Locked out!

This weekend, Arvind and I locked ourselves out from our apartment... Both amma and anna were out of station and we just stepped out of the apartment to say hi to thatha and patti without taking the keys. What was ironic about this whole incident is that thatha kept saying that we should stay with them over the weekend but we kept refusing because it will be inconvenient for us, but it turned out that we had no other choice but to stay with them for the entire weekend. It turned out to be a nice weekend, just relaxing and chilling. One thing I was a bit worried about througout the stay was the concept of yechel. In a Tamil brahmin community, there is this concept called yechel which means that anything you eat from (like plates, utensils, your right hand if your hand touches your mouth) is considered dirty and you have to make sure that these do not come into direct contact with the non-yechel things (like common plates, dishes, cooking utensils, pots and pans, etc). In Patti's household, this yechel is very strictly followed, so I was very consious when eating. The concept itself is pretty straightforward once you think about it but since eating is something that you do without thinking too much, it gets quite confusing. Also since there are also some cultural differences between Japan and Tamil brahmins, it makes me even more difficult & confusing to follow the ways. For example, if you don't want your right hand to become yechel (eg. if you want to directly eat something like chips from the common plate), people will just throw the food into their mouth. In Japan, it is extremely disrespectable to throw the food, even if you are throwing into your mouth, so I find it quite difficult to follow this custom. Also, in order for the left hand to not be yechel (eg so that you can use left hand to get second servings, etc), you cannot touch your plate with your left hand. In Japan, it is often not respectable, if you DON'T put your left hand to hold the plate lightly.

What I found was interesting was when Arvind moved his plate a bit to his side (position A) to get the second servings of something that was placed a bit far from where he was sitting. After he put the food on his plate, he moved his plate back to the original position. Patti spilled water on the place his plate was (position A). I thought she did that by mistake, like accidently tipping the cup, but actually she did that on purpose to purify the place (position A) where yechel plate was placed. Very interesting... I think it will take time for me to fully get accustomed to this custom.