Powder Magazine in India
Best touring day yet! Landed at 4,400meters on My Turn, took an hour long run with our new arrivals – Lynsey Dyer from Jackson, Wyoming and Photographer Scott Smith from Colorado. They had just survived a 15 hr car race from Delhi to Manali that words cannot describe. Let me just say, I have barely recovered from the same experience from 2001. I definitely used up 7 lives of mine on that day years ago. They had missed the luxury flight from Delhi and had no other way to get here in time. pigs, trucks, yaks, cars, horns, chickens, sacred cows mixed together like a video game gone haywire.
We then hopped a ride on Jerry’s helicopter, which happened to be in the area on a Brazilian Snowboard film shoot, landing on McNaughty’s for another 4,000 foot run. We then toured and ski-mountaineered across to Setham Dome, which is the sight of the proposed new Indian ski resort, the controversial one that Henry Ford’s grandson is involved in. 4,800 feet of corn awaited us, after we departed the gompa and colorful prayer flags at the summit.
Lynsey and Scott are here to do a story with me for Powder Magazine on Punjab Pioneers. I am researching women who have climbed and skied in the Indian Himalayas over recorded history. Fanny Bullock Workman was one of the first on paper – 1899-1906 she explored, climbed and mapped many peaks and valleys in India. A few days ago, I was honored to meet Dicky Dolma, the youngest woman ever to climb Everest and also the former Indian National Ski Champion. She proudly showed off her many medals and explained how her success has inspired many Indian girls to ski and climb. She now instructs at the Indian Mountaineering Institute, in Manali. We are planning to get together on Saturday with a bunch of her students and do a team teaching day up towards Rhotang Pass.
My latest idea is to start providing Dicky and her students with ski gear from the United States, and to possibly start a girls ski club. I’m planning on leaving my Karhu Jil’s, Head Sweet Fat Thangs, Dynafit Binders, some Patagonia clothing and 2 pairs of Garmont boots with the girls.
We then hopped a ride on Jerry’s helicopter, which happened to be in the area on a Brazilian Snowboard film shoot, landing on McNaughty’s for another 4,000 foot run. We then toured and ski-mountaineered across to Setham Dome, which is the sight of the proposed new Indian ski resort, the controversial one that Henry Ford’s grandson is involved in. 4,800 feet of corn awaited us, after we departed the gompa and colorful prayer flags at the summit.
Lynsey and Scott are here to do a story with me for Powder Magazine on Punjab Pioneers. I am researching women who have climbed and skied in the Indian Himalayas over recorded history. Fanny Bullock Workman was one of the first on paper – 1899-1906 she explored, climbed and mapped many peaks and valleys in India. A few days ago, I was honored to meet Dicky Dolma, the youngest woman ever to climb Everest and also the former Indian National Ski Champion. She proudly showed off her many medals and explained how her success has inspired many Indian girls to ski and climb. She now instructs at the Indian Mountaineering Institute, in Manali. We are planning to get together on Saturday with a bunch of her students and do a team teaching day up towards Rhotang Pass.
My latest idea is to start providing Dicky and her students with ski gear from the United States, and to possibly start a girls ski club. I’m planning on leaving my Karhu Jil’s, Head Sweet Fat Thangs, Dynafit Binders, some Patagonia clothing and 2 pairs of Garmont boots with the girls.
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Dear Sir
I may humbly rquest to publish the following letter in the "letters to the editor" column after necessary editing.
I am writng this not to just add fire to the controversy now prevailing. Let wisdom overtake emotions among devotees at this time.
This is the only temple in India where religiuos harmony is prevaling.
It is most unfortunate that cinema actress Jayamala's reported revelation that she had touched the idol of Lord Ayyappa at the Sabarimala temple when she was 27, has sparked a controversy al over India. All medias are giving due importance to this. It is customary that women between the age-group of 10-50 are not allowed inside the Sabarimala temple. This custom is being practiced considering the celibacy of the God Ayyappa.
This Sabarimala temple is situated atop a hill in Kerala and houses a bachelor God called Ayyappa. It is purported that around the 14th of January, every year, a celestial fire - a Jyothi with healing powers - glows in the sky near the Sabarimala shrine. A controversy exists for this also.
What is the relationship between religion and women's rights? Should we care about the treatment of women by religions of the world? Should we be bothered when we see, even in the twenty-first century, a woman being prohibited from doing certain things, like becoming ordained or entering a temple just because she is a woman?
But why does the Temple board tell her so? It gives a smorgasbord of reasons: The eight kilometer trek to the temple along dense woods is arduous for women; Ayyappa is a bachelor God and his bachelorhood will be broken if he sees a woman; the forty-one-day penance for the pilgrimage, where one must live as abstemiously as a saint, cannot be undertaken by women - they are too weak for that; men cohorts will be enticed to think bad thoughts if women joined them in their trek; letting women into the temple will disrupt law and order; women's menstrual blood will attract animals in the wild and jeopardize fellow travelers; menstruation is a no-no for God.
And so the list of lame reasons grows. Don't think that no one has ever questioned the inanity of those reasons. Several Indian feminists have fought, and keep fighting, with the Temple board in favor of the women devotees. But the Temple board remains implacable. It is backed by enormous political clout, and poor Indian feminists, like feminists almost everywhere, must fend for themselves. It doesn't help that many Indian women are disinterested in any feminist struggle. They think that it is presumptuous for women to defy established customs. It is hard to rally them, especially when it involves flouting tradition or religion.
Nevertheless, many brave and, sometimes, distressed women, boldly try to go where no young woman has gone before. " Here is a report from a publication called Hinduism Today: "The ban was upheld by Kerala's High Court in 1990, but the issue is now being raised by a 42-year old district collector, K.B. Valsala Kumari, who was ordered to coordinate pilgrim services at the shrine. A special court directive allowed her to perform her government duties at the shrine, but not to enter the sanctum sanctorum." In December 2002, Khaleej Times reported, "Women have made this year's Sabarimala pilgrim season controversial by entering the prohibited hill shrine...Kerala high court has ordered an inquiry to find out how a large number of women had reached the shrine in violation of court orders." Strange, isn't it, for the court to scribe such discriminatory orders?
Fifty-four years ago, when the Constitution of India was framed, "Untouchables" - the lower-caste Indians who were believed to be "impure" and hence objectionable to God - won the right to equality and broke open the gates of temples that were closed to them thus far. Article 25(2b) was instituted specifically for them; to ensure that they could pursue their religion unhampered. This article gives State the power to make laws for "the throwing open of Hindu religious institutions of a public character to all classes and sections of Hindus". Sabarimala is a publicly temple: Article 290A of the Indian Constitution entails the State of Kerala to pay, yearly, 4.65 million rupees to Sabarimala's Temple board. Nevertheless, it has so far remained shut to one section of Indians - the young Indian women. And the State, instead of opening it for them, works to ensure that it remains shut to them. Now it is the best time that all concerned should sit together and discuss whether permission can be given for women to enter Sabarimala
It is ironic that this shrine, praised as "an unmatched instance of religious tolerance", a temple open to men of all castes and religions, doesn't tolerate most women. The society that has grown, at least outwardly, to breach "God's decree" to keep lower-caste men out of His vicinity, is still struggling to defy "His despise" for women. especially, menstruating women.
Is it so because women are still regarded impure and detestable, at least during certain times? Is it because none in power is disposed to champion women's causes? Is it because women themselves are disinclined to unite against their discrimination? Is it because caste-discrimination is accepted to be viler than gender-discrimination? Is it because society is averse to disturbing the male-dominated hierarchy in India? This ban on women in Sabarimala, while it appears to be a religious issue, at its core, indicates an uglier problem - the oft-dismissed and court-sanctioned oppression of women in India.
What were the reasons and sentiments behind the human belief in the worship of God? Belief in the concept of God and worship of God are not one and the same. All those who worship God, cannot be said to have belief in the concept of God. There are many people, who think that there is no loss in worshipping God, even if such a God does not exist; but if there is one, it will bless them. The basic reason for the belief in the concept of God is the fear of death. Inability of mankind can be attributed as the next reason. The man, who set his foot on the soil of the Moon and who was able to send a missile to Mars, could neither defeat the phenomenon of death, nor could stop the natural disasters like earthquake, volcanic eruption, cyclone or floods. Apart from all these during the bad cycle of life many people have to suffer from unexpected sorrows aroused from close family members, friends and colleagues. Then majority of them will start believing that this is the curse of God. Comparatively, humanity’s sufferings, disasters and losses are more than the benefits it derived from the concept of God and Religion. Great wars fought, people killed or harassed in the name of God are numerous. Don't fear God, Love Him. In this context it is better to highlight a verse from Bhagavad Gita
Mind is very restless, forceful and strong, O Krishna, it is more difficult to control the mind than to control the wind ~ Arjuna to Sri Krishna.
s/d
M.P.Bhattathiry
(Ph. 23474740
Going in the lines of Mr. Bhattahiry's argument, why should poojas in temples be performed only by brahmins? Why are there many things in other religions too that are reserved for men (and some for women, as in Hinduism too?)? Why can't men attend the pongala? Why should there be any traditions at all? Why should there be separate public conveniences places for men and women? Equality of women is not women doing all that men do,but doing unique things. It is this that gives man and woman their own identity. Mr. Bhattahiri wants women to ape men? Women need not ape man to prove that she is equal to man. These sorts of "rebellion" does not serve any purpose apart from engendering useless arguments; they are the creations of people who do not have the stuff to do anything worthwhile. It is the tradition at only Sabarimala perhaps, that women are not allowed. And if women actually want to be treated on a par with men, they should begin by refusing to accept tax concessions, special seats in buses, separate queues, and other considerations they are condescendingly awarded by men. As for Mr. bhattathiri's discovery that fear of death is what that accounts for belief in God, well, it must be so for some people; but with many, there are other reasons.
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