The Pundit Parasram School for Hinduism

On Sat(10 Jan 09) last I had the pleasure of attending the opening of The Pundit Parasram School of Hinduism at its new permanent location at the Exchange Shiv Mandir, Exchange, Couva Trinidad. The school has been running out of various make shift locations for sometime now and has finally found its permanent home. The school is named after my grandfather that I speak often about on this blog and whose picture is at the top of my Makar Sankranti post I did before this one. And yes I did have the kichari... and yes perhaps in some cosmic sense he did too. The newly constructed building that will house the school was largely driven by a nephew of my grandfather who also considers him like a father more than just an uncle as he had so much of an impact on his life and contribution to it as he grew up. He on the whole has for over a decade now been working on re-furbishing the old original dirt mandir and the expanding and building on it as seen in photos below. My mum tells me in olden days the original dirt mandir used to have a river or stream of some sort running right next to it and she has very fond memories of visiting there.





The school was founded by my uncle...my grandfather's son. The event's itinerary did not go in exact order but most of the items happened nonetheless with the exception of the 'Greetings from the Pundit Parishad of the S.D.M.S.' since no one showed up from that body.


As I often said at the start up of this blog and I will maintain now, this blog is not about bashing but only about prayers, so I won't go into the affairs of that body that sent no one...but it was and still is the first body that my ancestors formed as Indians and Hindus on the island and my grandfather along with many others like the Pundit I said farewell to in this post, Pundit Basdeo Misir and the business man Bhadase Sagan Maharaj would have been the ones whose blood, sweat and tears the organization was birthed and built on, and as a result of it today there are a plethora of schools for educating our children in secular things but through the Hindu way. Recently on the local parliament station we have here that runs simultaneously on radio and TV I heard of the life story of Chanka Maharaj whom not a practising pundit at the time nor an academic but a self taught man and one of the few Indian voices in parliament at the time championed the cause for many things Indian and non-Indian and Hindu and non-Hindu as well. It was a beautiful story to hear! Anyway so now back to the night's proceedings...

The Indian High Commission to Trinidad and Tobago had a representative-Shri Santosh K. Mishra present who shared some thoughts on Hinduism and pledged support to the school in the form of books needed for the library e.g. Srimad Bhagwat Gita, Ramcharitamanas and others.



It was announced that the library would be set up on the second floor of the building and would be named the Pundit Dr. Samsundar Parasram Library after my late uncle who was the eldest son of my grandfather and a local expert in the area of Jyotish and a well known pundit and also well known in university and scientific research in agriculture in the Caribbean. If a music school fully emerged out of the school it would be named the Surasatee School of Music to honour the memory of my late grandmother whose name was Surasatee and the wife of Pundit Parasram. Her father my great grandfather was Omkar Maharaj and I understand he was very fond of music himself and a musician among other things...I hear he even put on the little village play now and then so perhaps his blood runs strong in my veins and is what inspired me to do Me Eat Manicou? and not just the manicou? But seriously I recall my grandmother telling us stories about how her childhood home was always filled with music and she was always thrilled when we tried to learn different instruments! I can't say I mastered or stuck with any myself though! There is another story that one of the reasons my great grandfather came on the boat all the way to Trinidad from Delhi is because he was a musician in a court there and had fell out of graces with the king...but I dunno for sure...but we do know he was from Delhi and he was into music. He also ran a small shop at some point in the village.

Pundit Dr. Samsundar Parasram


So anyway let me take you back to the school again...The Pundit Parasram School for Hinduism that is. The school hopes to run as follows as I briefly quote some bits from it's prospectus that was also launched that night:


MISSION: To train students in basic beliefs and practices of Hinduism in Trinidad and Tobago

OBJECTIVES:

(i) To establish and maintain a center for the training of students.

(ii) To establish a faculty comprised of persons familiar with the practice of
Hinduism in T&T.

(iii)To maintain a library of relevant Hindu literature.

(iv)To host public lectures, symposia and workshops on Hinduism.

(v)To host a website and publish information on Hinduism.

I understand and this is not nepotism or anything after all I do already hold these prayers here and maintain two other blogs- Meady's Musings and Books and Films Corner and a main website (although I've not done work on it since my Tibet event)so I think I'm well qualified. And so I've been asked to help out with objective (v) above and will keep you informed as to how things go with that. If I see it my way I hope to let that spring into a course on Hinduism in the world of online multimedia and perhaps another course on Hinduism and Theatre.

After the official part of the event was over I was able to meet with the representative from the Indian High Commission- Santosh Mishra and his family. I invited him to the prayers on here and he says if I spot him an email he will check it out. Of course I also told him how I re-blog my posts onto Intent of course I had to use the name Deepak Chopra to get bells ringing! :) Anyway I will be spotting Mr. Mishra an email and I know it is the job of diplomats to well be diplomatic but really he, his wife and daughter seemed really nice and warm and I hope to see him on here on the prayers! :)Nice meeting you and your family Shri Mishra Ji! :)

Also present was the current head of the IRO-Inter Religious Organization of Trinidad and Tobago which for sure have been promoting similar ideals of Universality of Religion long before my Universal Collective Prayer. The current head is also of the Hindu faith and plans to work with the Pundit Parasram School of Hinduism. He is Pundit Brahmdeo Maharaj as seen in pic below:


On a different note I have to say that I did have that kichari on the day of Makar Sankranti and here is a pic of my plate! :) And I will share the recipe soon over on Meady's Musings but will be sure to notify those of you here on the Prayers when I do so! :)

Blessed Makar Sankranti!

My grandfather sitting as he did on his chair where all came to chat and seek advice. Dressed all in white and sporting his ever famous Gandhi cap that would have had him mistaken for a member of parliament had he been in India! I (in T shirt and black jeans) with a cousin on the other side.Picture taken sometime around 1997 or abouts.

Today the Hindu world celebrates Makar Sankranti in myriads of forms and fashions depending on where in India and the rest of the world it is celebrated. The festival culturally is expressed in different ways from state to state in India and is to mark various things in Hinduism and Vedic Astrology. However here are three of the things that stand out about the festival to me and I don't really celebrate it but if I did I'd like to embrace these three things:

As described on this site-Vedic Mission:

'1. Another well-known reference of this day came when the great grandsire of Mahabharata fame, Bhishma, declared his intent to leave his mortal coil on this day. He had the boon of Ichha-Mrityu from his father, so he kept lying on the bed of arrows till this day and then left his mortal coil on Makar Sankranti day. It is believed that the person, who dies during the period of Uttarayana, becomes free from transmigration. So this day was seen as a sure-shot Good Luck day to start your journey or endeavors to the higher realms beyond. '



'2. Have a special session of Meditation, wherein you bring about the awareness of the self-effulgent subjective divinity. Affirm the greatest importance of your spiritual goal very clearly, and pray to God to bless you with the capacity to constantly revel in your true self. May the graph of your rise like the Uttarayana Sun. May there be greater 'Love & Light' in your life & the world.'


'3. Have the lunch of Khichiri. This stands for inculcating simplicity in your life & habits.'

And of course you might want to know why although some of it might be obvious. Well I think Bhishma was a man or principle and ethics generally speaking. He made his vow and he stuck by it...thick and thin...it would be grand if we could all be so steadfast in pursuit of our goals and be able to set our intents so strongly and follow up on them...perhaps then we too would be able to decide when we should
not only leave this mortal coil but whence we should re-enter it too! :)

Well I think the second one on the list would be pretty obvious for anyone who follows my writing as they will know I'm always quoting Shakespeare's 'To thine ownself be true!' and always wishing that there be light and that we can all find or continue to find love and its pure, clear, light! :)

As for the third one those who follow my writing may know of my journey into the world of raw or semi-raw foods and that I am vegetarian. What they may not know is one of my fav meals ever and I used to in particular love having it together with my Grandfather (see pic above)when he was alive is: Dhal Kichari, Aloo Chokha and Tomato Choka! So I so wish I could have been home tomorrow for lunch to have that...perhaps I can still do it for dinner. And perhaps I will be sharing it in spirit with my gramps. For those who may not know what those dishes are...it is dhal (Usually yellow dhal in my case) mixed with equal amounts of rice and boiled together and then seasoned. Choka is kinda when you boil something or roast it (in the case of eggplant) i.e. you cook the vegetable and then you crush it up and season it. Aloo of course is potato in English. I promise to share my mum's recipe for dhal kichari, aloo chokha and tomato chokha tomorrow! But for now I hope all of you in whatever form or fashion enjoy or make good of the auspicious time of Makar Sankranti! And I leave you with Bhishma from the Mahabharat as he lies on the bed of arrows.

Farewell Pundit Basdeo (Vasudev) Misir!

Tonight Universal Collective Prayer takes a more somber and respectful note as we salute one of the pioneering pundits of Trinidad and Tobago as he leaves the material plane and remains only in spirit for how long we don't ourselves know. Perhaps he will become one with 'the Universe' forever or perhaps only temporarily so, until he again takes a material form to join us on this plane. At 95 years of age he would have lived through many of the milestones that marked the foundation of Hinduism in Trinidad and Tobago. He would have no doubt worked alongside my grandfather, Pundit Parasram (Parsuram)Maharaj who was simply known as 'Baba' by many on the island and would have been 94 years this February if still on the material plane but departed it in 2004. So basically Pundit Misir and he would have experienced many similar times on the island and in the history of Hinduism on it.

Some members of my family attended funeral rites for Pundit Misir today which took place at the Shore of Peace, Mosquito Creek, Trinidad. However I do not have enough details at the tip of my fingers to write more about him just yet. However I wanted to mark this day.

My inability to just google up info. makes me realize how little there is here on the world wide web about my ancestors and so I plan to do some research about the Pundit and write a longer post soon to commemorate his life. I hope to find many stories this Saturday when I attend a function of the Pundit Parasram School for Hinduism that one of my uncles has set up in memory of his father...my grandfather.

My overall intent (I guess what over on Intent.com would be called my primary intent) for Universal Collective Prayer is and always was to 'play' with all people in the universe and bring them together to dance in Universal Collective Prayer. However I've been realizing like today that I also need to at times recall, reflect, remember or take note of the people who if it wasn't for I'd not be able to make this dance in the first place. So I need to at times give them a bit of my bandwidth too! :) Cause if they didn't set the foundations for Hinduism from which my dance started there would be no dance from me on here.

Of course we all have our own paths to take too so my prayers may not be like how they envisioned it back in their day and my intent is not and never was to disrespect these people or others when I mention them or draw from their traditions and mix it with mines here on the prayers.

So I will soon write more about Pundit Misir. Till then I do a send off to the Pundit on his departure from this material plane in keeping with his religious traditions. I did not know him well personally but I know he was well loved by his family and many who will surely miss him here on the material plane. He also had a large following of 'chelas'* to whom he was a beloved guru and so his guidance, compassion and seva* here on the material plane will also be missed by them. So here I choose a track that I requested be played at my grandfather's send off cause I knew he liked the tune and in particular its lyrics so I hope it will also be fitting for the send off by Pradeep-Dekh tere sansar ki halat kya ho gayi bhagwaan kitna badal gaya insaan...Look at what has happened to your world, O god. Man has changed so much:


Here is a link to a picture of the late Pundit as it appears in a local newspaper here in Trinidad. He is receiving an award to commemorate his seva* to the local Hindu community here in Trinidad.

*my Hinglish version as I pluralize the word 'chela' which is used in Hinduism to mean someone who follows Hinduism fervently or who follows one spiritual master or guru
*seva roughly translates to selfless service to man.