(Why the hell are you) Doing that thing you do?

Why do people do crazy things? I don't mean crazy things like jumping of bridges for fun, or auditioning for MTV Roadies or supporting the Kolkata Knight Riders. In fact there are plenty of jobless scientists examining bodily functions which lead us to do those crazy things. Instead I want to know why people do ridiculous things like go to a big building with a funny looking dome and circle it 'N' number of times ('N' being odd or even depending upon your race, creed caste and sub-caste) in a specified direction, or starve themselves on certain specific days, or refuse to do productive work at certain times of the day. Unfortunately the entire amount of research which I was able to do on these topics by asking those who do these crazy things, lead me to only one answer - It is our culture/religion.

So you must have pretty much guessed that I am talking about weird religious customs which people follow for no good reason, at least not one that people have told me. Now most of these customs probably began at a time when somebody had something to gain from them and have since then stuck around because most people have been thoroughly indoctrinated with them and don't bother to or are just too damn lazy to ask why. So in my continuous quest for the answer to everything (and my perennial desire to be as blasphemous as possible) decided to rationalize my own reasons for weird customs. Since the list al of weird irrational customs would probably not even fit on the hard disks of all of Google's computers, I have picked just a few to set the ball rolling (also, beyond a point there is no rational explanation for the craziness, not even made up ones).

1. It’s that time of the Day

I am sure many of you, especially Tam-Brahms (Tamil Brahmins) out there have been told, not to do things at certain periods every day, each lasting for precisely 90 minutes. Now the funny thing is that the exact timing of these 90 minutes varies every single day, it’s almost like Gods wants to keep us on our toes by smiting us at different times of the day, I mean what’s the point of being all powerful if you become predictable. But seriously, what could possibly the reason for having different timings? I looked at each of the timings and came up with a pretty good idea, here's the list:

Mon : 7.30 - 9.00 AM

Tue : 3 - 4.30 PM

Wed : 12 - 1.30 PM

Thur : 1.30 - 3.00 PM

Fri : 10.30 AM - 12 PM

Sat : 9 - 10.30 AM

Sun : 4.30 - 6 PM

Now I am guessing these timings were suggested by some big shot priests who basically found them most convenient, and positioned these timings to best make use of the free time. Look at how Monday has the earliest time slot, after all who wants to get up early in the morning on a monday. Tue, Wed and Thur, right in the middle of the afternoon, so that they can have their lovely afternoon siestas, Friday, a little earlier, so that the work can be finished in the afternoon and they can party on Friday evenings (I think ancient times didn't have much of a night life, so the evenings were the party time) and of course nothing on Saturday morning, cause you need to get over the Friday hangover. And since then we have been following these ridiculous times to determine when we can work, pray, I wouldn't be surprised if there are people who coordinate their bowel movements to these timings.

2. That Crazy Music

Ever heard the music at a Tam-Brahm wedding? Well it’s not possible not to hear it, nowhere will you find more annoying music, particularly this one large instrument, which can not only can knock your head off if you're not careful, but also makes a sound which very closely resembles a man passing wind. And this instrument is played in a very peculiar manner, it starts at a slow pace on the first day of the wedding and slowly builds up pace till right at the time of the wedding, it goes bonkers, virtually taking the roof off. Now this is what I think lead to this ridiculous music becoming a part of Tam-Brahm marriages:

I guess way back some cheapskate must have thought – ‘How do I get these useless free loaders to stop coming to my wedding and eat all the food?’. Simple solution: get the most annoying instrument and start playing it; people will probably leave before lunch. So they start playing, but of course freeloaders being what they are were not to be deterred and stood their ground steadfast against the barrage of awful music. So they play it faster and faster, but people still stay (probably feeling that if they have endured this ridiculous music, they might at least get some food for it), so the speed increases. Until the final wedding moment when the guy puts all his effort into the instrument to take one final shot at driving people out of the hall. Over the course of time, our Tam-Brahm ears evolved to tolerate and in some cases even love this sound, thus cursing us forever

Note: The real fast crescendo at the end is also like a last minute warning sign to the couple, run for your life, get out while you still can. Its kind of like how in Christian weddings they ask - 'If anyone objects to this marriage please raise their hands'.

3. Not So Fast

This one’s probably the trickiest of the lot, what could possess people to starve themselves on a highly arbitrary basis. Honestly I couldn’t think of too many explanations for this one, actually I thought of way too many and rejected them all as being as ridiculous as the practice itself. But nonetheless here are a few plausible ones:

·         Big shot priest decides he needs to lose weight (have you seen the average Pandit, they are fatter than Homer Simpson, no wonder they pray so much, that’s what keeps them from getting heart attacks), but he can’t resist the temptation of all that food, so he sets aside designated days for fasting when everybody suffers with him.

·         Developed as a cost cutting tool during Ancient recession times.

·         Probably started as method of Mother-in-laws to torture their bahus. It’s like ragging, started off once upon a time and people just continue it because they want to reciprocate the torture that they went through.

 

As ridiculous as these explanations sound, if someone could back into time and look into how a lot of our so called ‘culture’ came into place, you will probably find that it had to with somebody setting a trend probably for their selfish reasons or out of sheer stupidity and the rest of the world just followed it. And some people allowed these customs to remain, simply because they had learnt to profit from them, and now through centuries of indoctrination, they are a part of our lives. I once got a forward with a list of ridiculous laws, like ‘Carrying a fish in your pocket in some XYZ state of the USA is a crime’. Show this list to any sane person and they will laugh them off, but tell the same the person that these laws are no different from some of the things they have come to believe as ‘culture’ or ‘religion’, they will probably bite your head off.

Ciao