Culture and traditions are the identity of ones own self. These age old traditions are devised with a purpose in mind. If the actual purpose was spelt out hardly people follow these traditions and hence every traditions and customs we follow has a religious connect, so that these are followed without any deviations.
Along with the changing times these traditional practices get a beating and we tweak them to our own comfort. We feel that we oblige by just following the devised practices but the core purpose of the tradition gets defeated as it is tweaked to our comfort. This came as an eye opener to me when my ever curious daughter posted me that question. Let me narrate the chain of instances in the below article.
It was in the month of December. I was enjoying my Christmas holiday with a week long vacation. Being a holiday , I was late from bed. Like any typical south Indian even I would like to wake up with the aroma of filter coffee invading my senses. My typical morning starts with a coffee in one hand and "The Hindu"(our National daily newspaper) in other hand. Both of these make my mornings more blissful.
I normally don't like anybody intervening me during this blissful period but my daughter is always an exception. She wakes up early along with her mother and her typical day starts by getting around the house and observe things around her. We as a part of Indian Hindu tradition follow drawing Kolams (An art form consisting floral designs and follows a pattern) in front of our house. This becomes bigger and even more special in the month of December (Margazhi month as per Tamil Calendar).
On that chilly December morning my wife was busy drawing kolams in front of our house. My daughter was accompanying her all along the process. The more time she spent over there her curiosity meter shot up and she had reserved her questions for me. She was waiting for me to up from my bed. Once I settled in my couch to sink in my blissfulness she came running to me.
She is smart enough to start her interactions with pleasantries once our discussion picked moment her curiosity meter starts ticking. The first question of the morning was "Dad, why do we draw kolams in front of our house every day morning?". She saved my day, as I had an answer for this question.
I started my reply stating " Kolams are drawn with grounded rice . When we draw this on the floor in front of our house this forms as a feed for the insects like ants around the house. This helps us in feeding the insects and maintaining the bio diversity which is important for our survival". I continued my answer saying " This practice is followed as an age old tradition with a belief that drawing such kolams in the morning brings prosperity to the house. This traditional belief makes us draw kolams every day in the morning"
This time I was a proud father as I managed to answer her question in detail with both the traditional and scientific touch. To my surprise rather than accepting my answer , she fired the next question.If that being the case "Why do we draw Kolams with Chalk(made out of limestone) rather than rice flour which insects cannot feed in?"
It was an eye opener to me and made me realize that how our convenience factor defeats the core purpose of the tradition as drawing Kolam in Chalk is easier compared to rice flour. Since then we started using only rice flour for drawing kolams.
Our kids always has the New Age Thinking which enlightens parents at times. So do not stop your kids from asking questions.
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