Paradigm Culture - My story

The other day in office I was reading an article on change management, and on breaking the norms by thinking out of the box. I had an interesting read on one experiment, related to primate influence on primal behavioural traits and the underlying traits in a controlled environment.
In the experiment a set of 5 monkeys where put in a cage, with a tall ladder placed in the middle with a tempting bunch of banana's on the top of the ladder. By natural instinct whenever the bunch was put at the top the monkeys would rush to get the bunch, the naturalist researchers switched on the water sprinklers for 5 minutes whenever the monkeys touched the bananas. This irritated the monkeys and ensured that they don't fall in for their temptations. Even if one of them was tempted, the others ensured that the one which rushed to the bananas was trashed enough. After a period of 3 months of the exercises, one monkey was replaced with a fresh subject, and this monkey without knowing would rush to the top of the ladder would be pulled down by the other members and bashed up thouroughly. Over a period the temptation was suppressed, the experimenters repeated the replacement over the period until the entire lot of monkeys where new, and never had an insight why they were being bashed when they attacked the bunch of bananas. So the ritual slowly set-in with the cause being lost.
You must be wondering what am I trying to relate to using the above example, earlier I was in a discussion with my fiance over the cultures and customs. In particular over dining habits and how particular some communities are. Later during the day as I was talking to my Aunt, and was discussing on the same lines, she did share a few more insights on similar customs in our families during our earlier days, and how things have changed in the recent times owing to the cosmopolitan and fast paced life. What I really felt funny was how we all followed these age old rituals without even realising the significance of the same, and how in the modern times everyone disregarded these rituals without even understanding the root causes and the logical reasons.
Things I learned today are

• Madi, madi well, maddi saree concept
• Pooja paat, vs maadi vs tulsi
• Maadi bath at lake and how the ladies use to keep the path in which they walked clean and wet by sprinkling water all along the pathway.
• Cleansing of the pooja area, space etc.
• Dining rituals - on the floor, sprinkling of water on the floor after food.
• Dining norms - hands, serving hand vs feeding hand.

The list was endless, and I was awestruck as my aunt took me through the entire list how they used to do it our homes. Following the conversation I did manage to get a notch of the funnier side of these so called rituals and how people use to compensate for some short comings particularly in handicaps people had those days. Funnier enough how a "Saas-bahu" clash happened due to the rituals. In my own case, experience of my Granny-Aunt nexus, where my granny used to sprinkle water all over the place as a part of the sprinkling ritual. And how my aunt used to go to lengthsto keep the place spotless and co exist with some hilariously severe rituals. Funny is the way how a traditional monkey spoilt the crux of the ritual practice with the underlying reason lost over a period of time. Irony, superstitions, cult, confusion, skepticism all follow as man is the topmost primate who believes in challenges. Afterall its their forefathers who have tasted the forbidden fruit of wisdom, at the God's Garden of Eden, and vanquished from their to suffer the fate, so do the present generations carry on a similar suffering to some extent.