Immitation and Flattery

Lately I've been reading a lot of language blogs, written by people who are becoming fluent in many languages. I'm going to talk about two of them today.

The first is Fluent in 3 Months. The writer, Benny, picks interesting linguistic challenges for himself every 3 months and the one I just finished reading is becoming Brazilian.

Not just to speak Portuguese fluently (and at the start he already knew it very well), but to speak it so well and behave so Brazilian that Brazilians would think he was a native.

This seemed a little shocking to me, a little like what I get accused of doing. "You can't ever be Indian, so why are you acting like it?"

I wondered if the Brazilians would be offended by what he was doing.

They were not. They were delighted and told him he was certainly "Brazilian at heart." When he started, Benny listed his reasons why he loves Brazilians and their culture and he said that he wanted to imitate them because he admired them. "I highly respect Brazilians, and even idolise them. Their way of living and enjoying life is something that Europeans and North Americans could learn a lot from...[B]ecoming Brazilian is an important attempt for me to try to understand the culture a little better; from the inside. Also, imitation is the best form of flattery! There is no culture that I have grown so fond of as I have with the Brazilian one, so I want to learn as much as I can about how they think, and how they live their lives. I’ll try to adapt my outward appearance and general behaviour to the Brazilian style."

Here is his list of what he loves about Brazilians.

This is a parallel to me in so many ways. I'll have to put together a list of what I love about Indians and Indian culture. It's hard to classify. I know that I love time spent in the Indian community and I miss it tremendously when I'm not around it!

Could I ever blend in? Well, as I said to K when she told me I looked "almost Indian" in my sari, maybe with some self-tanner. :)

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The other inspiration that I've been taking from these language blogs is being unafraid.

They talk about being brave enough to speak a language you are learning and to not worry about embarrassing yourself. That's something I need help on with language (I still pass up great opportunities to test out my Hindi out of shyness and nervousness), but also in general life. That is a major part of what I have been trying to learn, to live without the fear of what people are thinking about me.

Great inspiration for that here:

Nobody's Judging You

Secret to Overcoming Shyness

Embarrassing Mistakes


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Lastly, a great message from the owner of Gnaana.com, a speech about the importance of passing on Indian culture to one's children when living in America.

http://www.gnaana.com/newsletter/KCA_Speech.htm

A Summary, for those who are new

If you haven't been reading this blog from the beginning, I'm going to link to some of the key posts here.

If you're here to read about my experience learning language, you can go to the right-hand bar and click on the "Hindi" tag and that will take you to all Hindi related posts.

First of all, the Introduction post is an important one, to give you an idea of my background and how this all started. And More Specific Background is a continuation of the story.

Then, Conversion and a discussion of people's point of view on that issue. The Caste post is also related to that and Reactions. Also Makes Me Sad and Issue of First Impression continue the discussion of conversion. Zealous explains how converts can be overly enthusiastic.

Why follow culture as well as religion? Posts related to that are: Eccentric, Wearing a Bindi, Religion v. Culture , Appropriation, Labels , Bindi Update

Other people in my situation: People Similar to Me, Westerners Choosing Different Paths

You can't please everyone: Family, Having the Answer, Feeling Deflated

There are many more posts about technical aspects of being a Hindu, those posts are labeled "religion" and/or "philosophy." There are some fun posts and some quick posts, some recipes and songs, etc. But these are the core of what I've been talking about since I started in Decmeber 2009.

I've added some of these as links on the side bar for future new visitors as well.

Reader Questions

Basu had some questions that I am going to attempt to discuss. I won't say answer, because I am not any kind of expert. This is my take on it and I welcome you to put your own beliefs or understandings in the comments.

1. attaining moksha breaks the cycle of rebirth . but after a soul attains moksha through the law of karma , what happens?

I believe that we tend to think about our souls in too limited a way. We are so connected to this idea of ourselves, that we imagine that we go to join God with all our thoughts, feelings, personal history, opinions, grudges, etc.

We leave our body behind when we attain moksha and we also leave our mind behind. Our mind is not who we are any more than the body is. It is the soul only which attains moksha, and the soul is a part of God already.

It is described as being like coming home. We rejoin the rest of ourself, and so it's not like we're a little piece hanging out thinking about being bored while we are in the midst of moksha.

There is no mind to be bored and we are not a separate piece, we become the whole.

Of course, since we can never prove that any messages have come from people who have attained enlightenment, it's hard to be sure about these things. Life or lack thereof after death is a very tricky concept to pin down because no one really knows.

2. you said you follow advaita vedanta . which i suppose says god, a supreme being is beyond all our senses. and the personal gods visnu, durga, lakshmi etc are result of an illusion/maya. in that case how do you relate to myriads of mythological stories? do you think all of them are symbolic stories?
i found it difficult to get the symbolism of all our mythological stories.

I don't know if I would say that personal gods are maya. There's two ways of looking at them. 1) The gods are living creatures like us, but on a different level or 2) the gods are symbolic ways of understanding different aspects of the one God who is too big a concept for us to comprehend. This second one is my own belief.

Also, the one God can go by any name. "He" is ultimate reality and you can call that Atman, or Brahma, or Shiva, or Cosmic Energy, or Shakti. Any of those names can name the Absolute.

I find mythology very interesting. I rarely think that the stories "really" happened, but I don't find that means that they are any less valid or any less real. Being a trained fiction writer, I sometimes find more truth in fiction than in real life.

I don't need for religious stories to make sense or follow a linear progression. Contradictions are not a problem for me. Rather than analyze them, I usually just let them wash over me and see what I get from it.

Take Krishna and Radha and the rest of the gopis. Is it weird that there's a story of a God who is lustfully desired by hundreds of young women? Not really. I think that we are all gopis, longing for unity with God. And all of us can be beloved of God, not just one.

What about Krishna stealing butter and being a difficult child? I think it shows the joy and zest for life in children and encourages us to seek unity with that kind of delight.

Are there particular stories that trouble you?

3. you surly heard the phrase "33 koti devas/deities" in hinduism. wikipedia says that it is possible that 330 million is a mistranslation . and it is actually 33 kinds/types of gods. do you have any reference on this issue for further reading? or if you yourself can explain it to me .
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conceptions_of_God#Conceptions_of_God_in_Hinduism

I read recently that 330 million is more like a way to express infinite. Like in English we might say "There were like a billion flies at the picnic." We have no idea of the number, so we pick a really big one to represent it.

On a DVD I watched about Going to a Temple (from Appu Series) they said that 330 million is not a literal number, but a way to express that every single thing in creation is a god (right down to blades of grass and fruit flies).

Of course, as mentioned about Advaita, in reality there is only one. One God who is everything.

I disagree with some of the things written in that Wikipedia article. To say that God is generally considered female in Hinduism is ridiculous and there are no footnotes to support that claim. There are those who worship Shakti primarily or Kali, but they are not the majority. I think most Hindus (and probably most Christians) would agree that God does not have a gender. Again, we break the Absolute down into parts so that we can understand the whole, so there are both male and female parts that balance each other. Each major male God has a female counterpart.

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I'm happy to discuss anything that anyone wants, but it is a good idea to put the questions in an email to me or a comment on the current post. I don't get any alert of new comments, so it can sometimes take a while before I discover new comments on older posts.

Tomorrow I'm going to post a summary linking to some of my key older posts so that new readers can get a quicker introduction to what's going on around here and not have to read through every post.

Additional Reflections From the Last Post

A friend made some comments to me about my complaint about the speaker at the dance performance that made me think about some things in a new way.

He pointed out that I am often unhappy at feeling like an outsider at Indian events and how difficult and frustrating that is. The woman may have had a point, although I think she chose a very poor way to express it and could have discussed the advertising possibilities with the director in private.

However, it also made me think that the dance school is not responsible for making her happy. They are there to put on an event of their beloved music and dance and it is not a failing on their part to not consider how to make sure that white people like it or are there.

And that leads back to me. It is not the responsibility of Indians at temples or in my daily life to make sure that I feel comfortable. That is entirely on my own shoulders. No one else should have to alter his life because I want validation!

I had not noticed this mindset in myself until it was pointed out and that is one of the great values of having a blog like this. The flow of ideas and the discussion of lifestyle leads me to important insights.

Thanks, everyone, for reading and for giving opinions!

Dance Performance-the day after

So the dance show went really well. It was a long day, though. The event was five hours, starting with music students and then dance students and some people gave speeches.

I messed up my dance a tiny bit (turned the wrong direction, but it was not very noticeable to the audience). My dance class is just me and one other girl, K. We were the only adult students there, and beginners. It was a little embarrassing. That and my costume was a few sizes too small!

K also declared that we and our guests were the only non-South-Indians there (she's Bengali). She wasn't quite correct.

There was a white woman who made one of the speeches. I wasn't able to hear what she was saying because I was getting changed at the time, but my boyfriend said that she gave an odd talk. He said she basically said that this cultural event was so wonderful and beautiful and they should try harder to share it with the general population and not keep it all Indian.

He found it pretty distasteful and he wasn't the only one. At the very end of the show (after this woman had already left!) one of the organizers said the good-bye speech and the thank yous. He made sure to point out that the last dance was done to a Western song (classical music set to a techno beat). He talked about how previous shows had blended ballet with Bharatnatyam. I think he was hurt by what that woman had said.

I think it was inappropriate too. It's not as though white people are forbidden to go. I was there. My boyfriend was there. It was a free show, anyone who wanted to come could have. That's not the fault of the dance school. Maybe they could have advertised differently, but I'm not sure how. Should they have put a lot of money into advertising to a segment of the American population that is very unlikely to even come?

K and I were talking about it a little at the dress rehearsal. She said something about this dance being unique and that other forms of dance have participants of all races and backgrounds. I said I thought more white people would be doing it if they knew about it, but K didn't think so. She made the point that you would have to know an awful lot about Indian culture and mythology to enjoy Bharatnatyam. It also has a spiritual aspect and I'd hate to see it turn into an exercise craze only, like yoga!

Obviously the woman who gave the speech didn't read the program too closely, or she would have seen my Scottish name :)

Photo in a Sari

As promised, here is a picture of me in a sari. It's a little difficult for me to look at pictures of myself these days, as I've gained a lot of weight in the last few months. Anyway, I'm working on getting back to my normal size (forty pounds lighter!), but it is hard to face evidence like this of how big I've gotten.

So, I'm on my way to my dance performance today. I'm wearing this sari until it's time to change into my dance costume. I'm about to go put on all the dance jewelry.

This is my fanciest sari by far and I love how silky soft it is!



Edited to add: When I got to the dance school my friend, K, asked if I wanted her to "fix it." Apparently my hem was not entirely even and my pleats left something to be desired. She took me to the bathroom and rewrapped me, and I hope I can remember her tips on how to do it. I've been wearing sari based on my memory of my cousin showing me how to do it one time!

Zealous

I'm always reading stories about other converts, regardless of which religion they are moving to or from. There seems to be a quality that converts have in common and which I'd love to study more and read more about. That is their zeal.

To some extent, people born in a religion can take it for granted and it can be uncomfortable to see people new to it who have so much excitement to do everything.

Here you are, you've been X religion all your life and you've settled into a groove with it, doing the parts that make sense to you and leaving some of it. Your name is X and your looks are X, so it has always been part of your identity and you don't have to do anything to hold onto it.

Now here comes someone who has just discovered how amazing and wonderful X religion is and he is doing every ritual and looks at you in surprise when you don't do something that is usually a part of X religion. This person studies and questions and asks about things you've never heard of before and their enthusiasm is exhausting and pretty annoying.

But converts can't help it!

Through Memoirs of a Jewminicana I found an article about a Jewish woman whose husband converted to marry her, but then took everything very seriously.

In the comments a girl named Rebecca said, "But realistically, who converts to be lukewarm about something."

Michelle responded:

You nailed it Rebecca. Someone told me about a year after my conversion that he was surprised at how familiar I was with services and rituals and how knowledgeable I was about Judaism in general. I couldn’t figure out why he would think I would be anything less. It’s hard for me to imagine someone converting who wasn’t passionate about it and didn’t want to immerse herself into the faith, the tradition and the community in a significant way.

-TabletMag.com