Official holiday.... out of the blue

I am sitting on the porch not really doing much but browsing internet in Thanjore right now. I am here on a business trip to supervise and oversee our census surveys that “were supposed to start” today in a village here. I wrote “were supposed to start” because I am not sure if it really is going to start today. It seems that today is a 100th anniversary of the founder of DMK political party and all fo the sudden, the government declared today as a national holiday!!! Strange.... I can see the road from where I am sitting right now, but most stores are closed. The town looks very quiet... and everyone seems to be on a holiday mood :) I am not sure what my plans are for the day, but I guess we will have one meeting in the afternoon as scheduled (unless someone objects)... not sure, really. Things are so random sometimes in India that it is quite amusing.

Mapala (son in law)

Mapala is a very important concept in Tamil Brahmin families (or just Arvind’s family??). Mapala is a Tamil word for son in law. Son in laws are treated extremely well in families here. It seems like Mapala comes first and then father, mother, etc… in terms of priority given within a family. It also feels like people go out of their way to make sure Mapalas are happy. I do not the reason why this is the case, but maybe in a way, they are still the ‘guests’ of the house and not truly a part of the family. Just like guests are treated with more care then family members, Mapalas are also treated in a similar way. Unfortunately, I cannot think of a concrete example from the top of my head, but it is definitely the case. One example (not a very good example but oh well…, I can’t seem to come up with any now) may be something that happened just now. Arvind’s father was looking for yesterday’s newspaper. (Note: He just LOVES newspapers and cannot go without reading the newspaper even for a day. If he goes on a trip and cannot read during that time, after he comes back from the trip, he will go through all the papers that he missed reading even if the news is not ‘news’ anymore. Moreover, he keeps all the newspapers without recycling them. He has stacks and stacks of old papers from years ago…. or so I heard.) He asked me where it was and I had no clue. I just told him your Mapala was reading it yesterday and I don’t know where he put it after that. He eventually found it in one of the rooms and told me, “Oh well, what to do?? Mapala was reading it in the room,” and that was the end of the story. A few weeks ago, the same thing happened and although I don’t remember clearly, I must have said something like I saw Arvind reading it. Arvind’s father was a bit upset saying, “Where is it?? He always takes it somewhere and does not return it properly, etc, etc…” Yes, Arvind’s father is definitely one of a kind (very different!), but maybe this difference in the reaction came from this whole Mapala concept, who knows. Just as a footnote, often times, they are not even called by their names, but called as ‘Mapala’, just like all the respected people are called not by their names but by their position in the family like, mother, father, grandmother, grandfather, etc.