Tag: culture

Kanyakumari’s Sunrises, Statues, and Spiritual Significance

December 24. 2024


Kanyakumari, located at India’s southernmost point, is where the Bay of Bengal, Indian Ocean, and Arabian Sea converge. The sunrises and sunsets were vivid on a clear day, and we saw the moon rising on one side while the sun was going down on the other. We were eager to witness the bay’s unique three-colored seas, a natural wonder, and its importance in Indian burial traditions. It is a mecca; people bring the ashes of their loved ones from all over India to toss into the waters at the southernmost tip of India.

View from our balcony: Thiruvalluvar Statue and Vivekananda Rock Memorial


Dinesh showed us the Thiruvalluvar Statue and Vivekananda Rock Memorial from our waterfront hotel, two major attractions on a large rock outcropping several hundred meters offshore. From our room facing the bay, we watched the ferries transport people to the Rock throughout the day. The crowd below enjoyed bathing in the water, and long lines waited for the ferry to take them to the Rock.


I discovered the place where the crowd bathed was blessed. Let me recount a Hindu legend to explain. The name Kanyakumari comes from Goddess Kanyakumari, the sister of Krishna. Hindus revere Krishna, one of the most popular Indian divinities, as the supreme God, embodying compassion, tenderness, and love. His sister Kanyakumari is a goddess to whom women pray to get married.

Hindu legend says Goddess Kanyakumari’s wedding to Shiva, a main Hindu deity, was ruined when he didn’t show. Rice meant for the wedding remained uncooked and unused. The uncooked grains turned into stones as time went by. Legend says the small, shore-side white stones, resembling rice, are from a wedding that never took place. Kanyakumari, now seen as a virgin goddess, bestows blessings on the many pilgrims and tourists visiting the town of stones. So the bathers were on blessed grounds.

From the balcony, we had a clear view of the Thiruvalluvar statue. The pilgrims reached it by ferry, which departed every half hour, fully loaded. Instead of going there, we felt our time would be better spent reading up on what the statue represented.


Thiruvalluvar, which means Saint Valluvar, was an Indian poet and philosopher. He wrote the Tirukkural, a treatise on virtue, love, and wealth in short couplets of seven words, called the kurals. Scholars date the text variously between 300 BC and AD 500. Saint Valluvar is one of Tamil Nadu’s most famous philosophers, and the Tirukkural is considered a secular work on morality and ethics.


Officials unveiled the statue on January 1, 2000. Interestingly, the artist who designed it related it to the Tirukkural; the statue is 133 feet high, corresponding to the 133 chapters in the Tirukkural. Although I could not find why the statue was there, it is a striking location in the ocean, four hundred meters from the shoreline.

We got up at 4:00 am and took pictures of the sunrise on one side and the moon receding on the other. Then, we went down to the port to join the crowds. We walked around the people and talked with some who spoke English; they had slept there overnight to ensure they could get on the ferry early in the morning. Along with the crowds, we visited the Mahatma Gandhi Memorial (Gandhi Mandapam), where the urn containing his ashes was kept for public viewing.


There was not much to see at the Memorial except the modern architecture. Mahatma Gandhi visited Kanyakumari in 1925 and 1937. Twelve urns containing his ashes were dispersed across the nation following his 1948 demise. They brought one urn to Kanyakumari and placed it where they built the Memorial. Construction was completed in 1956.


The central spire of this Memorial is 79 feet high, reflecting Gandhi’s age when he died. I was reminded of the Thiruvalluvar statue—its height correlating to the number of chapters in St. Valluvar’s book—when I saw how this building incorporated an aspect of the person it memorializes. On Gandhi’s birthday, October 2nd, sunlight shines directly on the spot where his ashes are kept in the Mahatma Gandhi Memorial building, thanks to a strategically placed ceiling opening.

Workers constructed the Vivekananda Rock Memorial in 1970 to honor Swami Vivekananda. Vivekananda, born in 1863, was a chief disciple of the nineteenth-century Indian mystic Ramakrishna and introduced the Indian philosophies of Vedanta and Yoga to the Western world. He died in 1902. But it was not just the Swami who interested me. It was the process by which the Memorial had taken shape.


In 1963, during the centenary of Swami’s birth, a Hindu committee in Kanyakumari recommended that a memorial be constructed on the Rock about 500 meters from the shore. Local Catholic fishermen opposed the plan, staging a protest that included a large cross placed on the Rock; however, it vanished overnight. This controversy became a political issue, and the local politicians escalated it to Madras, now Chennai, the capital of Tamil Nadu.


 The controversy continued in Chennai, with opposition from a politically powerful state minister who thought a monument would destroy the natural beauty of the rock island. Eknath Ranade, an activist, pushed for the memorial by raising the matter in Delhi, lobbying representatives, and gathering enough signatures to persuade Prime Minister Nehru to approve it. This story and process were not atypical of similar efforts in North America.

The night before our departure to Bangalore, on the way to Goa, we lounged by the pool of the Pappukuty Beach Resort in Kovalam. In the pool, I had a very informative and pleasant conversation with an Indian in the high-tech field. We discussed the superb high-tech professionals India’s Institutes of Technology (IITs) educate.

 India boasts over a dozen IITs, including those in Delhi, Mumbai, and Chennai. A tutoring industry has emerged to help students gain admission to these prestigious universities, which receive more government funding than other institutions. But beyond good technical education, are other factors that make Indians successful in high-tech?

My newly found friend in the pool suggested that the English colonials left a management-oriented culture for the Indians after independence. He also thought that the English language, widely used in India, had been an advantage for Indian techies over those from countries without strong English language skills, such as China. My new friend says Indian culture emphasizes consensus over directives, which makes Indians naturally adept at collaborative management, which is crucial for modern success. Given the success of Indian CEOs at companies like Microsoft, Google, Nokia, Sun, and Adobe, it was hard to disagree with his perspective. On the last day, Dinesh took us to the Trivandrum Airport, and we said goodbye to each other. He became quiet and serious. Over two weeks, we had bonded and gotten used to each other’s company and would miss each other. However, our trip to Goa provided a welcome distraction from missing him.

What is Canadian Culture

February 7, 2024

During a lively discussion with friends, I asked: what is Canadian culture? After a surprising period of thoughtful quiet, someone suggested that Canada has musicians, authors, and artists who combine to define Canadian culture. But I said that many of these have made their career in the US. For example, Celine Dion, Joni Mitchell, and The Guess Who (Burton Cummings) have become famous south of the border. When it comes to writers, Rohinton Mistry, although a Canadian author, wrote about India, Michael Ondaatje, another Canadian author, wrote about World War II (The English Patient), and Margaret Atwood’s novels have also enjoyed wide popularity south of the border. So, why would we call them examples of Canadian culture? What is Canadian about their work, except for their citizenship?

I brought up our difficulty when visiting friends and family in Europe; what should we take as gifts that would appear Canadian? We have often taken coasters and shawls with native Canadian themes but not much else. We could not think of other items. Canadian native themes represent a small portion of the Canadian art fabric, although considered very Canadian abroad.

When I think of Canadian culture, the McKenzie Brothers come to mind; Bob and Doug, acting as two dimwitted brothers, swilled beer, and every second word coming out of their mouths was “have another beer” and “eh,” on their popular show called The Great White North. There is something about drinking beer that is Canadian, whether in a ballpark or at hockey arenas during games. Bob and Doug have certainly become Canadian favorites, and I would label their popularity as part of Canadian culture.

Another part of Canadian culture is hockey. It is widely popular, and most children start playing when they are big enough to lace up a pair of skates. One of the most popular hockey commentators on “Hockey Night Canada” was Don Cherry, whose flamboyant suits and analyses of hockey games charmed many Canadian homes.  

Rick Mercer is a Canadian icon whose show was on air for over twenty years. His humor and rants pleased Canadians. His travels in the US interviewing famous people and asking dumb questions to embarrass interviewees were enormously popular in Canada (including one with then-presidential candidate Bush – Rick asked Bush about Canadian Prime Minister “Jean Poutine”). I appreciated his humor but did not like the idea of embarrassing people. But apparently, his wit pleased Canadians, which tells me something about Canadian character.

Founded by the ex-hockey player Tim Horton, the coffee shop chain of his name has become a Canadian institution. Although many Starbucks, Second Cups, and other coffee shops exist, Canadians gravitate to a local Tim Horton for their morning fix. I would call the chain part of our Canadian culture today.

We also enjoy the unique throat singing by Inuit people. In Canada, you hear throat singing on national holidays. I would call it a part of the Canadian cultural mosaic.

So, you may ask: what is culture? I am not an expert on this subject, but to me, it is a pattern of behavior of people living on a usually contiguous piece of geography with common traditions acquired over generations vis-a-vis work, diet, clothing, social interaction, language, religion, likes, and dislikes. For example, think of the French culture of Quebec, their joie-de-vivre, their history with les habitants (the original settlers from France in what is now Quebec), their love of hockey, and their language. And do not forget their food: poutine, tourtiere, feve au lards.

What spawned the discussion on Canadian culture was whether we are losing it. Whether the influx of immigrants, refugees, and the vast numbers of foreign students dilute Canadian culture, and whether the Prime Minister, advocating the concept of the “trans-national state,” supersedes traditional Canadian culture.

While the US embraced the “melting pot” concept for their newcomers, Canada favored “multi-culturalism.” We love the different cultures immigrants bring with them, their ethnic restaurants, and their ethnic community centers, and we support them financially to celebrate their national holidays. We encourage foreign cultures to thrive in Canada; we celebrate them on July 1 each year, Canada’s birthday. The more we do this, the more we dilute Canadian culture with foreign cultures. We forget who we are and what we stand for, except for Canadian society’s equity, diversity, and inclusion slogan.

Let me describe a day when I met three newcomers to Canada that made me think about their knowledge of Canada. A cheerful young fellow took my passport pictures at a pharmacy. Arriving six months ago from Sri Lanka, he has not secured a job in his field, civil engineering. Nobody in his home country told him during his application process he might need to requalify in Canada to work as an engineer. And so, he worked as a cashier and passport photographer at the pharmacy. Hoping for a better future, he has already rented an apartment to welcome his wife and two-year-old child in two months.

The fellow sitting beside me waiting to get his social insurance card at a Canadian service center (I  was there to renew my passport) came from Zimbabwe two months ago. As a pharmacist, he already has a job and awaits his family’s arrival in a few months. He told me he learned how to dress for the cold in Canada in January. He informed me he would stay for twenty years and then return home. He may change his mind in the next twenty years, and I am sure he will learn a lot about Canada that may attract him to stay.

The agent who did the paperwork to renew my passport was born in France to African parents. Bilingual and with a federal government job, he may be Canadianized to a degree, but I wondered how he feels as a black bilingual person in English-speaking Ontario.

These are just three examples of Canadian newcomers I met one day, and I wondered what they knew about Canadian culture. They will undoubtedly learn. Two have experienced the cold Canadian winter for the first time, which involves tuques, mukluks, down-filled gloves, and parkas. Years ago, I worked at the federal immigration department when a program existed with funding to assist immigrants in adjusting to Canadian life. The program does not exist anymore.

Personally, camping in the wilderness, canoeing, and picking wild blueberries on land recently devastated by forest fire, with bears around, is part of Canada. Cottaging around the lakes in Ontario, listening to the buzz of the chainsaw and the hammer sound, is also typical of Canadian culture. Unless we provide time and opportunity for our newcomers to learn to live in our country and engage in activities that have become traditions in Canada, I am afraid that we’ll gradually lose parts of our cultural identity.

Forty-six percent of Toronto is foreign-born. And twenty-three percent of Canada is foreign-born. How can we not lose part of who we are with these numbers? But immigrants are welcome in Canada; immigrants built this country. It could be that our success with immigrants will cause our changing culture.