Chimizh

Chimizh

I like to keep my gifts simple and practical but I notice that there are too many creative ideas floating around for gifts and sometimes I need a user manual before I can start using them.
For example a cousin gave me this beautiful piece. A cute little thing which looked like a container for kumkum called a Kumkuma Chimizh in Tamil. (I love this word and hence the title of this post!!) In my opinion Ganesha's image is the cutest among the Hindu Pantheon and I loved the six mice around the central Ganesha with images of ganesha emobossed on their back.
Trouble began when I realised that the Ganesha in the middle was not welded and could actually be unscrewed to open the mice top to make this piece into something like this:
This was not an accident - so there was certainly a design idea. As everyone knows the 6th rule of commonsense is that if anything can be unscrewed, there is a purpose behind it. So now I had to find a purpose for what I had assumed to be an innocuous chimizh. So what was it?

Perhaps a portable Puja with a figurine of Ganesha and small sections to hold puja essentials like chandan, kumkum, haldi, flower and may be a little prasad like sugar crystals.I know people who like to carry prayer things while travelling.



And then you could close the box and lock it with the Ganesha and put it back in the luggage. (Might be very useful in case of hijacking - oops I am blaspheming.)









Or perhaps, you could use it as a total Puja Solution in today's context of small flats and if you'd like to keep your faith private. You could just have a niche in your room and have your god, Rangoli and lamp rolled in one in a hole in the wall, i mean, a niche in the wall. Voila, your pooja room personalised and ready for use!


















As readers of this space know, I am a simple person and definitely no Sherlock Holmes or Edward de Bono. It looked pretty as a lamp and that is how I decided to use it.
Recently another cousin explained to me what its original intention was supposed to be and I was stunned.


Any guesses on what this artistic piece was used for among the royals of yore? The beautiful exterior was meant to distract attention from something sinister that it contained. If there was a war and if the conquering enemy advanced upto the royal household, they used the contents to die with honour! Yea, this was the equivalent of poison rings and cyanide amulets containing enough dosage for a family of six. ("one family pack please!" they must have said!!)
It is understandable considering the humiliation that awaited them if they were caught alive by the enemy.