Clothes and Politics

It turns out, apparently women's clothes is symbolic and a topic for debate and difficulty. I was chatting with a guy recently who said that he noticed from my blog that I wear Indian clothes frequently and that he wasn't sure, as a feminist, how he felt about that.

I don't tend to think about the political implication of my clothes.

I wear clothes because they suit my mood, they make me feel a certain way (elegant or cute or graceful), they are pretty, they are comfortable.

But clothes have other meanings, particularly female's clothes. Clothes can be a sign of oppression, they can be forced on a woman (such as a burka, or Hindu daughters-in-law who can be required to wear sari).

When I get dressed, I never worry about those things. I'm not a very political person, I guess. I just do my thing and I don't always see the big implications of it.

I don't believe that salwar kameez are clothes of female oppression, what do you think?

To avoid forcing women to wear certain types of clothes, doesn't it make sense to allow us to wear what we like best? Are there reasons not to do this?

For me, the clothes of oppression are the ankle length skirts that I used to wear in SES. I still sometimes wear ankle-length skirts, but it's rare. I only own two now, when that used to be my entire wardrobe. I've never forgotten the humiliation of being sent back to my room to change when I wore a skirt I borrowed from my mother that was mid-calf length instead of all the way to my ankles.

I don't want it to sound like I'm upset by this, I just thought it was an interesting topic to talk about!

Edited to Add: Picture of me at work today, this kurta is from my trip to India and the biggest problem with it is that it makes me look fat!

More on Hindi

It is ridiculously frustrating that I've been studying a language for two years, and steadily studying it, and still can only say very basic things.

However, languages are not easy to learn, particularly for someone who has only one language.

I think perhaps I need to let go of the goal of speaking and focus on a goal of understanding. If I take the pressure off myself to produce something and just be happy with how much my ability to understand is improving, maybe someday, after a lot of listening, I'll begin to be able to speak.

I've wanted so badly to be bilingual, and I chose this language because it's one that would have practical purpose in my life!

I will attempt some more simple sentences at some point soon, but I'm going to try not to get angry with myself when they're wrong!

Hindi Practice

My Hindi learning has slowed way down. It's hard to maintain enthusiasm across the long haul of getting fluent. I'm at a point where I can understand the gist of a lot that I hear, but that's about it and it's not good enough!

Sometime I would like to do is start writing a few posts or parts of posts in Hindi for practice. I tried doing this through lang-8, a website designed for you to write in your target language and get corrections, but I feel frustrated there that I can't explain myself in English. I don't trust the corrections I'm getting because there is no "why" included.

So I'm going to occasionally post little stories and things in Hindi and if you know the language, feel free to correct my usage in the comments, and it would be really helpful to say something like "the reason for this correction is that 'ki' is only used for..." etc. But I trust you guys to be making changes based on real need, rather than on cosmetics.

When I do Hindi posts, I'll plan to also do English posts with them.

So, here we go...

अब जो गर्मियों में यहाँ है, मैं बाहर व्यस्त हूँ. पिछले शनिवार मैं दोस्त के साथ चिड़ियाघर के पास गए. मैं धूप की कालिमा है.

कल रात मैं अच्छा आदमी के साथ रात का खाना खाया. मैं भी कल उसे देखती हूँ.

Review: The Jedi and the Lotus

This book was not what I was expecting.

I have long been telling people that the religious aspects of the Star Wars movies (as least the original ones) are based on Hindu philosophy. I point out the direct quotes from the Gita that Yoda spouts. I vaguely try to explain how the force is very much related to the Hindu idea of all things being connected by energy.

When I was sent this book, The Jedi and the Lotus, to review, I expected to find a few more tidbits to support my assertions at parties. I thought it would support a fun little preoccupation, but it is so much more than that.

This little book is much denser and more heavily researched than I anticipated. It is packed with fascinating information. More than just showing how Star Wars was influenced by Hinduism, it takes beliefs and experiences from Eastern philosophy and shows how both Star Wars and Hinduism support them. It goes into tremendous depth.

There is an introduction about Joseph Campbell and his connection to the making of Star Wars and there are quotes from George Lucus, but it is also full of footnotes and research and information about some of the most advanced and mystical of the Hindu practices.

Chapters are subtitled: "Star Wars and Brahman," "Nature in Hinduism and in Star Wars," "Spaceships and the Vedic Literature" and more.

This book is a really fascinating read and I definitely recommend it. It is much bigger than it appears at first!

Religious Compatibility

http://blog.okcupid.com/index.php/how-races-and-religions-match-in-online-dating/


I've been noticing ever since I started dating ten years ago that I have the most successful dates and relationships with atheist men. According to the research at OkCupid, that appears to be the most successful match for Hindu women in general! I never would have guessed that.

In fact, from their study, there is mutual dislike between Hindu males and Hindu females! I don't know much about statistics and getting meaning out of data like this, but I wonder if its source has something to do with that. Perhaps traditional Hindus are highly unlikely to be on OkCupid looking for a match!

Apparently this might also mean that Hindu men are much more difficult to please, have stricter requirements for dates (and apparently Muslim men and women as well). That's what I gathered from OkCupid's own analysis.

End Times

I don't know if this was advertised heavily around the world, but in America, some very vocal people had the idea that "the rapture" was going to take place last night. For those who don't know, the Rapture is a Christian concept that towards the end of the world the good Christians will be taken up into heaven in their bodies and the "sinners" will be left behind in a world of horrible disaster for several months until the whole world destroys itself. People have been trying to predict when this end time will be ever since a few years after the death of Christ. People in Paul's time actually believed the world would end in their lifetimes. 2,000 years later the world hasn't ended yet.

I was at a party last night. Several Jewish and atheist friends, so when 6:00 came, we checked online to see if there were any reports of people floating into the air, since certainly none of us were going to be raptured! It seems it didn't happen. Either that or there isn't a single worthy person on the entire planet.

I was pretty relaxed, considering that Hindu mythology also predicts an end of the world and we have several thousand more years to go. Also, Hindu time works in circles, so the end of the world is simply the beginning of a period of rest and then the creation will spring forth again in the golden age.

There are some striking similarities between Hindu myths about the end times and Christian myths. In Hinduism, when things in the Kali Yuga (the final age) get as bad as they can get, it is an avatar of Vishnu who will appear, known as Kalki.

"When the practices taught in the Vedas and institutes of law have nearly ceased, and the close of the Kali age shall be nigh, a portion of that divine being who exists of His own spiritual nature, and who is the beginning and end, and who comprehends all things, shall descend upon earth. He will be born in the family of Vishnuyasha, an eminent brahmana of Shambhala village, as Kalki, endowed with eight superhuman faculties. By His irresistible might he will destroy all the mlecchas (Barbarians) and thieves, and all whose minds are devoted to iniquity. He will reestablish righteousness upon earth, and the minds of those who live at the end of the Kali age shall be awakened, and shall be as clear as crystal. The men who are thus changed by virtue of that peculiar time shall be as the seeds of human beings, and shall give birth to a race who will follow the laws of the Krita age or Satya Yuga, the age of purity. As it is said, 'When the sun and moon, and the lunar asterism Tishya, and the planet Jupiter, are in one mansion, the Krita age shall return.'" (Vishnu Purana, Book Four, Chapter 24)

As with some Christian sects, there are Hindus trying to predict the exact time of the end of the Kali Yuga and they do a lot of cross referencing of ancient texts. Personally, I don't think it's important. I will continue to live as dharmically as I can and knowing when the end of the world is will not change much for me, I don't think.

Looking for Signs

I have a bad habit of trying to find a deeper meaning to random little occurrences. I think this is a natural human tendency, our brains like to find patterns. Also, it's so difficult to not be in control of life, so we assign meanings to things to make us feel like everything is operating as it should and something in the universe has our best interests at heart. At least, I do that.

I do believe in karmic consequence, everything happens for a reason, all that stuff. But is it a sign from God if you, for example, get a good parking space? Is there a deeper meaning to finding the color placemat you were hoping for at Home Goods?

An example of how this thinking has gotten me into trouble:

A few years ago I was over at a new guy's house for the first time and I felt incredibly nervous, I realized very suddenly that I was in over my head and I had gone too far too fast with him. But then a song that I love came on the radio. I felt more relaxed immediately and every time I felt panic in that relationship, I thought of that song unexpectedly playing and convinced myself that it had been a sign. That relationship was very bad and never should have gone past the first date.

When I meet a new guy, I look for stupid, weird things that we have in common rather than the important things to have in common! Maybe it's from reading too many romantic stories, but I put too much weight on something like we have names that start with the same letter or we have the same color car. (Those are not real examples, but that's the idea).

I'm trying not to look for signs in everything, not to think that little coincidences are God trying to tell me something!

A Facebook friend recently wrote: Is there really such a thing as "signs"??

Several people made jokes about street signs, but I said: Every time I think something is a "sign" from the universe, I end up making a really bad decision based on it.

I can't live my life based on what I think are "signs." Maybe there really are signs, but my ability to correctly interpret them is clearly broken!

What do you think?