departures and definitions

I'm about to go to India again, this time to do my dissertation research. During my last trip I sent out periodic updates via mass e-mail, but this time I've decided to go with a blog. Now my dad is the only one in the family without one! It is, I suppose, a little odd that it is only when I go out of the country that I make a concerted effort to be in touch with everyone in my life. One does the best one can. So hello to everyone, and please forgive me for not being in better touch. I'll try to do better.

So, India, dissertation research, etc... I think for the moment I'm going to give the compressed version. In the past year I've passed my general examinations (I'm doing a Phd in religious studies at Emory University) and successfully defended my dissertation proposal. I'll be heading to India in a couple of weeks for approximately a year and a half, to do research on Hindu pilgrimage place in the Indian Himalayas (in the Indian state of Uttaranchal) called Kedarnath. You can google Kedarnath and there is a fair bit of information on it, so I'll restrain myself from saying a great deal about it now. I'll content myself for the moment with explaining the blogging handle I've given myself, Kedaraprakasha, since it is a little mini commentary on both the subject of my research and myself. I was given my name (Luke), as many of you may know, because my artist parents named me for something very important in their lives and works, namely light, hence Luke (from the Latin, lux). Light is a name that translates seamlessly into both many Indian languages (Prakash is a common name for a boy, as Jyoti is for a girl) and into Hebrew (I could have easily become an Uri during my time in Israel). I've always resisted changing my name, however, because I think it important to keep the name my parents gave me. However, here in the blogger imaginaire I've changed my name. So starting from the right and working to the left (that's how Sanskrit compounds work), there are two parts: Kedara and Prakasha. Prakasha means light, as I said. Kedara means something like a clump of marshy, clumpy wet soil. Kedarnath (shortened from Kedaranatha), literally means something like the lord of the clump of wet soil, and as a name and descriptor of the Hindu god Shiva it very closely reflects the terrain in and around the place of Kedarnath itself. So, Kedaraprakasha could mean something like the light [that is in] the clumpy wet dirt lump, or (more freely rendered), Luke--in/of-Kedarnath.