addressing elderly strangers as grandpa/grandma is considered as a doubly provocative insult, because they are not biologically related & one is drawing attention to their age, which is extremely bad manners.

In a famous example, Anne of Green Gables, an orphan, on her arrival, asks Marilla, a middle aged spinster, "Can I call you Aunt Marilla?" Marilla sternly replies "No, because I am not your aunt & I don't like people being called names that don't belong to them. Just call me Marilla."

It is only to be hoped that the so-called "educated(!)" Indians, start to use words strictly according to their meaning in the dictionary. Addressing people by a non existent biological relationship is an insult rather than an assumption of family ties.

Unique "Murchana" Record

In Hindustani music, "Murchana" means shifting the Shadja to obtain a different Raga. Ustad Imrat Khan, the Surbahar & Sitar Maestro, has recorded an unique LP where he has used this technique to use his two different instruments to play two different ragas so that they sound like a continuation rather than two different ragas.

Raga Abhogi is played on Surbahar, which is tuned a fourth lower than the Sitar. The notes used are S R g M D S, the semitonal intervals between the notes being 2,1,2,4,3. This is followed by Raga Kalavati played on Sitar, the semitonal intervals between notes being 4,3,2,1,2. If the Madhyam of Abhogi is used as the Shadja, one may obtain the notes of Kalavati. Conversely, if the Pancham of Kalavati is used as Shadja, the notes of Abhogi may be obtained.

"Jasrangi" developed by Pandit Jasraj also uses the same technique but in Jugalbandi between male & female vocalists, whose natural Shadja is half an octave apart. So they can sing two different ragas at the same time, sounding as if they are in unison! The man may be intoning Pancham, which may be the Shadja for the woman (in another Raga, the intervals of which should be the same as the different Raga being sung by the man!)

In the extant YouTube video, Dr. Ashwini Bhide Deshpande is singing Abhogi whereas Pandit Sanjeev Abhyankar is singing Kalavati in unison!

Humility & Humiliation

In the book "Holy Thirthankaras" by Daaji, a story from the life of the 11th Thirthankara of Jainism, Shreyans Nath, is narrated. Amongst his disciples, there was a monk who was unable to fast completely. He was insulted for this & another monk even spat into his plate of food. The "insulted" monk forgave the spitter instantly & as a result, his karma was exhausted immediately & he became liberated.

A similar idea is propounded in Matthew 5:5 (from The Sermon on the Mount) where it is stated, "The meek shall inherit the earth." This paradoxical quote interprets "the earth" to mean peace or everlasting liberation.

In Kathryn Hulme's book, "The Nun's Story", the ritual of the "Culpa" is explained. In a convent, it is the proclaiming of all your faults before your sisters. After that, the sisterhood are invited to complete, for charity's sake, those faults, which you might not have mentioned. For a new nun, it was a trial by fire.

Even in John Bunyan's "The Pilgrim's Progress", the pilgrim Christian had to pass through the "Valley of Humiliation" to get to the Celestial City, the abode of God.

In more practical worldly situations, the doctrine of civil disobedience (inviting a lot of humiliation) was employed by Gandhi in the freedom struggle. Later, Nelson Mandela in South Africa & Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. in the USA also used it.