videoblog

Jing'an Temple

This month marked my 50th business trip to Asia. Given I have gone there 50 times, it has always been airport to hotel to work to a lunch or dinner (mostly at Bolloywood India restaurant) followed by rides to Airport on the Maglev train.

One deviation from this would be a post lunch walking through AP Plaza that doubled up as an exercise as well as a bargainig practice in the local marketplace for knockoff and reject goods.

Other than this routine, never ventured out to see anything. Recently, thanks to over booking at the hotel in industrial area, got to stay in the riverfront at a nice hotel. That in itself was a nice experience. So I made up my mind that this time I would visit the Jing'an Temple and pray for success at work and home. 

Buddhist temples are interesting. They are sometimes an oxymoron given the message of the Buddha was to give up material posessions and let thoughts wash over you like waves, good or bad and just let the moment sink in. When you see a tower of pure gold and a statue that is 20 plus feet tall made of Jade and Camphor wood, you just realize that maybe Buddha was wrong.. again, it is not a good idea to have me go off the philosophical deep end as it takes more than a few paragraphs to get back on topic! 

This is by far the most magnificent temple for the Buddha I have seen. I am told there are a few in Thailand that will take my breath away. My lung capacity has increased after seeing the Jing'an temple, so that visit to Thailand will hopefully happen soon and we get to see how breathtaking that is. 

All that said, to find a temple that is so quiet and tranquil in the middle of bustling Shanghai in itself is pretty amazing. The contrast between a structure that is a few hundred years old against the glass palaces of today in the background is striking! It was a 35 mintue train ride from the hotel. Funny thing is that there is a train station right under the hotel and the other train station is right under the temple. It was a freaking direct line and it took me 50 trips to go there!

This temple was apparently at a different location. It was built in ~200AD and stayed in that location till ~1800 AD. Then it was moved to this location. It was also converted to some kind of factory when Chinese took down all religious stuff and thirty or so years ago this was renovated again. 

I was suprised that this thing survived the revolution. There was a Jade stone at the temple on display that must weight a few tons. It was 8 by 6 by 4 feet and quite a sight. That stone alone must be worth a jillion dollars. Buddha must be laughing from above!

Two slideshows (all iPhone photos edited on Photoshop) horizonal pics..

Here are some pictures of this amazing place! 

A slideshow of vertical pictures..

I said my prayers for my companies success and for some personal peace and tranquility. Happiness comes from within.. is half the story of Buddha's teaching (just read that in the book "Sapiens" by Yuval Hariri). 

As soon as my colleagues showed me that picture on the phone was instantly drawn to the bald spot.. well it is not a spot anymore as it has pretty much taken over the head. Told him "seriously?" and they went into a long discussion in Chinese. Turns out they were trying to imagine me completely bald and were guessing if I was going to look okay or not given the shape of my head. I thanked them for the detailed laugh filled discussion and asked the Buddha promptly for this to end gracefully. The sooner I go fully bald the better off I am.

willing to let it all go! 

Praying always help me because while praying, I clear out the clutter in my head. Does not matter what the god is. It is like doing toe stand in the yoga class and blanking out, except I am nicely balanced on both feet!

The Buddha answered my prayer instantly. Felt at peace walking around the temple!

Now that I know how to get there from the hotel, will go visit again soon. Made that a conditional promise to Mahavira!

Lightning strikes

Last month, during one of those days of my self imposed social media ban, was waiting outside on the street while Jr. was having her Saxophone lessons.

The skies darkened all of a sudden and there was thunder and lightning strikes, the likes of which I have not witnessed in almost 2 decades in the bay area. They were so frequent that I could get photographs of lightning with my iPhone!

Here is a photo.. 

and a edited video.. (I kept rolling for a good 10 minutes)

it was a memorable 15 minutes.. then the skies cleared and it was back to normal. In case my memory fails me someday, this blog will be there to put the marker back.. 

This was an amazing treat from mother nature! 

Navarathri Golu - 2017

We are currently celebrating Navarathri (nine-nights) and the Golu visits that come with the celebration. 

The women and girls (and their drivers by induction) are dressed nicely. 

There is high octane fuel.. err Sundal to feed the traveling beauties and chaufers.. 

Some fine singing by the kids in front of the doll displays and 

the doll displays themselves.. a thing we look forward to in this household. 

For those of you who are new to this blog, here is the background. South Indians celebrate Navarathri (Dushera, Durga Pooja in other parts of India) with elaborate doll displays on a staircase pattern (padi) and make some yummy treats with various legumes on 9 nights of the festival. They invite ladies and kids to visit their house, they sing in front of the deities, eat the snacks and are off to visit other folks. The ninth day is a prayer to the godess of learning, Saraswathi and the tenth day is celebrated as the day of Victory (Vijaya- Dasami).

In most houses where there has been a death in the family that year, they skip the display in their house and visit other folks. In some rare cases, where families found that the first year they kept the display as a newly wed family correlated to a death of a closed one, and I use the term correlate with a lot of hate given my applied math background... they watch cautiously. 

My grandmother apparently lost three kids to three years when she tried to keep the golu and decided that keeping the golu was not auspicious for the family. Since then (60 odd years ago), there has been no golu in this house on any paternal desencents. Any woman who gets married to a guy in this family, is promptly brainwashed irrespective of her education level and is told "not to tempt fate by keeping a golu". 

Let's just say that everytime I piss a flamingo dies. Unfotunately piss I have to. Out of respect for my elders (let's call it that) I am just happy visiting golus and taking photos of my cuties in different dresses. . . and of course documenting the golus from bay area which are frozen in time.. the Golus in Chennai seem to have morphed into some advanced concepts in terms of themes, dolls and partying! 

This is typical of any immigrant community that evolves on one side and supresses evolution on other fronts to keep things "authentic".. 

This year we managed one family portrait..

and visited 10 or so Golus over the weekend. I will miss the rest of the golus because of work. It is what it is.. Have asked Jr. to take some nice pictures of golus they attend and show me and I can add it to the slideshow below..

This year I also got to take pictures of the Dasavatharam set (10 avatars of Vishnu) from different Golus (where it was possible to take a picture). Given the circular golus and a shallow depth of focus, some golus were a challenge to capture.. next thing I know, we might need drones to take ariel views of the golu and add videos. Golugraphy has to make its technological advances, no?!

Talking of technology, the kids are taking their science projects and making the Golus interesting. We were witness to a volcano demonstration as part of a golu. Every visitor gets to see the volcano. Just think of how much fun Golus are becoming! 

Here they are...

Given that kids place the dolls and there is sometimes breakage in transit, it is impressive that the golus make it with all 10 avatars. Sometimes folks place it in the wrong sequence while majority place it right. Have written about this in a FB post before.. but there is a logic to this. My grandpa taught me that the 10 avatars of Vishnu is our forefathers way of teaching us evolution. The puranas that talk about the 10 avatars pre-date Darwin by 100's of years. 

The idea is :

life started in the ocean.. the first avatar is fish

Life moved to amphibians .. second one is a tortoise

Then it came to be ground feeding land animals .. third one is a boar

Then came a predator .. Vishnu as a Lion

Then came a pygmy or dwarf .. Vamana

Then it is all homo sapien transformations with a man who is mentally unstable (but physically a man as we know it) - parashurama (violent man)

followed by Rama - man with ideals

then Balarama -- a man with a plough (he has now settled and has figured out how to tame rivers and do agriculture.. non nomadic man)

then Krishna (god who does anything he has to to win and in the process sets up the downfall of man)

Finally Kalki, the doomsday avatar of Vishnu who finishes off what Krishna started. (Last year I had made fun by saying Trump is Kalki and regret that.. he won as I predicted and given where we are.. he might actually be the 10th avatar of Vishnu.. given God comes in all shapes, sizes and colors..even orange)

It is interesting to see how sometimes we miss the bigger picture or the hidden lessons! 

As usual, look forward to next years's Golus..