A day in the life of LIFE

Well,what do you get when you have 5 vatus (bachelor Brahmin "boys" :)) with a limited supply of resources but all enthusiastic to have some trace of tradition and rituals as part of their routine? - The answer is an "Open air Saamoohika Yajur Upakarma" (the annual ritual of the followers of the Yajur Veda to mark the change of the sacred thread) ; the optimized and abridged version, of course.

The memories of a couple of years ago are still afresh - The 6 morning batch at the Shiva Vishnu temple at T Nagar Chennai, the dash back home to get ready for office, the sumptuous lunch at the Raghavendra Swami Math and the self made Halwa for dinner - was such excitement loaded with contentment.

This morning even as the rest of the IIM hostel rested after a night out with case studies and presentations, a few among them found themselves as part of the MI 8 auditions in trying to wake up at the unearthly hour of 6 a.m.

There were a good number of combinations for the attire adorn by us. While RPA was an epitome of the "Mandir Purohit", there were others who had : towel + towel; trouser + towel; trouser + "null" and dhoti + "null" on them.

A majority of them being Tam Brahms, I was the only Kan Brahm in the group, but yes we shared the Best Practices of the Yajur Veda Upakarma (also referred to as Aavni Aavattam in Tamil).

Even as GK struggled with his notes in Tamil (which were as old as the excavations of Harappa and Mohenjodaro) I had my "post its" in Kannada to the rescue which contained fresh notes as dictated by Ma last night.

So we figured out that there were some language agnostic commonalities that could be adhered to by all.

As we went from one Mantra to another, we looked reassuringly at each other, hoping that we were on the right track.

KS was half zombied while KR looked on vigilantly over the course of the entire exercise.

As we entered stage 2 and 3 of the stipulated rituals, the world around us had begun to gather quick pace (Being in the North East, the sun rises a good 90 minutes ahead of the prescribed timing for the rest of India).

This year, the process was more elaborate with the junior batch at IIM having a sizable number (5 is indeed a sizable number in today's context) of interested participants.

This is the first time that I'm up at 6 in the morning in the past 2 months( considering that we go to bed by 3:30, it's indeed a tough order). But it felt to take in the oxygen and the fresh rays of sunlight loaded with Vitamin D, even as the cool breeze rejuvenated our minds.

As the brief ceremony drew to a close, we got back to our normal attire, with the vibhuti (sacred ash) and its fragrance still fresh on our palms.

The conversation soon shifted from Rituals and the Vedas to ERP and Business Law - thus ushering in the next phase of the day at IIM.

But before I get into classes that begin 25 minutes from now, I am off to pounce on some upma made by RPA, the fragrance of which is already reaching my room.

It indeed feels great to be a द्विजः - it comes with its small yet rejuvenating practices and privileges.

शुभं भवतु |