S
Sastri
Guest
I was raised up in an environment of strict austerities, Madi, Pathu, Dhooram etc.For Madi, a garment (invariably sari or veshti) is drenched in purportedly holy water fetched directly from tap, the garment is hung for drying and when it is dried it is Madi. Whoever wears, obviously after a bath, is said to be Madi and shall not be touched by others. The Madi wearing person does pooja, cooks and after naivedhyam, can mix and mingle with others. If touched by others this person becomes vizhuppu. (I had wondered why the converse is not true, i.e if a vizhuppu person touches a madi person why not vizhuppu becomes madi).A vessel in which a cereal, viz rice, wheat, kambu, kezhvaragu, raagi, dhal is cooked becomes pathu and when such a vessel is touched, the hands must be cleansed with water before other vessels are touched else the others also become pathu. During her periods, a woman is said to be 'Dhooram' and she stays in a separate room, uses separate vessels, tumbler for drinking, plate for eating etc and none shall (dare!!!) touch her else whoever touched has to remove cloths, have a (head!!) batch and then enter the house,.When returning from school, the uniform dress must be removed and put to wash, another dress shall be worn after a bath.During erstwhile times, brahmins lived in agraharams, confined to brahmins and exclusively inhabited by brahmins to suit their brahmin lifestyle with austerities. Perhaps austerities had a purpose and was relevant to an era bygone.I still find some women observing austerities subjecting themselves to immense physical torture amidst circumstances and environment hostile to such austerities, in a fast-moving world, and they wax pride about themselves.DO AUSTERITIES HOLD RELEVANCE IN CURRENT TIMES? ARE THEY INDISPENSABLE?
