Time to wash away your sins!
Time to wash away your sins! Jallikattu or bull-taming, part of Pongal in Tamilnadu Photo: Economic Times Looking back, it appears as something of an annual ritual. Every year the night of 13th January when we left for our respective homes after the Lohri (perhaps I shall write about that next year!) bonfire and celebration, the neighbourhood bebe (a term of address to an older woman often mother/grandmother) would remind me, “ Kude, kal sangraand hai, satte savere nha dho ke sohne kapde pa ke mattha tek layin (Girl, tomorrow is Sangraand. Bow before God after taking a bath and dressing up in good clothes early tomorrow morning).” By the time I heard bebe ’s call nha layi (Have you had your bath?) from across the wall in the early dark, foggy next morning, I would already have washed my hair, had my bath, and dressed in a fresh set of clothes. Salaries were low those days and a veterinary doctor got lesser than the doctor for humans, so with my father’s limited means, we tried t...