MUSINGS V

Many years, back it just so happened that my hometown and my work-town coincided.

Those were happy days which Other Half and me spent re-discovering my beautiful place of birth, learning to look at it with new eyes. We roved the city on his mobike from college days, a tried and trusted Yamaha; spending entire Sundays and most evenings gallivanting around the town’s long, lonely roads, its gullies and of course those special spots from my growing up years.

One such evening we had gone to eat at a favourite Chinese joint and had got delayed as we chatted with the Indian Chinese owner and dawdled over the food. Therefore, when we were finally ready to return, the clock hands were nearing midnight. My town was by habit an introvert and in those leisurely times nearly two decades back, it actually went to sleep not a minute after eight. Therefore, at twelve midnight, the streets were so deserted that in the ensuing silence, I could almost hear the town snore.

        Our bike speeded through the empty streets mostly unhindered except for the occasional time when it was accosted by a especially territory-conscious stray dog. It was March but winter had still not said goodbye. The night was pleasantly chilly and the roads mostly dark as no street lights were lit.

I spotted it from afar, a pool of saffron light, shining in that dark night at a point on our left, at the edge of the road. As we neared it, I could hear the loudspeaker bawl. I remembering muttering to myself: “Ours is truly a lawless land. Just look. Loudspeakers blaring at midnight with such impunity! Do we even have a police force????”

               It was a small pandal, set up with garish pink and red and saffron satin with a low makeshift stage. At one end banners announcing Ramnavami celebrations scheduled for the next day hung, adorned with photos of local political leaders complete with insincere smiles and hands folded in sychophantic namastes. 

I remembered. It was Ram Navami tomorrow.

The little enclosure had been set up for the neighbourhood celebrations to be held the next day. And of course, the blameless loudspeakers were only practising for tomorrow’s function. With Lata Mangeshkar’s Shri Ram Chandra Kripalu Bhaja Mana............., that well known hymn by Tusidas from Ram Charita Manas.

Then I saw him. A man. Maybe a rickshaw wallah, judging from the rickshaw standing idly outside, sans driver. This man, the probable rickshaw puller would ordinarily have been simply an ordinary rickshaw puller.

But he wasn’t.

That was because I found him dancing. To the bhajan blaring from the loudspeaker: Shri Ram Chandra Kripalu Bhaja Mana....

He was a local Adivasi, perhaps an Oraon, or a Santhal or a Munda, or maybe a Birhor. I didn’t know for sure. He had a head full of thick curly hair, grey and black and a wild moustache to match, again grey and black. A dirty gamchha was tied like a semi turban round his head. He wore a battered full sleeved shirt, its sleeves rolled up till his elbows; and a checked lungi that was doubled up and tucked firmly at his waist. His skin was darker than the night and his eyes were closed. He was dancing, hands raised to the havens, flexed at the elbows, feet moving in slow and deliberate rhythm to the beautiful bhajan playing from the rickety speakers.

         Something about that scene attracted me. Perhaps it was the strong surrealistic feel.

“Stop, stop,!” I poked Other Half eagerly. Prudently, he didn’t stop but slowed down.

There was no one else in that place at the time, except us on the bike and the dancing man.

A single mercury vapour lamp threw an orange glow all around and within the pandal.

Lata kept up her singing, her strong voice brimming with adulation: .“Shri Ram! Shri Ram!"

The man danced unconcerned, eyes closed, head tilted to one side, moving in slow circle:

“Nava Kanja Lochana Kanja Mukha Kara Kanja Pada Kanjaarunaam........”

“His eyes are like newly blossomed lotuses; His face, His hands and His feet are like the lotus and the red of the rising sun....”

He reminded me of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu dancing in the rapture of his adulation for his beloved Sri Kishna......reminded me of the whirling dervishes of Turkey, dancing in the unadulterated ecstasy of their worship.....!

It was really late and not quite safe for we were all alone. Very conscious of this fact and immune to the chams of surrealism in all its forms, Other Half picked up speed and raced home. As we wove our way through the lanes and bylanes, I kept thinking about that man dancing alone in the night, in perfect communion with his God.  Maybe a swig too many of Hadiya, the local rice brew had helped him attain his trance but then who was I to judge, to come between him and his God?

         If there was ever a direct hotline established between man and the gods, I am sure it was that night between that Adivasi rickshaw puller and his adored  Shri Ram.

And so, even today, whenever I hear the strains of Shri Ram Chandra Kripalu Bhaka Mana (the version that has been sung by Lata mangeshkar specially),  my thoughts invariably move back to that spring night in my hometown, a saffron coloured midnight when a man danced his prayer to his God.

One worships ones gods in many ways and forms: through gyan or knowledge, through service of others, through remembrance, through song, through ritual and through total surrender. The last, that of total surrender is something akin to Love, a state when one is immersed absolutely in adoration of the beloved,  a state when the mind, the body and the soul are absorbed completely unto one’s God.

I contemplate wistfully, Heyyyy, wish someone loved me like that.....

Heck,  wish I could love my God like that....