Tanya asked what an Atheist Hindu was...

..and I told her I didn't really know, but I would try and think it through. She asked in the context of me claiming that my Pundit acknowledging 'Atheist Hindu' as a thing. It's something I've been thinking about a bit recently, as I try to make sense of the difficulties I face and when I revel in feeling like I am fulfilling my dharma as I study nursing and raise my kids. I was brought up by a non practicing C of E father, a mother lapsed from her strict Methodist upbringing to vague eastern hippiehood and I went to an anthroposophical school. I was not destined to get all fundamental about any religion, but to give all of them a certain grudging respect.

I don't think there is a divine plan, or really a divine at all. I don't believe in anything supernatural, but I know there is stuff that science can't explain (yet). I suspect our minds are more powerful than we give them credit for.

Hindu gods can be approached as a manifestation of a feeling, or a desire, or even perhaps a social construct. As such I give a respectful little (mental) nod and a wink to Ganesha (Remover of Obstacles) before I start some new endevour. In distracted moments I wonder how I would depict Saraswati (Wisdom and Learning) if I were creating a likeness of her (traditionally she has a musical instrument, but that doesn't work for me). Really what I'm pondering in these moments is what obstacles I may have to overcome or the nature of wisdom

I look at my life in terms of fulfilling my Dharma (looking for, and following, my life's path). I don't believe in literal reincarnation, but I do believe that in so far as our actions impact the world, those impacts can easily last beyond our deaths and they are something to be mindful of.

Please, I know very little about Hinduism really, so standard disclaimer: all errors are entirely my own. 

If you aren't comfortable with me claiming Hindu status then I am perfectly comfortable sticking with Atheism

Short post: atheism, kids, diwali and my nursing studies

I'm kinda joking with that 'short' part, but considering almost all the big life issues are jammed into the post title, and some of them are somewhat contradictory it will be short. You will be pleased to know I don't have anything to say about politics today.

Have I mentioned before about how I sort of consider myself an atheist Hindu (atheist first, Hindu second)? It came about when the wise Punditji who performed our wedding ceremony telling me, when I mentioned I was an atheist, that the Hindus 'have room' for that but the Christians probably didn't. It's only relevant because I am still trying to work out how to talk about religion with my kids. There is nothing better able to to joyfully force one to consider one's own position on difficult issues than trying to explain where you stand to some bright and inquisitive school kids. In this case I was explaining to Asher why we celebrate Diwali ( AKA Deepavali and other spellings and pronunciations. translating Sanskrit into the various Indian languages and then into words that can be spoken in English is tricky). We bought some lottery tickets to give to Sanjay and his dad as Diwali gifts and a lovely candle for Sanjay's mother.

It also seemed to be a good time to talk about the bigger meanings of the festival, so I reminded him of the two stories I know about Diwali, both familiar to him from 'Amma tell me about Diwali' by B. Mathur. One of the stories sees the goddess coming into the home of a poor woman, working late even on a festival day, and granting her wealth. The other story, the main story, is from the Ramayana and describes people lighting lamps to welcome their banished King and Queen home after fourteen years in exile (er, that was... brief. It's a massive, intense, tragic, brilliant epic!). I was trying to think through appropriate ways to talk about the meaning of these stories as I was talking to Asher and I came to the idea that they are both about shining a light on the path of right - either in terms of personal hard work or using the ancient city of Ayodhya as a metaphor for self and the lights help to lead us to 'right action' - whatever right action looks like to us.

Which brings me, neatly, back to my nursing course. People keep asking me how my course is going; everyone from the crossing supervisor at the kids' school through to my family and my therapist mentions it and for sure sometimes it's just politeness but often people want to really know about the course and how I'm feeling about it, and wondering if I'm going to enjoy clinical nursing. I generally answer with a flippant comment about being busy, stressed or the fact that I've just finished first your again (!) and sometimes I go to say 'I should have done it years ago' but the reality is slightly more difficult to talk about. I feel like whether I enjoy it or not is almost irrelevant. I am fulfilling my dharma. I am on my path. The course is tough, tougher than my first degree and although I don't have the memory I did then I am wiser. I still agonize over my assignments. But whatever stress and drama it causes me, I am where I'm meant to be. I don't think I should have done nursing straight out of school - my dad was very well known in the field and in my 20s I wouldn't have been able to answer the 'but why didn't you study medicine' without shame. I didn't get the marks and also I wanted to distance myself from my family, not follow them into the healthcare field. So now, in my forties, with ten years of tech career, then ten years of mum-ing I am into my next phase - nursing. Maybe for ten years. And because I spent some time thinking about Diwali, and talking to my kids about the idea of a life path and dharma, next time someone asks me how my degree is going I can reply that I am on my path, without feeling awkward or being flippant or dismissive.

Travel Diary - Where was I up to?

Apsara Dancer

Siem Reap needs pictures. Well, to be fair, the town of Siem Reap doesn't, coz it's a fair bit like so many other Southeast Asian tourist towns. Full of young Japanese, French, Australian and Irish backpackers, Chinese and Korean tour groups, a generous smattering of families with young kids (mostly German, Dutch or Australian), grey nomads (North American) and 'voluntourists' of all ages and nationalities taking a break from their good deeds. There are lots of touts, a fair amount of children begging (dirty, but not deformed as they are in India) and more than
enough neon lit bars and restaurants for all of them.

Angkor Wat and the other temples however need pictures. Ideally lovely photos taken by professional photographers but if you don't want to buy a fancy coffee table book or even do a quick Google search you can see some of mine.

This is like holding the Taj Mahal on your hand, an almost obligatory cheesy tourist shot. 

They really are SO beautiful!

Angkor Wat at a slight angle. Our tour guide was not the *best* photographer, but he knew a lot and spoke great English.

One dollar for the blessing of one the guys who looks after the temple statues. Not a regular monk (no robes) but I got a red thread and lots of chanting over the knots as he tied it. 

The causeway to the temple of Angkor Wat. My fancy new camera (Olympus TG2. Waterproof, shockproof and it seems to have decent picture quality. Thanks Tim!) has a bunch of magic effects. This one is 'fisheye' which seems fitting somehow.

It was a long hot day, but really magical. We booked our tour with 'Beyond' which is owned by Australians apparently but they deserve a shoutout. It was US$28 for the full day which included all the (chilled!) water we could drink (I don't think they want any of their guests dropping dead of heat exhaustion) a hot lunch in a nice shady pavilion, a friendly guide who spoke excellent English, had a sense of humour and was really receptive to what our group wanted to see. The maximum group size is eight, but there were just four of us - me, Clare and a cheerful Malaysian couple. Did I mention the airconditioned van that took us between temples? Considering a tuk tuk would be about US$15 I felt this was actually pretty decent value.

Kiran's Mundan: After

It was a good day. The ceremony, inside because of the threat of rain, went well - there were three pundits, fruit, chanting, fire, no shoes and Asher running around taking photos. The ceremony took a little over an hour and Kiz stayed pretty quiet throughout. I bribed him by shoving raisins in his mouth.

After the ceremony we shaved the little guy's head. My 'aunty' Margaret did the shave and Kiz stayed still and quiet. After the shave there was food and drink and lots of exhausting socialising. People were lovely and complimented me on my outfit (I gave credit to Tim and Jen who sent it from Singapore every time) and asked me if we were thinking of having more kids (it's unlikely we'll have more).

Now it's all over and I'm so tired I'm quivering. Kiz is asleep, Asher is staying out at Turramurra with his grandparents and I've finished the piece of toast I had for dinner. I'm going to leave the mess and slink off to bed as soon as I've finished my herbal tea.

Is love really colourblind? Is the easter bunny an athiest?

The things kids notice, and fail to notice, are really really weird. I've been reading the wonderful Peter's Cross Station and have been inspired to look for ways to talk to Asher about race so when Asher mentioned Trisha from his Play School DVD I saw my opportunity. We were at the cafe yesterday morning and he was talking about the DVD and I asked him what Trisha looked like. He replied that she wore a purple shirt, which is quite true, but not quite what I was expecting. I agreed that she did and then mentioned that her skin looked quite dark brown and asked him if he'd noticed. He said he hadn't so I then started chattering about how his daddy had dark brown skin too, and I had very light brown skin and he and Kiran have medium brown skin. I don't think I did particularly well, but at least I've broached the topic. He's barely noticing gender, so the fact that he doesn't notice 'race' isn't that surprising to me. I'd like him to hear about this stuff from us, rather than hear things of dubious veracity in the playground.

The other topic thats been on my mind a lot recently (particularly with all the chat about Richard Dawkins in the media) is kids and religion and, more specifically, lack of it and how that fits in with a childhood in a nominally Christian country. I'm an athiest and Sanjay is (he's lying on the couch and I just asked him) an agnostic. My parents are nominally Christian and Sanjay's parents are Hindu, or Sikh (the distinction is blurry to me) and I'd like my kids to understand their cultural heritage, but I'm not keen for them to be indoctrinated into a belief system. So, with all this in mind, when we walked past the local church on Sunday and Asher mentioned that there were a lot of people around I chirpily told him that the people had been in the church because it was Sunday, and that on Sunday people who were Christians sometimes went to church to pray to god. I reminded him that he had been to the Gurdwarra with his Grandpa Sham and told him that that's where Grandpa Sham went to pray. The poor kid didn't really understand what I was blathering on about and just said "Mm-hm" in an agreeable tone and that was that.

Luckily the Easter Bunny is about as religious as the Tooth Fairy (or Santa Claus, I guess) so we can get into the easter spirit with massive amounts of chocolate and perhaps sugar fuelled tantrums.

Not a baby anymore

On Sunday when he had his Mundan saṃskāra Asher officially left behind his baby self. The wonderful Rami (The same pundit who officiated our wedding. He has his own website if you want to know more) explained to us that this was the beginning of his spiritual life and the official end of babyhood. It was a lovely ceremony, Asher was amazingly calm and good (which I attribute to Pundit-ji's chanting) and afterwards we ate great food from Billu's catering and chatted while kids ran around and pestered their parents to be allowed in the pool. I think that as far as these big Indian parties go it was fun, and everyone seemed to be having a reasonably good time. There will be photos up on Flickr in a day or two.

The actual hair removal happened after the ceremony - Tim used Elia's clippers to give Asher a 'Number 1' but the lack of sleep, heat and scary buzzing was a bit to much for Asher by that point so the haircut's a bit patchy. I'm going to drop into my hairdresser this afternoon and see if we can't smooth it out a bit - we don't want the little guy looking like he has mange! He does look quite different now though - less like a little Martin child, like me at the same age, and more like a Chhabra. His head is larger than I thought it was and his jaw is somehow fuller. At first he felt a bit like a stranger and I think it's going to take me a few more days to get used to.







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Tomorrow we get the keys to our new house. I would say that posting here is going to be patchy until we settle in but it's already so patchy that I can't see anyone even noticing. I'll let you know what I think of the new place once we've moved.