Hemantha Kalam - 61 'Prakshaalana'

‘Prakshaalana’ is the Sanskrit word for cleansing!

So, finally the four apparent perpetrators, of the rape and the atrocities committed by them in the ‘Nirbhaya’ case, have been hanged today; at one go! So one ‘paapa prakshaalana’ (cleansing of a sin) has been done. Or has it been?

Nirbhaya’s mother felt justice (though delayed) has been delivered, finally. Hmm…

And the one who allegedly tortured ‘Nirbhaya’ in an inhuman and demonic manner, during and after the rape, has escaped the gallows, under the guise of being a juvenile, and is supposed to be leading an anonymous life, untraced!

If a juvenile can lead other grown-up adults in committing heinous and horrendous crimes, is it not time for the lawmakers to look deeper and find causes and remedies?

The four convicts gave the law a long run before finally meeting with their punishment. It took seven years for their rendezvous with their Gods.

So the question is whether the sin has been really cleansed? How will the sorrowing and grieving parents of the victim lead a normal life ever?  What about the parents of the perpetrators? Should they not be made responsible for their inadequate, if not indifferent, parental attitude? Should they not be punished for their deficiency in inculcating basic human values among their offspring? If they themselves are deprived, should not the governments, irrespective of the political parties, they belong to, be made responsible for such deficiencies?

Till such accountability and answerability is brought in, in this country, can we take this act as a cleansing, if at all?

Talking about the cleansing, today’s (the 20th March 2020) doodle on the Google is about ‘recognizing Ignaz Semmelweis and handwashing’. Ignaz Philipp Semmelweis (July 1818-August 1865) was a Hungarian physician and scientist, who apparently ‘discovered’ that the incident of ‘childbed fever’ could be drastically cut by the use of hand disinfection by proposing the practice of washing hands with chlorinated lime solutions in 1847 in Vienna.

What a great discovery is this?

In India, this practice has been there for ages (literally for thousands of years) till we have been overly enamoured by the western culture either thrust on us or unwittingly/willingly welcomed by us.

Those who do the Hindu rituals will come across sentences like ‘hastodakam samarpayaami’ and ‘paadodakam samarpayaami’ while invoking the Gods, which means that even Gods will have to cleanse before entering into his/her/its devotee’s home. In Sanskrit, ‘hasta’ means hand/s, ‘paada’ means foot/feet and ‘udakam’ means water; ‘samarpayaami’ means giving or handing or submitting. This means when a guest arrives at home the host offers water to clean her/his hands first, then feet  before entering the threshold of the house and give water to drink.

Even, till this day, many traditional houses in India, especially villages have facilities to wash first and enter later.

So what great new discovery are we celebrating now, thanks to Google?

We, the Indians, have ignored these practices in the name of fashion and aping others and are paying for that, literally, by buying fancy sanitizers. Till our ‘paapa prakshaalana’ day, do we have to suffer due to our ignorance nee arrogance?  

What do you think? Do let me know your thoughts!

Till then, 

Krutagjnatalu (Telugu), Nanri (Tamil), Dhanyavaadagalu (Kannada), Nanni (Malayalam), Dhanyavaad (Hindi), Dhanyosmi (Sanskrit), Thanks (English), Dhonyavaad (Bangla), Dhanyabad (Oriya), Gracias (Spanish), Grazie (Italian), Danke Schon (Deutsche), Merci (French), Obrigado (Portuguese), Shukraan (Arabic), Shukriya (Urdu), Bohoma Sthuthiyi (Sinhalese) Aw-koon (Khmer), Kawp Jai Lhai Lhai (Laotian), Kob Kun Krab (Thai),Asante (Kiswahili), Maraming Salamat sa Lahat (Pinoy-Tagalog-Filipino), Tack (Swedish), Fa'afetai (Samoan), Terima Kasih (Bahasa Indonesian) and Tenkyu (Tok Pisin of Papua New Guinea).

Hemantha Kumar Pamarthy

Chennai, India