Today is an auspicious time to buy gold....today is a day in which the Hindu's celebrate Akshay Tritiya (clearly a day celebrated by the Hindu's). The newspaper was full of ads to buy gold in the form of jewelry or coins. They believe that any form of gold brought into your home was sure to bring boundless luck or prosperity to your home. I joked with Ted when he came home that he didn't bring me any gold! Of course then when our driver Sundar became terribly ill I teased Ted that it was due to the fact that we had no new gold in our house! Poor Sundar looked absolutely terrible. Evidently he was suffering from heat exhaustion. One guard claimed that Sundar ate chicken at lunch and one should only eaten mutton on a hot day...never chicken! I will have to remember that one! Sundar went to the hospital and thankfully is at home recuperating. He is doing better and will be given injections the next 3 days, they are big into injections here. Not sure what the injection contains but whenever someone is sick they always get an injection!
It also appeared to be an auspicious day for businesses to close down. I went out to do some shopping to find several stores closed. Evidently they were closed due some merchant strike but who knows perhaps they were out buying gold! It does get frustrating here as store owners close up shop in what I would not consider normal times. For example, often stores will be closed on Tuesday afternoon and Friday if they are owned by Muslims.
While out today I was involved in our first accident. Nothing major, an auto rickshaw ran into the side of the van. It doesn't look to be badly damaged. Perhaps that aggravated Sundar's heat condition as he got quite worked up. At one point I thought there was going to be a fist fight, but they just yelled and swung their fists around.
It really is a good thing I don't believe in Akshay Tritiya as we had a lot of things happen today!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
HI. Love your blog. I am an American who lived in Chennai 99-01.
I also celebrated Akshya Trithya by buying anklets- albeit they were silver. My understanding is though Hindus celebrate this holiday, it's more of a Jain thing and in fact many jewelry merchants in Tambaram seemed to be Jains.
Regarding heat- try this- take a few fenugreek (methi in Hindi, Venthyam in Tamil) and place them in your water bottle. After several hours the water will turn a yellowish color. This water is good for reducing heat in the body. Another thing you can try but I am unsure if it is available in Chennai is Dahashamani a Kerala ayurvedic herbal drink I love! I have written about this on my blog here- http://alaivani.com/Blog/tabid/56/EntryId/237/Default.aspx
Let me know if you find it in Chennai..
PS. I am going to link up your article on desipundit.com
Say 5 years back, nobody spoke about Akshaya Tritiya.
GOD is the usual bait to lure customers to shops. And more if you say that buying something is auspicious,bring in luck etc..
Hats off the guy who first connected Gold purchase and Akshaya Tritiya. Smart chap!
Post a Comment