On Sun, Sep 28, 2008 at 11:55 PM, ashok _ <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> My grandmother never could eat water melons... the red pulp of the
> fruit seemed horrifically similar to bleeding flesh...
It's interesting how much of this is in the mind...I was in someone's
kitchen at Thanksgiving, and the blood flowing from the turkey as it was
being prepared, was making me feel uncomfortable, until I realized that the
beetroots, and earlier, the pomegranates, that I was preparing were
"bleeding" exactly the same way, and *that* didn't bother me.
And someone I know who routinely has squid and octopus, was in Japan
enjoying a bowl of glass noodles until he realized that the two spots at the
tip of every noodle were actually eyes.....he stopped eating noodles
completely.
some varieties of pumpkins which were
> reddish on the inside (the kind that are painted to simulate a human
> head and then smashed for removing the evil eye ('drishti')... )....)
>
That's a "vegetarianification" of the practice of "bali" or animal
sacrifice....and...I don't think the pumpkins which are painted outside to
look like human heads are the ones that are smashed...I think the painted
ones are left on buildings, especially new constructions, to ward off the
evil eye, or at least, jealous, envious glances...and regular unpainted
pumpkins are sliced, vermilion put into them, and then smashed... or do
practices differ in different places? I also find it amusing that the very
morally-superior vegetarian brahmin ladies do the "arati" regularly, and the
practice began with the ritual of swirling the blood of the sacrificed
animal...the vermilion (or the lime) in the water is apparently a
"lookalike" of blood!
Deepa.
