gaelikaa's diary

As we are all aware, marriage is the human institution where two people, one male and one female, come together for the purposes of creating a family.  The union is usually sealed with a civil or a religious ceremony.  Of course, many people raise families without the benefit of a ceremony, but that's a modern trend and a personal choice.

When Yash and I decided to marry, I wasn't a bit put off by the fact that we were different cultures and religions.  We were human beings, weren't we?  Well, yes.  The problem is, as I didn't yet realize, eastern perceptions and western perceptions of marriage are quite similar and yet rather different as the cultural perceptions are different.  Eighteen years later it all makes sense, but it drove me mad initially.

In the west, because, I suppose, of the Christian perspective, two people getting married usually set up a new home independent of the homes either of them originated from.  That's based on the Biblical verse that a ma…

I'm very blessed to have two spiritual traditions to draw on.  Yes, I'm Christian and don't think I could ever be otherwise, but that doesn't mean that because I find the fullness of truth in the Christian scriptures, that I can't occasionally draw on the spiritual wealth of Hinduism, which has amassed in India over centuries
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This topic of ‘Breath’, which is the chosen Loose Bloggers’ Consortium for this week, has so many implications, spiritual included.  Why?  Well, as long as there’s breath, there’s life.  The Bible tells us that God made the first man from the dust of the earth and breathed life into him.  When God breathed into the man, he became alive.  It’s there for all to see in the book of Genesis (Chapter 2, Verse 7), New Revised Standard Version

Then the LORD God formed man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and the man became a living being

I heard a talk once by a Bible scholar who said that ‘breath’ and ‘…

There was one thing I never used to tell about myself on my blog.  That was my name.  I crafted this blogging pseudonym for myself, 'gaelikaa'.  The 'gael' bit is from the world for Celtic, or Irish, which I certainly am on my mother's side and also by birth. The 'ika' ending comes from the sanskrit feminine ending for a word.  Sanskrit is the ancient language of India, in which many Hindu scriptures are originally written.  I discovered from my son's Sanskrit schoolbook that 'balak' means a male child, but 'balika' means a female child.    So if Sanskrit had a word for an Irish woman, it would probably be 'gaelikaa'.  The 'double a'  ending was just because of fashion.  A couple of years ago, lots of women here with 'a' ending names added a double 'a' for an extra twist, or maybe because they wanted some extra luck numerologically.  Thus, 'Isha' became 'Ishaa', 'Shobha' became '…

When I first married Yash and came out here to live in India, I had worked among Indians for over eight years.  I had also read every book, article and news report I could on life and culture in this country.  Therefore, I did not suffer from culture shock when I came out here.  I wish that was true.

While it's perfectly true that I knew a lot about the food, literature and culture of this country and had more than a passing knowledge of the language, I didn't quite get everything about the culture of this wonderful and mystifying (for westerners!) country, while it could be said that I understood a great deal.  I also found out one of the more obvious things in one of the most difficult ways possible - personal experience.

When Yash and I got married, we decided to try to have a child straight away as we were both quite mature in years.  We didn't want to be at retirement age while our kids were still at school. We were both delighted when I got pregnant immediately.  One…