#Coffee Yog: Yug Sandhi (Confluence of times) Long long ago this word Yuga Sandhi (the way it is pronounced in Tamil) came into my life, if my memory serves me right, through a novel in Kalaimagal, a literary periodical (Monthly) edited by eminent Tamil litterateur Shri Ki Vaa Jagannaathan, known for rare wit and slaedai (Tamil word for pun). We children at home knew Kalaimagal was always to be delivered to us, both the periodical every month and the special Deepavali Malar (this is exactly the time you get it, just around or after Pooja and before Deepavali). Sometimes our grandmother from whom I learnt the alphabets in finance, used to review the need for so many magazines (well we used to get Vikatan and Kalki as well, as also Dinamani for some odd reasons Kumudam was not in our list - like Coffee it came into my life much later and through my own budget). I am unable to recall the author of Yuga Sandhi; if my memory serves me right, it was a debutant novelist and a woman at that; this got the first prize in that year from Kalaimagal. And it was a novel I tried to read but did not complete reading. So the lasting inspiration is more about the title of the novel. Whether we take time and note of or not, every one of us is in a Yuga Sandhi that keeps changing every moment. We are not free from influences that were left on us by our forefathers, especially grandparents more and parents to an extent (we tend to rebel a bit against parents and influences of grandparents get often to last better on us, there is a risk of an over-generalization here, with that risk factor I am stating this) And the confluences get much more exciting when the influences come upon us from our offspring. Those of us who have peers, friends, life partner and other associates who engage with us touching the nerve of thoughts that are flowing through us from times whose oldest point we would never be tracing out, are indeed so blessed to be surfing on a ceaseless and seamless flow. So how does one celebrate this blissful flow that is part of our life, but a flow often like Saraswathi in the famous Triveni Sangam (3 way confluence in Ganges where the two are seen from surface viz Ganga & Yamuna with Saraswathi being a flow down under not visible from surface but realized by way of belief)? What is the Saraswathi that is making the confluence of times Triveni in us? Is it the life that is yet to come into our family, believed and not visible now and visible when our wishes materialize? Or is it life of our forefathers, who have over time become a ritual to the Kartas in our family (those who perform rituals in their memory on occasions as per prescriptions in respective faith) unseen, but believed and experienced at a spot where we are able to get to see the confluence of two rivers, two streams of thought, two sets of values, two sets of cultures, flowing from distant mountains of civilisations and fountainhead of knowledge, wisdom and values? Confluences of rivers in their physical form are far simpler than confluences of human thought. And confluence of times could takes us to a complex permutation and combination of evolutions that have a different flow for different persons. And each confluence has a piece of history, unwritten, unread, unreflected and unknown event to the individual concerned. Going back to the financial control of my grandma, Kalaimagal was never stopped and it kept coming for a long long time to our doorstep as grandma felt Saraswathi should not be stopped from coming in. I am now wondering whether she attached significance to the river Saraswathi apart from Goddess Saraswathi, because my memory goes back to her first act in the early mornings which are very special to me even today when, as I rub my eyes and go to the small room next to the granary (kind of private warehouse of food grains) where I used to set about grinding the coffee seeds roasted very recently by Grandma, with the help of a hand driven machine, deeply lost into its aroma as freshly ground powder (with no privilege to drink till I reached public examination phase of schooling), I was listening to her chant accompanied by the sound of cold water being poured over her head from the well of the house in the backyard, the chant being literally a confluence of every river of India, including the 3 rivers that make Ganges so special with the Triveni Sangam. In my life, Kalaimagal as a magazine has left reaching my doorstep. But I am never out of the confluence where I believe in Saraswathi and realize the bliss of Saraswathi through a Yug Sandhi, that keeps me surfing over a flow of thinking from forefathers to the visible next generation I keep learning from and quietly vibrations of learning that are yet to come from life that is yet to arrive on earth. Looking forward to get back to Coffee Yog, with random thoughts and reflections on life, logging at the same time into a bit of aroma of now and a lot of nostalgia of a yug that is, in Gods grace, not yet lost on us.
Posted on: Fri, 17 Oct 2014 07:26:58 +0000
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