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Vancouver diary page 2

july 19, 2013
”Nama poorvaya girayae, patchimayaadraye namah—-”. Agasthya Maharishi in Aaditya hridyam, asking Srirama to salute the East and West mountains too, which have an important role to play in the the Sun god’s traverse across the sky.
 The Himalayan ranges was not a great stone mass, covered by ice, but  a living entity, like me and you, with a family and children, for Kalidasa.  A well-knit  family, throbbing with love and compassion to each other, father looking for a suitable match for his dear daughter, daughter doing penance aspiring the life- partnership of Mahadev, the mother unable to stand the stringency of the daughter’s penance asking her to return home and so many other sensitive issues of family life are dealt by the poet in his inimitable style.
”Mena, muneenamabhi maananeeyam- Himavan’s wife Mena was respected even by saints”
”Umethi matra thapasa nishiddo
Patchat umaakhyam sumukhee dadaama”
U= penance, ma- enough- Her mother asked Parvathy to come out of the austerities; so parvathy was known as Uma, later.
The rivers too were not mere  waterbodies flowing from hill to sea, but devatatmas, in human forms, treating us like our own mothers.
”Devi Sureswari Bagavathy Gange, thribhuvanatharini tharalatharange!
Samkaramouliviharini vimalae, mama mathirastam thava padakamalae!
Sings melodiously Samkaracharyaswamy.
All  rivers, all trees and plants were devatathmas for our forebears.
‘Moolatho Brahmaroopaya,
Madhyatho Visnuroopinae,
Agrathah Shivaroopaya,
Vrikishrajayathat namah;”
If the huge Bilwa tree represents the Moorthys of srishti, sthithy and layam, the humble Tulasi plant is none other than the divine mother, as sacred as the mighty Ganges.
That brings to mind the roar of the mighty Ganges surging ahead swallowing everything on her way and the dancing of Shiva in rage in the Uttarakhand, recently. Man’s utter ignorance of the Nature’s arrangement  and arrogant intrusion and intervention in the ecological balance has fueled the fury of the Ganges in the Uttarakhand  region. In Canada, where I am sojourning, no tree is allowed to be destroyed and so is in America. A relative of mine there, owns an acre area of forest as part of his house, for which he has paid, but he has no authority to bring down a tree.
 
 We have a culture  of which we can be proud of.  we have been taught not only to preserve but to worship the Nature. But, what do we actually do? Cut trees indiscriminately, build huge dams which  forcefully  stops the natural flow of waters, destroy our rocks which will take millions of years for their  reformation, denude rivers of their sand bed and do everything against the law of Nature.
 
It doesn’t augur well for us. If we had not misbehaved with the nature, Uttarakhand tragedy would have been less severe, perhaps, and  so many innocent lives would not have been lost. It is anyway, a warning, too severe a  warning, for us . Shudder to imagine the consequence if we ignore this warning 
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