Sushma Joshi's Blog

The extinct slug

Slugs have gone extinct from my garden,
I no longer see them.
They would have healed your broken bones,
People say. Put them inside a banana
And swallow them whole, they say.


One woman tells me of a Newar mother
Who would fry up the slugs
 and feed it to her tubercular daughter
who lived in the dank and the damp
of Ason’s secretive courtyards. Solicitous,
loving. Telling her daughter only: “I brought you fish.”
And the daughter in turn would urge her:
“Eat, eat, eat the fish, do.”
The mother insisted: “No, you must eat them.”
Finally the young woman recovered,
And became fat and strong. And lived to learn
That she had been eating slugs all along.


I fed my mother those black slugs
when she broke her hips--
Perhaps three kilogrammes, my butcher tells me.
You can find them in Shivapuri
 during the monsoon. I can get them,
I have some afanta who can find them for you,
Free of cost. The slugs don’t cost anything.


We used to spear them on sticks, and roast them
 Over the fire when we lived in the mountains,
Another man from the Karnali says, when I ask him
If he’s heard of people in his village eating slugs.
The slugs are very powerful medicine.
We never got sick for the whole year
 after those roasted chiplay.


So many people have been healed,
It seems, of tuberculosis and broken bones
From the slimes of the those ancient creatures.
No miraculous gods here, no faith healers,
Just the simple humble slug.


But no trails of slime on my stone pathway,
No black bodies glistening on my leaves to tell me
The slugs still remain on this planet.
Perhaps they were driven away by the heat
Of asphalt and concrete, perhaps by shrill horns
Of motorcycles. Perhaps simply weary
of the way humans are destroying trees and plants.
The slugs are gone, taking their medicine with them,

perhaps forever, at least from my garden.

Art As A Call To Action

https://www.artofresilience.art/action/
You can read about my art "The Quake" in the "The Art of Resilience" exhibitionat the World Bank. 

2020-2030: The decade of hope

Scroll down to find out what I think this decade is about.***
Happy new decade, everyone! We will phase out #fossil fuel in 2020-2030.
2020-2030: More room for greenery, flora and fauna; less room for billionaire #CEOs and TNCs. I hope this #decade also becomes the decade when the world stops loving big #corporations. 2020-2030: The decade of #solar energy. Lithium batteries, molecular solar thermal storage, solar panels that can be pasted like stickers or unfold like flowers...!

 2020-2030: The decade of #rewilding. 2020-2030: The Decade of #Natural #Agriculture. No more tons of #glyphosate dessicating millions of acres of lands and setting off apocalyptic fires as in Canada and Australia.

2020-2030: The decade in which people start to question whether #technology is eating their brains for lunch. #surveillance #techfascism
 2020-2030: The decade of living #harmoniously with #nature.
2020-2030: The decade of #peace. When the military-industrial complex finally goes out of business.

The Art of Resilience

DIVINE TREES

 Sushma Joshi, Shangri La Inflight Magazine, 2019

The spiritual heart of Hinduism is deeply entwined with eco-consciousness. It is no surprise therefore to find out that trees are central to the daily worship and evocations of the divine.
The kalpavrikshya, or wish-fulfilling tree, is one of the three valuable treasures that appeared during the churning of the oceans, according to Vedic scriptures. The other was Kamadhenu, the wish-fulfilling cow which fulfilled a supplicant’s every desire. The churning of the oceans or samudra manthan was a contest that took place between the gods and the demons in their search for amrita, the nectar of immortality. Indra, the lord of the heavens, claimed this divine tree as soon as it appeared, and took it to his abode. Some scriptures describe the kalpavrikshya as a metaphor for the Milky Way in the sky. The night-flowering jasmine, or parijat tree, is one of the many trees on this material realm associated with the kalpavrikshya. In my own house, the intense perfume of these flowers still fills my bedroom from a tree which leans onto my roof from my uncle’s garden, and is a daily reminder of the divinity residing within floral forms.
The most visible trees of the Hindu faith is the peepul tree, which is worshipped as the form of Lord Narayan himself. The peepul, or ficus religiosa, once used to be part of a dyad with the banyan (bar in Nepali) tree. The two were planted together to create a chautari, or resting place where travelers weary from the hot sun could rest. The sprawling foliage of the two trees provided a cooling shade.
According to Tirtha Bahadur Shrestha, a plant ecologist and bio-geographer, people in villages used to marry the two trees in a marriage ceremony with a big bhoj feast and music, “just like people did with their children.”  This chautara tradition has now died out with the rise of modern transport and automobiles. “But the peepul tree continues to remain a central part of each tole where it is worshipped with red tika and sacred thread, including in my Sanepa neighborhood,” Tirtha-ji told me.
For the Buddhists, the banyan holds special importance, for it is under a banyan tree in Bodh Gaya that the Buddha gained enlightenment 2600 years ago.
Tirtha Bahadur Shrestha, now 82 years old, received his Ph.D from the University of Grenoble in 1977, and worked for the Department of Plant Resources for 35 years. He’s also a life member of the Nepal Academy. He mentions the Pancha-Pallava as another important way in which leaves intertwine with Hindu religious practice. The leaves of five trees are dried and tied into a bouquet (known as a “mutha”), and then sold in shops selling religious items. These can be purchased around Dashain or Navaratri. Pancha-Pallava is used for shanti swosti, or for a ritual to bring about peace. 
One of the leaves used in the Pancha-Pallava comes from the chaap tree. According to Tirtha-ji, local mythology says the famous deity of Changu-Narayan was born under a chaap tree. The leaf of the aap or mango tree is another. These leaves are used to decorate the jagge or mandap created out of bamboo to conduct vedic fire rituals, including weddings.
The rudrakshya tree is sacred to ascetics and sadhus who wear a garland of these beads to show their adherence to the Shaivite path. It is also sacred to laypeople who believe a rudrakshya can ward off serious disease and bring about prosperity and good luck.  Rudra is the angry form of Shiva. Various conflicting sources tell the story of how Lord Shiva shed tears--either in the act of compassion for humanity’s distress, or after killing a couple of demons. These tears turned into the rudrakshya beads we know today.
Rudrakshya beads rise in value according to their number of “faces”—a five-faced one is the most common one and sells for around 5-10 rupees, while an one-faced bead goes for lakhs of rupees in the market. The beads are supposed to bring great luck and prosperity. They are also thought by some to have medicinal value. There’s now a thriving market in fake beads due to their perceived spiritual power. In our own house, we have a rudraksya tree which rains down piles of five-faced beads each year. The fleshy blue-black covering is nibbled on by crows and other birds before they are scrubbed with a solution of soapnut. We then send bags of these beads as offerings to various tirthasthal or pilgrimage places—sacred spaces of Shiva worship which we are not able to travel to ourselves.
I asked Tirtha-ji if rudrakshya had medicinal usages. He said he did not know the specifics, but he mentioned that most leaves and herbs of Ayurveda have sarvanga usages, and are not just “one chemical, one medicine” remedies. In other words, leaves, roots, barks, fruits and flowers of various trees, including sacred ones, are used for the overall health of the body, and not just for one specific isolated ailment as in the Western medical pharmacopeia. A trained vaidya or traditional Ayurvedic healer would know the precise usages, as well as toxicological signs, for each part of a tree.
The sal tree holds great importance in Nepali life and culture. Every offering of flowers, colored powders and banana fruit to the deities is offered in a little leaf bowl stitched out of sal leaves. Sal (shorea robusta) is the only tree whose leaves remain green even after a few months of being picked. In addition, they are waterproof and immune to insects. This property has provided people of South Asia with an easily available biodegradable and disposable leaf on which to eat out during ritual feasts, child’s rice feeding ceremony, wedding party and other ceremonial gatherings. Plates (tapari), big bowls (bota) and small bowls (duna) are stitched with slivers of fine bamboo sticks, known as sinka. Elderly women of the household gather to create these food vessels.
Unlike plastic, sal leaf plates can be thrown away with no ecological damage to the environment. Despite the deep ecological intelligence behind these vessels, Nepalese continue to use glittering plates made out of plastic, styrofoam and aluminum tinfoil to eat out in festive gatherings. These non-biodegradable plastic objects break down into a soup of microplastic, polluting sacred rivers and fertile agricultural land. The Western scientific worldview which permeates our educational system makes the biodegradable leaf bowl appear backward, a primitive object made with little engineering skill and therefore of no value. This devaluing of indigenous culture has led to life-threatening pollution in the entire region.
The Kapoor or camphor tree is also sacred to Hindus. It has also been used in Ayurveda, the healing system of the Indian subcontinent, for over 4000 years. Although it is not worshipped as a form of the divine like the peepul or the banyan,  the camphor extracted from the tree is used as a sacred offering for deities. The incense made from camphor is thought to have medicinal value, especially for respiratory distress and for pacifying the nervous system. It may also keep away microbes, termites and destructive insects. Nepali incense (bateko dhoop), which is made out of various herbs tied together in lokta paper and twisted, always contains camphor.
The bel patra or bel leaf is offered to Lord Shiva at Pashupatinath, Nepal’s most sacred Shiva shrine. According to folklore, Lord Shiva loves this leaf the most. The bael tree is believed to be a manifestation of Parvati, Lord Shiva’s consort. The Shri Shuktam of the Rig Veda mentions that goddess Lakshmi, the consort of Lord Vishnu and the goddess of wealth and prosperity, resides in this tree. Since Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva embody the trimurti or three manifestation of the same divine force, seeing the tree as consort of both Shiva and Vishnu is not an illogical paradox.
In a similar fashion, the pomegranate tree is viewed as the abode of Laxmi, as is the coconut tree. The fruits of both are offered to the goddess. Both fruits are abundant in nutritional value, and anybody eating these fruits are sure to enjoy the benefits of prosperity that comes from being in good health.
The bael (aegle marmelos) tree is also used in a special ceremony by the Newar community to protect girls against widowhood. Before a girl reaches puberty, she is married to a bael fruit, in which Lord Vishnu is thought to reside. Even if her human husband dies, a girl who has done a Bel Vivaha will never be a widow, since she is the eternal consort of the divine protector. In a similar fashion, Bollywood star Aishwarya Rai was widely reported to have married a peepul tree before her marriage to Abhisekh Bacchan to offset the effects of the planet Mars being placed in an inauspicious house in her kundali chart. Although this tradition doesn’t exist in Nepal, it illustrates the belief of the divine presence within sacred trees.
A small amount of sandalwood paste, consecrated from the puja ceremonies at Pashupatinath Temple, is spread on the bel patta before it is applied to the forehead. Sandlewood or chandan trees, both red and white, are very sacred to Hindus. When the wood is rubbed on a stone surface with water, it produces a milky, aromatic paste which is considered a gift of Shiva, and which is applied to the forehead to awaken the inner senses and make one conscious of the presence of the divine. In Ayurveda, chandan is used to treat skin diseases and also to keep the body cool during the hot season. The red sandlewood tree takes much longer to grow, and is now an endangered species whose trade is prohibited by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES). This has led to a thriving smuggling trade. In 2011, India had to request Nepal to stop the smuggling of Indian red sandlewood to China, logs of which were being smuggled via Nepal.
Hindus revere trees for multiple reasons, but their primary reason is simple: the divine is not anthropomorphic, but can shape-shift and enter any form, including those of trees. Embedded in this worldview is a deeply biocentric view of the world. The samsara or manifestations of existence is not just seen through anthropocentric or human-centered eyes, but through the eyes of all beings, whether human, animal, plant, or tree. How can a tree containing Vishnu the protector be chopped down? How can a tree which showers the tears of Rudra onto the ground not evoke a deep universal empathy for the suffering of all beings in the person who wears a garland of his tears? How can a tree which spreads the essence of dharma onto people through its perfume not be more precious than gold?

  

Beautifully written Goodreads review by Richa Bhattarai

काठमाडौँको एक संभ्रान्त परिवारमा काम गर्न बसेको दश वर्षे गोपीले एकदिन अनौठो खानेकुरा ‘चिज’का बारे सुन्छ । घरको कान्छो छोराले स्विजरल्याण्डबाट ल्याएको सेतो चिज देख्दा उसलाई उकुसमुकुस हुन्छ ः के होला त्यो, एकपटक चाख्न पाए कस्तो हुँदो हो ? तर अन्तिम टुक्रा पनि कान्छी नातिनीले खाइदिएपछि ऊ थुक निलेर हेरेको हे¥यै हुन्छ । अनि शुरु हुन्छ— उसको चीज कल्पना र सपना । त्यसपछिका बीस वर्षमा उसले बाहिरी दुनियाको भेउ पाउँछ, बिहे गर्छ, जागीर खान्छ । तर त्यो रहस्यमय चीजको तिर्सनाले छाड्दैन उसलाई । एक दिन आँट गरेरै चिज किन्छ उसले, दुग्ध विकास संस्थानबाट । वर्षौँदेखिको धोको पुरा हुन लाग्दा गोपीको मनमा जस्तो उथलपुथल होला, त्यत्तिकै मात्रा उत्सुकता जगाउन सफल भएकी छिन पाठकका मनमा पनि यो ‘चिज’ गाथा रच्ने सुष्मा मास्केले । उनको कथा सङग्रह द एण्ड अफ द वल्र्डमा समेटिएको पहिलो कथा चीजले नै उनको लेखन शैलीको झल्को दिन्छ— हरेक घटनालाई मिहीन पाराले केलाएर अथ्र्याउने, आफ्ना पात्रका भावनालाई पाठकसामु उदाङ्गै पारिदिने, आदर्शमा नबगेर यथार्थमै रमाउने ।

पहिलो कथामा जसरी गोपीलाई चिज खाने तृष्णा हुन्छ, सङ्ग्रहका अरु सातवटै कथाका पात्रका आ–आफ्ना लालसा हुन्छन्, व्यक्तिगत अभावहरुसँग जुझिरहन्छन् सबै । कसैलाई खोजी हुन्छ मन मिल्ने साथीको, अरुलाई सत्ताको, शान्तिको र प्रायःलाई मात्र दुई छाक भातको । सुष्माले छानेका पात्रहरुले शायद कहिल्यै यी कथाहरु पढ्ने छैनन्, आफ्ना जीवनका सत्य घटना सबैले पढेर चुकचुकाएका थाहा पाउने छैनन् । सुष्माले ती सबै दुखी, निमुखा, भाग्यले पनि ठगेका पीडितहरुको कथा रोजेकी छिन सुनाउन । आफ्ना एकनासे यन्त्रसमान जिन्दगीका हामीले आफ्नै देशका ती बासिन्दाहरु जसको बारे हामी सोच्न भ्याउँदैनौँ र चाहँदैनौँ, तिनको दैनिकी प्रस्तुत गरेकी छिन् कथाकारले । माओवादी जनसेनाबाट भागेर तस्करीमा फँसेको पूर्वमिस्त्रीको, आफ्नो पूख्र्यौली जग्गा बेच्न बाध्य पारिएको किसानको, बेलायती सेनामा भर्ती हुन नपाएको ठिटोको, सुन्तला खान पनि संसारको अन्त्य पर्खनुपर्ने परिवारको, पानी पर्दा बाल्यकाल सम्झेर छट्पटाउने युवतीको ।

दोस्रो कथा बिट्रेयलमा शीर्षकअनुसार नै धोका दिन्छ, माओवादीबाट प्रहरी बनेको महेशले आफूले भाइ नै मानेको साथीलाई । अरुभन्दा अलि नाटकीय लाग्ने यो कथामा पनि नेपाली जनजीवनको चित्रण छ ः भारतमा काम गर्ने नेपाली कामदारको, अनेक आशा लिएर जनयुद्धमा होमिएका जोशिला युवाको, बिग्रदोँ राजनीतिक अवस्था र दयनीय सुरक्षा व्यवस्थाका कारण बाटो बिराएका नागरिकको । कथाकारले यी सबै गतिविधि कुनै अग्लो ठाँउबाट नियालेर वर्णन गरेकी छैनन् – उनी संलग्न छिन् पात्रकै क्रियाकलापमा, द्विविधा र निर्णयमा ।

अर्को कथा छ वेइटिङ फर रेन । तर यो कथाका गाउँलेहरु वर्षालाई मात्र पर्खिरहेका छैनन्, आफ्ना दिन फेरिन्छन् कि, कुनै जनप्रतिनिधिले मर्का बुझिदिन्छ कि भनी बाटो हेरिहन्छन् । यो पखाई कति निरर्थक छ भनी प्रष्ट हुन्छ उनीहरुकै प्रिय नेताले फकाई–धम्काई गरिब लालुको जग्गा किनेको खुलासा पछि । ल एण्ड अर्डरमा कानुन र अनुशासनको रक्षा गर्न खटिएका प्रहरी जवानबारे पढ्न जति रमाइलो छ, त्यति नै पीडादायी पनि । कैदीझैँ थुनिएर बस्न बाध्य उनीहरु आफ्नो शरीरको, पेटको र आत्माको भोकलाई छुट्याउन नसक्ने अवस्थामा पुग्छन्, आफैँले समात्नुपर्ने अपराधीझैँ हुन्छन् ।

सङ्ग्रहको शीर्षक रहेको द एण्ड अफ द वल्र्ड अर्थात् संसारको अन्त्य को आधार हो त्यही हल्ला जसले कयौँ नेपालीलाई त्रसित बनाएको थियो— ग्रहहरु बेमेल भएर पृथ्वी ध्वस्त हुने हल्ला । अलिकति हाँसोउठ्दो र निकै मायालाग्दो प्रतिक्रिया जनाउँछन् पात्रहरुले यो भविष्यमाणीप्रति । पाँचौ कथा म्याच मेकिङको परिवेश अलि भिन्दै छ, भारतमा बस्दै आएको नेपाली परिवारले छोरीको बिहे गराउन रचेका प्रपञ्च बारे । अलि सुखद लाग्ने कथा पनि यही हो सङ्ग्रहमा ।

ग्रिन ड्र्यागनफ्लाइ अत्यन्त मन छुने कथा छ— दिदीबहिनीको मायाको, बाढीपहिरोले गरिखान पनि नदिने कष्टकर जीवनको, जस्तै विपत्ति पनि सहन सक्ने आँटिला नेपालीको । अन्तिम कथा द ब्लकेड पनि जानेसुनेकै विषयमा आधारित छ ः बाराको बुद्ध र माओवादीले राजधानीलाई घेर्ने धम्की । भारतमा मजदूरी गरी फर्केको हस्तबहादुरले आफ्नै देशमा भोग्नुपरेका हण्डर, प्रहरी ज्यादती, र विशेष गरी घर पसेपछि देख्नुपरेको दृश्य कल्पन पाठकलाई नै निकै गाह्रो हुन्छ ।

यी सबै कथा साँच्चै नै हाम्रा देशवासीका दैनिकी हुन्, कसैका नियात्रा, कसैका आत्मवृत्तान्त हुन् । अलिकति व्यङ्य गर्दै र धेरैजसो गम्भीर नै भएर शब्द चयन गरेकी छिन् कथाकारले, पात्र र परिवेशलाई जिउँदो तुल्याउन । हामीमध्येकै मानिस छन् यहाँ ः सिमलको भूवाझैँ कपला भएका बुढाबा, मार्बलजस्तै टल्किने दाँत देखाएर ङिच्चिने नेता, बाढीले बगाउन लागेको बेला देउता खोज्न फर्केकी अधबेस्री हजुरआमा ।

कथाकारले आफ्ना पात्रहरुप्रति देखाएकी सद्भावका कारण पाठक पनि उनीहरुलाई अपनाउन बाध्य हुन्छन् — उनीहरुका पीर–मर्का, सपना, भविष्य सबै बुझिसकेपछि साथी झैँ लाग्छन् सबै पात्र । यही नै हो कथाकारको विशेषता । र उनको अर्को विशेषता हो निस्फिक्री भएर अङ्ग्रेजी वाक्यहरुका बीचमा नेपाली शब्द हुलिदिनु ः गाउँले, कुकुनी, बा, अ‍ैया, लाहुरे । कतै शब्दको अर्थ दिन्छिन्, कहीँ यत्तिकै मिसाइदिन्छिन् । एउटा पात्र अचानक गाउन थाल्छ ः तिमी नभए जिन्दगानी काँडासरी छ... । अङ्ग्रेजी माध्यम मात्र भएको छ यहाँ, प्राण छ नेपाली ।

हाम्रा देशका प्रमुख घटना, हामीलाई प्राप्त उपलब्धि, समस्या र चुनौति, राजनीतिक अस्थिरता— केही पनि छुटेका छैनन् कथामा । कुनै ठाउँमा जनयुद्धका बारे वा सामाजिक संरचनाबारे अलि बढी नै व्याख्या गरेकी छिन् कथाकारले, कतिलाई पट्यार लाग्न सक्छ कथाभित्र निबन्ध पढ्नुपर्दा । धेरैलाई निराशा र चिन्ताले पनि छोप्ला यी कथा पढेपछि । तर यही नै सुष्माको कौशल हो ः हरेक नेपालीका मनका पीडा र अभावलाई जस्ताको तस्तै, सरल र सुन्दर भाषामा पोख्न सक्नु । 
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1...

HOW THE HINDUS CONTRIBUTED TO THE HISTORY OF SCIENCE

 Unlike the Western calendar, the Nepali New Year (and a host of other New Years all over Asia, from Thailand to Tamil Nadu to Bangladesh) starts on April 14th. Why, you may ask. The reason is astrological. The Sun has completed its path around the twelve signs of the zodiac, and on 14th April enters Aries, the first sign, to start the cycle anew.
Aries is ruled by the ram, an animal characterized by quick movement and big leaps. Gamboling along, the first sign shows the initiative and drive of new beginnings, the energy to start afresh, and the power of regeneration.
Astrology draws mockery from most people. A jyotish, or astrologer of the East, is casually called “bajay,” or grandfather, with a slight element of condescension. Western astrologers are often thought of as weak-minded women with too many scented candles.
Part of jyotish’s shabby reputation comes from this conflation: at some point, Western astrologers and Eastern jyotish became conflated as one and the same tradition, although they are vastly different in history and nature.
To point out the most basic difference: Western astrologers and Eastern jyotish do not share the same zodiac. Despite using the same names for signs, the zodiac is at least 23 degrees apart. This means the Aries of jyotish and the Aries of Western astrology are pointing to two entirely different sections of the sky.
To take an example: Western astrologers say that Saturn is currently transiting in Capricorn, whereas the jyotish say it is in Sagittarius, one sign behind. All of us will assume, due the presumed supremacy of Western science, that the Western one must be correct. But in fact if you consult scientific astronomical sites, you will see that Saturn is close to the real constellation of Sagittarius. In other words, jyotish are following real constellations and real movement of planets, whereas Western astrologers are following an imaginary zodiac in the sky which doesn’t correspond to the movement of heavenly bodies into observable constellations.
I will spare you the elaborate reasonings put forth by Western practitioners of astrology of why they are correct about their zodiac, but it has something to do with the “procession of the equinoxes.” Anyways, it is wholly wrong. Saturn is not anywhere near Capricorn at present. But most followers of astrology don’t care about these nuances. You can see millions of followers watching popular Western astrologers give forth their psychological readings about love and matchmaking on Youtube, whereas the jyotish doing astronomically correct readings get a few thousand views, at most.
Jyotish, the Eastern tradition of computing the movement of stars and planets, is called the “sidereal” by in Western parlance. “Sidereal” means “of the stars.” Jyotish practitioners have always followed the movement of planets into constellations on a daily basis, because the movement of the moon, sun and planets remain central to Hindu cosmology and rules its every second, minute and hour. All of this is somehow obscured and overlooked, and all astronomical findings have passed gracefully as a legacy of sharply observational Western minds. We assume astronomy sprung, like Athena out of the head of Zeus, from the fountainhead of rational Western science. But there is plenty of evidence to suggest that ancient Hindus were observing outer space with great acuity and precision long before Westerners. The Surya Sidddhanta is one such treatise which documents astronomical studies in ancient India.
The recent furor created by the visualization of the black hole by MIT scientists made me realize how much observations of astronomical phenomena by Eastern traditions have been obscured by the allusive language and imagery of Sanskrit and jyotish. The jyotish knew the galactic center, the center of the Milky Way where the black hole is located, as “Mula Nakshaktra.” “Mula” means the root, and it signifies origins, roots and the source of all life. Some have suggested this nakshaktra corresponds to the imagery of the navel of Vishnu, out of which all life came forth.
Mula is ruled by Nirrti, the fierce goddess of dissolution and destruction. It is easy to imagine Nirrti as a proto- Kali. Kali is pictured garlanded with skulls, holding a skull, with her tongue hanging out. Her feet are planted on Shiva, the cosmic force of destruction. Kali is Time personified. She brings forth life, and then swallows back into her vast black underbelly every form of life that was ever created, through the cyclical process of birth, death and regeneration.   
Jyotish give precise calculations for the nakshaktras (constellations), of which they are 27. Ashwini, the first nakshaktra, is where Sun begins its annual journey. The Ashwin Kumars were the horses that drove the Sun on his chariot to journey around the earth everyday, in Hindu mythology. Like the horses, people born under Ashwini nakshaktra are swift, fast and efficient decision makers who are always on the mark. They are also thought to be great healers.
Ashwini is ruled by Ketu. Ketu is one of the navagraha of Hindu cosmology, and the first graha in the sequence of the dashachronology. Graha is a spiritual force that seizes when the time is right. Western translators have reduced Rahu and Ketu to “the north and the south nodes of the moon.” I personally feel this is an entirely inadequate material description of what are essentially powerful spiritual forces. The Sanskrit term graha encompasses a host of attributes missing from mere “planet,” which is seen to be more of an aggregation of rocks and gases floating at a certain axis and velocity.
Just because jyotish has these powerful poetic and philosophical concepts mixed in with precise mathematical calculations of astronomical phenomena doesn’t disqualify it’s scientific contribution. But in fact this is what modern science has done: it has seen the entire jyotish corpus as devoid of any scientific merit. I find this disheartening not only because this approach encourages ostensibly scientific young people of the subcontinent to reject their philosophical and scientific heritage, but also because it appropriates what may have been the first studies of mathematics and astronomy as “Western” inventions.
Hindus continue to watch and calculate the movement of the planets everyday because for us this is not just a passing amusement and scientific curiosity, but the very basis of our spiritual life. Where the planets go dictate our fasts, our devotional pujas, our shraddhas to the dead. Every material move, whether to buy land and house, or move to a new location, is dictated by the good or bad timing of planetary movement.
It is time to recognize the centrality of how Hindus have always seen the heavenly bodies as part and parcel of our own material existence on earth, and how we have never felt separate from our billion-year old origins. It is time to recognize that this spiritual practice may have been the origins of not just present day astronomy, but many elements of modern mathematics, including the now indispensable zero, which sprung out of these daily complex calculations. 

ECS Magazine Archives

A few of my articles from ECS Magazine is now up in this link. They including this article.


Reconstructing Heritage


Reconstruction of heritage has risen to the top of priorities in the world of development post- earthquake. Even as the aftershocks continued to hit after the 2015 earthquake, I remember the first and primary concern for most people in Kathmandu was for the Dharahara, the Kathmandu Durbar Square, the historic city of Patan, and other material architectural heritage. People could be united around these monuments and feel their loss in a way they couldn’t for those 400,000 who lost their mud-thatched huts and stone cottages.News about the powerful destruction in other parts of the country trickled in as hearsay, at first: the erasure of Langtang village from the face of the Earth took a while for us to understand. A wonderful, young tourist guide came to visit me a day or so after the big quake in the hospital. He told me how he had been trekking in Langtang when giant boulders started to fall down the side of the cliffs like “makai ko dana” (maize kernels). I asked him how he survived. He said he would run for twenty minutes or so, and then take shelter when he knew the boulders would start to burst down again. “I’m afraid I was a little stern with my tour group,” he said, frowning a little, as if he feared he been too strict. “I told them they had to make a run for it.”I couldn’t help thinking how polite the Nepalis are, always—he had just saved the lives of a group of travelers, and yet his concern was still with whether he’d been too forceful with his speech. He had physically picked up a woman from Singapore, one of the trekkers in his group, and run all the way to Dhunche, because “I realized she would not be able to make it.” The rivers are full of dead bodies, he said, and we looked at each other in silence. For the first time I got a keyhole glimpse to the magnitude of what had happened. Of course, I was in the B and B Hospital, where the doctors had to forcibly lock the gates after too many injured and dying people started to block the corridors and the stairways, so I knew things were bad. In the midst of all these chaos and unaccounted deaths, the only way for people to do something was to focus on those beloved monuments and landmarks, which became icons representative of all that was lost. On the day my young friend visited me, he had just come from cleaning up the Kathmandu Durbar Square. In the midst of all that horror, I could not help admiring the serious, conversational way in which he told me all this, as if we were sitting there chatting in his house’s threshold in the village, and how fresh and clean he looked, and the way his smile never wavered, as if he hadn’t seen horrors of the Earth opening up.While these iconic monuments and historic sites definitely deserve to be rebuilt, and rebuilt with proper seismic standards, I am struck by how blank the knowledge of those who propose to support these reconstructions can be. Nepal is replete with brick and mortar buildings, which layer its outward cities, and those are visible to the outer eye. But, the architecture often rests upon intangible heritage like jyotishis preparing auspicious times and charts, priests conducting secret tantric goddess worship, and everyday folks sharing oral narratives about demons and ghosts. Myths, legends, and family histories that may or may not have been transliterated into a textual source are woven into the architecture and are invisible to the causal outsider. How can Kathmandu be rebuilt by banks in Germany if they do not take the traditional knowledge of Bhaktapur locals into account? What can bankers know about the intersecting knowledge required to create brick and mortar, stone and wood carving, pottery and bronze? But, most importantly, what do they know of the intangible heritage that triggered these monuments in the first place, the goddesses and the deities that populate the rafters and the foundations of these very old structures?How many experts who flew in recently to rebuild Kathmandu know about Jamuna Gubaju, Nepal’s greatest tantrik, who became annoyed with the Indian who came in boasting about how he was the greatest tantrik, and one day invited him over to his house—only to see Gubaju’s wife using her legs as firewood to cook her rice? There she is, with her feet stuck inside the firewood stove, busily cooking her rice. The Indian tantrik was terrified, admitted defeat, and retreated. (Note: This story is excerpted from a much later one, to be saved for a later date.) What do the heritage re-constructionists know about all this—and how are they going to fit all this within their neat engineering solutions to Kathmandu Valley’s revival? But this story is very much part of Kathmandu’s inner lore, and very much part of the woof and warp of what makes up the architecture. The smoky rafters in the attic, where the female tantrik cooked up her calm kitchen revenge, the buigal, or attics, where such events occur, the narrow wooden staircases that lead up to the room, the smell of burning flesh and the smell of cooking rice, this is all part of the intangibles that creates the city. But, start talking about the tantrik, or how Hinduism, astrology, tantricism, and animism are the foundations of architecture in Nepal, and you would be pegged as an amusing eccentric with nothing tangible to say in international development circles. “Traditional knowledge” today means training a few village women how to rebuild a basic building. You can check the gender equality box and the cultural sensitivity box, and continue onwards with the work. The work that is done in this manner is no longer religious work, or spiritual work, or community work—it is development work, and development work almost always crumbles into nothingness once the project phases out.Astrologers not only picked the dates for when a building could commence being built, but could also advice on which direction the building was to face, depending upon the owner’s personal chart and vastu alignments. For a country that is still deeply immersed in cycles of festivals in which the waxing and the waning of the moon, and the change of the seasons, play a major role in timing, the astrologer and his patro (thepanchang) was often of vital importance in setting dates. Because building is a communal activity, it was advisable to avoid those months in which sowing and planting take place—a commonsense planning benchmark that most modern builders overlook. A lot of complaining about Nepali workers and their unreliability (“My workers have all suddenly left to go back to the village, and I don’t know when they will be back. Nepalis are so unreliable!”) could be solved with a little judicious foresight of local festivities.What is remarkable about Nepal’s traditional heritage was not just the beauty of its buildings, but also the way in which they aligned together to form squares and intersections, temples, and water tanks. All of these then came together to form coherent towns and settlements with a central core, where a temple complex, or a water body, played a central part. Unlike today, when houses are built haphazardly, following no rules of community in their alignment—with some facing to the back, and some to the front, some to the left, and some to the right, all apparently fighting to rise higher than the next in the same few square meters of space—buildings in those days respected rules of height, coherence in building style and materials, and spatial alignment, not just because the king commanded it, but because the astrologer said so. The Ranas made equally beautiful palaces modeled on Italian renaissance architecture, formal in structure, with courtyards, gardens, and fountains. In fact, some have argued the Shah monarchy were the least precise and demanding in their architecture, with the Narayanhiti Palace characterized a dumpy eyesore by one disgruntled observer. Often, these ancient settlements and towns resulted in what to our eyes now look like beautiful urban planning, with a logic and coherence which eludes us in post-modern, republican times.Temples were also built in the form of mandalas, which assigned different deities to different corners. If reduced to 2D, they would be complex diagrams that map out space and time and other elements in their internal blueprints. Often, these symmetrical alignments had to be strictly adhered to, in order not to disturb the deities who lived in these structures—and the symmetry of which also imbued the building with seismic strength. A book I read about temple-building mentions how the interlocking wooden frame allowed the building to sway during earthquakes. I assume the grinning skull bricks that line temples also act to protect against earthquakes by creating a tensile line of strength, in much the same way as the modern method of building a horizontal band that breaks up the t-wave. Again, there were a lot of do’s and don’ts in the old methods of building that had to be strictly adhered to, and the knowledge of which has now been lost in the modern moment of concrete-and-iron rod supremacy.The weariness with the old rules and regulations made us think we could do without them—only until the next earthquake, in which structures that had adhered to the old school of thought survive, and will probably do so for the next several hundred years. Concrete and iron rods are, of course, the preferred modes of building now, because they are perceived to be safer and more reliable than old methods. But, as we degrade our river beds in the search for more and more construction materials, we have to rethink how long this free-for-all exploitation of natural resources can continue for building cities that, at the max, have a lifespan of a century. Concrete, I am told, ages fast and doesn’t last beyond 70 years. And, when a concrete building collapses, it collapses suddenly.I was interested to learn from architect Kai Weise, who posted about this on Facebook, that the chariots used in jatra festivals functioned as a “shake table”. Builders rebuilt the chariots each year, each time testing strength and reliability of their design and structure for seismic performance. We often think of jatras as amusing spectacles with splendidly useless structures like the Machindranath chariot being wheeled through crowded cities, and we forget they may have vital utilitarian purposes. And, once the aftershocks receded, leaving people with debris and death to deal with, the jatras became deeply emotive locus points of survival and reconstruction.How could all of this intertwined heritage be separated into the good versus the bad? How can buildings be reconstructed if the astrologers, priests, storytellers, musicians, butchers, and tailors are not included? How can those who tie the wheels of the chariot at a jatra, or paint those eyes on it, not be asked to a meeting with international development consultants about how to reconstruct their city? Which is why I feel a certain level of unmistakable joy that the Bhaktapur residents rejected the German bank’s offer. The money may have been large, but at the end of the day, it is also about preserving the intangibles—the Hindu philosophy, the tantric practices, the farming culture—all of which would have been lost if the living, breathing buildings had merely been reduced to picturesque architectural edifices with potential to draw large numbers of tourists.After seeing the destruction of Rani Pokhari, which has now become a dry plot which the powers-that-be hope will dry up enough to re-build as a giant concrete supermarket, it is natural for all of us to wonder: “Can the Nepalis save themselves?” Can the Nepalis hold on to their heritage? Or, are we doomed to watch it all collapse and crumble before our eyes as an enforced secularism tries to erase, asphalt over, and sell the last lingering bits of religious piety and devotion?If we can’t even reconstruct our one last remaining water body in the middle of the dense, overpopulated, water-scarce urban core, what can we do? Rani Pokhari is the only open water body that can recharge the groundwater in the areas around Ason and Indrachowk. The thought occurs to me that nagas, thought to live in the watery depths, and once worshipped devoutly by Hindus, get angry when their habitats are disrespected. Water wells are always cleaned on a certain date in Newari households, because they don’t want the nagas to be angry. What happens when powerful beings that dwell in the depths of the Earth start to get furious? Do earthquakes result from water being disrupted? Do nagas take revenge on puny humans and make the earth split open? Do we need to revive our myths to revive our water ponds and rivers?Behind our most charming mythologies lies serious science: environmentally-sound water recharge and management strategies, shake tables, collective trauma therapy. Sanskrit mantras that are memorized and enunciated syllable by syllable, and chanted at the right speed, help to thicken a part of your brain that retains memories, says a recent research by neuroscientist James Hartzell, who has dubbed it, “The Sanskrit Effect.” We are willing to put millions of dollars in Alzeimer’s research (with no treatment in sight) but we won’t encourage people in this poor country to take up this simple, powerful, and scientifically proven remedy that comes from the heritage that their ancestors left them. Whatever the politically correct politics behind this, the point remains: when we lose our mythologies, we lose the balance of our lives.Perhaps there may be a middle point where all these intersections meet—finance, religion, spirituality, culture—but if the process of rebuilding brings bankers and development consultants to the center of this process, and sidelines the gods, goddesses, and nagas, the process no longer makes sense. At the end of the day, the woof and the warp of religious, spiritual, and communal life must always take precedence over neo-liberal capitalism.Sushma Joshi is a writer and filmmaker from Kathmandu, Nepal. She has an MA in cultural anthropology from The New School for Social Research in New York.

A small little video of me talking about what I liked about the Ubud Readers and Writers Festival

Check out this short little clip of me at the Ubud Readers and Writers Festival in Indonesia in 2009. 

You can also find that link here on Flickr.

In the Mountains: Book review of "The Himalayan Arc" in the Deccan Herald

In the Mountains
Shyam G Menon, JUN 16 2018, 16:57PM IST UPDATED: JUN 17 2018, 02:02AM IST 

The Himalayan Arc: Journeys East of South-East is an anthology of writings edited by Namita Gokhale. Positioned as a travel book with a difference (that’s what the book’s jacket says), The Himalayan Arc focuses on the stretch of the Himalayas...
Second, there is serious writing from well-known literary figures and articles authored by journalists. My favourites were the chapters from Sujeev Shakya; Amish Raj Mulmi, Thomas Bell, Sushma Joshi, Tsering Tashi, Manoj Joshi, Catherine Anderson, Prajwal Parajuly, Janice Pariat, Indira Goswami, Ma Thida, David Malone and Tulsi Badrinath.
Read more at: https://www.deccanherald.com/sunday-herald/sunday-herald-books/mountains-675235.html