02/11/2017
Kitta and the Sage - Belief
Retirement was in sight and father decided that after all that globetrotting it was time to put down roots and settle down. ‘Peace and Quiet’ followed ‘Affordable’ in the list of priorities and so the decision was made to construct a house in the ancestral property tucked in the corner of a village in Kerala.
It was a nice piece of land with a small lake on its south boundary, a Krishna temple on the east, a public road on the west and a pathway to other properties on the north.
Peace and quiet aplenty.
Budgets were decided and requirements were discussed. And after a fuming debate between my atheist father and purist mother, via-media was embraced with a decision to call in Kitta – the local “Asari”. Now anyone not familiar with Mallu culture may not know that while the rest of India happily follows “Vaastu Sastra” in entirety, Kerala – like a teenaged rebel – turns up its nose, digs in its heels and primarily follows something known as “Thachu Sastra” peppered with some Vaastu Sastra. (For instance, while everyone else will try to locate their kitchen in the south-east corner, a Mallu will have it in the north-east – we are just crazy in different ways).
Kitta Asari was a master craftsman – old, learned, revered and very much in demand. He would not give you a master plan. Rather, he would ‘Arrive’, inspect the property, do complex calculations based on signs only he knew - and then instruct his assistants to drive in stakes to mark the perimeters of the house and rooms. That was that. He would brook no request for changes – for he was not concerned by what his clients wanted. They could stuff it.
And so Kitta arrived – in a car – with an entourage. He inspected the property and without much ado turned to father with a sober look – the sort of expression you see in Hindi movies when the doctor comes out of an ICU to inform the hero that the patient had decided to depart despite his best efforts.
You see, the land was right behind a Krishna temple and no residence could be behind Krishna. That was an insult to propriety, tradition, religion, vaastu sastra, thachu sastra, and every other sastra one could think of.
It was a devastating verdict. A hefty “dakshina” was paid and Kitta left to make his next killing. Mother won the final debate and the decision was made to not build a house there after all. The subject was not discussed after that.
Until we had a rare visit from my mother’s Uncle. With flowing grey hair, a PG in English and a wanderlust that took him to remote and strange locales, Swamiji, as we called him, was unconventional to say the least. As the head of a well-known monastic mission in South Africa, the stories about him and his progressive style of running the missionary were inspiring – and eye-opening, if not shocking.
Swamiji was informed of the Kitta incident while mother broke into tears and explained how all this was “so inauspicious”. Swamiji grinned and asked “Tell me Komalam, where was Arjuna during the Kurukshetra war ?”. And mother answered “Right behind Krishna who was his charioteer and mentor”. “So why would you think twice about putting up a residence behind Krishna ?” he asked. “Isn’t it more auspicious ?”
Needless to say, mother steered clear of arguments about tradition from then on. They did not build a house in the village – but there was a much more open and tolerant view of culture and religion. A realization that religion is not blind faith. It is just a ladder to reach a spiritual plane where there are no rules, no conventions, no discriminations, no angry Gods with fragile egos – just the presence of the supreme goodness that resides in every living thing.
(Baby Buddha Figurine and Stone Carved Basin - Available individually or together. Please see following post for specifications)
