The Hills of Sabari

The story goes that when Rama was on his way to Lanka, looking for his wife, Sabari offered him hospitality. She would collect fruits and bring them to him. But she would bite each fruit and check whether they are tasty enough, before offering them to Rama.

But it is not this romantic story that I want to tell.

***

The story goes that Shiva heard about how Vishnu went dressed up as Mohini and charmed the wits out of the Asuras to get amrit, the divine nector of immortality. And he wanted to see what Mohini looked like. After some cajoling, Vishnu conceded and took the form of Mohini, just to please his godly colleague. But Shiva was more than pleased. He could not help himself. He had to make love to Mohini.

And as gods go, conception and delivery are quick affairs. Just about two and half hours. But since Vishnu did not have adequate organs to deliver, the baby was taken out by cutting his thighs open. They left the baby and went back to their own jobs of not doing much.

A local king heard the baby in the forests and rescued it. And being childless at that time, took the baby back to the palace. The queen however, got pregnant soon and gave birth to a son. The two boys grew up, along with the queen’s anxiety that the boy rescued from the forest would ascend the throne.

She cooked up a scheme with the royal vaidya. She feigned and illness, which could be treated only with the milk from a tigress. The boy rescued from the forest, now a fine young man, volunteered to go and get it.

And since he was borne to gods, he comes back to the palace with a tigress laden with milk. The queen regrets and asks forgiveness. But the young man understands the queen’s anguish and relinquishing the royal life, decides to go back to the forest. The king is heartbroken and pleads that he be allowed to visit at least once in a year. To which the divine being, now called Ayyappa, concedes.

Such stories carry great morals for society. The gods themselves can indulge in homosexuality. So if you see it among humans, we should not unleash our moral indignation.

But when a story is a part of a mythology that is in turn, the basis of a religion, it takes a different tone. So the story goes on to reassert the moral.

Ayyappa has only one ‘friend’ - a Muslim man. And an old woman who is acceptable company for the divine being in his forest abode.

The gay orientation of Ayyappa is underlined, the social attitude to Islam is softened. Respect to old women is indicated as a virtue...

***

But then, even a great folk tale loses the significance of its morals when appropriated by a religion that is drunk with political power.

I can understand the need for women to go to Ayyappa. Ask any woman who has a gay friend. Since the usual man-woman games are not applicable, usually there is good bonding.

But in case Lord Ayyappa is hesitant  - his friend may feel jealous - perhaps the fanatically religious people should at least allow lesbian couples to visit the temple. I am sure Ayyappa won’t mind. Gay people are usually comfortable with lesbian couples.

Religious sanctity will then align with legal sanctity. After all, the purpose of sanctity is to make people behave, isn't it? Whether the punishment of crossing the line is in this life or the next?

Preparing for the next census

“Religion?” he asked.

“Madhuism”, I replied without hesitation.

He glanced at the questionnaire and after a second of hesitation, he said: “There is not religion like that”.

“Yes, there is”, I smiled. “I am the only one practicing it”.

“Hindu”. He turned back to the questionnaire to mark the relevant column.

“This country has no religious freedom now”, I said.

Guru Nanak and his followers created Sikhism during the Mughal period by combining Hinduism that was already transformed by Buddhist and Jain thoughts with elements of Islam. But in this day and age, I am not allowed to create a religion by combining Sufi and Zen traditions? I was pissed off.

The Haryanavi school teacher who was taking the census was not perturbed. Life among cows and buffaloes does that to you. He went on to the next column in the questionnaire.

***

The Lingayat issue in Karnataka gives me hope. I can now try and assert my religion.

But of course, Madhuism won’t work. The religion explicitly forbids any other follower. So it cannot have the political clout, like the Lingayats had.

But I won’t be covered into the Hindu fold by the next school teacher who comes to take census. I am not a Hindu. I don’t have the pride, the hate, the stridency of the Hindus. And Trump does not love me.

So I will declare myself a Shaivite and insist that the next census allows me my religious freedom. I want myself to be recorded as a Shaivite and NOT as a Hindu.

I request the other citizens who do not hate Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Jews or Zorastrians, in spite of not belonging to any of these religions, to support me. 

Let me please be a Shaivite and not a Hindu. I don’t accept Krishna and Rama as gods, but definitely as characters in great stories. I enjoy them perhaps more than Frodo and Gandalf.

***

Being a shaivite has great benefits.

Swayam bhoo Mahadeva.

My self-generated god, please help me face the next census with an assertion of my religious freedom.

Time traveller and a census of gods

It was more than forty two centuries ago. I was in the Indus valley that is now considered to be a part of Pakistan. Human beings were very few. A handful of tribes distributed sparsely in the region. It was peaceful.

And then the weather patterns started changing. Not much rain in the monsoon. And the winters were bitter cold. In a few years, the forests around became so dry. And they would burst into fire without any warning.

That is when the tribes got together. We channelised the water from the river, made dwellings with bricks that would not easily go up in flames and we even organised fire hydrants so that the surrounding forests don’t create havoc in our settlements.

The worst fires tended to occur on the shortest day of the year and coincided with a new moon. So we made a rule: nobody sleeps on that day. 

The cold dry years went by, one after the other. And then the wars started.

The Asurs, a tribe from the north-west attacked our tribe, the Deos. It took long for both to realise the futility. Diplomatic talks led to an agreement: we dig wells together so that water is not a matter of contention.

Thus the first wells of humanity were dug. A matter of pride for both tribes.

But the rains did not come. The wells were getting dry. And then the migration started. Those who stayed had to face starvation. Soon there was nobody there.

***

It was about twenty seven centuries ago. I was in the Gangetic plains. A few centuries of good rainfall and not-so-cold winters had an impact on food production. There were more people around. And enough food to feed them. After the stomachs were full, the main entertainment was storytelling, as it was in our earlier days, forty two centuries ago.

And history always yields to storytelling.

So the fires of old were due to the wrath of a god, Siva. And to placate him, you have to worship the structure of a fire hydrant. People had forgotten what it was used for and called it shivling. To propitiate the god with the burning gaze, you have to put ashes on your forehead and body.

The time of the shortest day and the new moon did not coincide any more. But people took the moon as the indicator of shivrathri and kept awake.

The days of the great fires were centuries ago. Cultural memories evolve, mutate, change.

So did the history of the animosities between the Deos and the Asurs. The Deos became gods and the Asurs were demons. They collaborated not for digging wells for water, but for extracting the elixir of immortality.

Legends of local heroes were added to the story of the Deos and the Asurs. Shiva became less important than Rama, a righteous king, and Krishna, an indulgent cowherd, projected as incarnations of one of the Deos.

Stories grow in the telling. From history to legends, the complexity evolves into mythology. The new gods were added to the Vedic pantheon. I did not know about these gods, forty two centuries ago.

Population growth among the gods kept pace with growth in human populations.

***

About 50 years ago, I was in the South of what is now considered India. The Malabar Kingdom had acceded to the demands of the grand coalition, very similar to what happened to Europe a few decades later.

My family had Shiva as deity. But we were in a Vaishnavite temple town. The wars between the Vaishnavites and Shivites had long been forgotten. And the Harijans, who became the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes and later became Dalits, had just gained entry to the temple. Like the many kingdoms coalesced into one country, the many and diverse gods coalesced into the Hindu pantheon. Three hundred and thirty million of them cowered together in a peaceful corner, to escape the assaults of the single god of Islam and the trinity of Christianity. My mother was willing to pray to any deity, even the Chinese Datos that she encountered in Malaysia decades later. After Khalistan, before Brexit.

Long history, when encapsulated in the form of small stories to engage the young, mutate and adapt to the cultural environment and evolve into hundreds of versions. A few verses, of one version each of Ramayana and Mahabharata, were read aloud at night, after the prayers to Shiva during twilight.

I can see the Indian population becoming schizoid, breaking into compartmentalised moralities. One part of their being emulated Krishna, willing to steal, lie, having more wives than Islam allows, plotting and even killing one’s relatives in the name of dharma. Another, like Rama is willing to ambush their enemies to reach their political ambitions. Yet another part emulates Shiva, not engaged in the social, economic life of ordinary beings. Identification with Durga, Draupathi and Sita also has psycho-social consequences. While some Hindus feel strange in a Lakshmi Narayan temple, another set would feel squeamish about entering a Mariamman kovil.

Me, I am a time traveller. I distinguish history from stories, legends from mythologies. I have seen too many gods die, some very young. And, too many being born. If there were a census of gods in India, we would find that the number has depleted substantially from the original thirty three million. Even though new ones are being added to the Hindu pantheon, which people mistake for the Vedic pantheon, it appears that divine diversity is now as threatened as biodiversity.

And, of course, like the biodiversity that has disappeared and yet remain in the form of DNA preserved in ancient bones, gods too, don’t die completely. Look at the European gods that died due to the epidemic of Christianity. Thor and Zeus lie dormant in the society. Waiting for the human sighs to bring them back to life. 

How to make a political statement

From teenage I have been anti-political. And to date, I am an apolitical animal. Politicians make a political statement by a rally, a hartal or a bandh. Me, I am not too fond of these since they inconvenience people.

As a young man, I thought that the Japanese way, of a band of black cloth as a form of protest, was a good idea – it troubles nobody yet it conveys the unhappiness of the workers against a management decision. Nobody suffers. Production and profits continue unabated.

Thank God, there are many apolitical animals out there and with due diligence in my old age, I have learned of many more ways to make a political statement without inconveniencing others.

For example, you can march for science or run for gender equality, switch of lights at a particular time to show solidarity with the concept of sustainable development, throw a bucketful of ice on yourself... the diversity of the forms of protest can be very diverse; there is a large multitude of them.

So, though my friends and relatives still believe that I am anti-political, I am no more an apolitical animal. I protest. I show solidarity with others. And I use a large repertoire of ways to make a political statement.

For example, when I wake up in the morning, I stretch and yawn and at times curl back to try and sleep to show solidarity with the dogs that are maltreated by human beings. Then I go and brush my teeth and bathe to protest against the unclean politics practiced by the Indian parties. I comb my hair in memory of the mass extinction that took place 65 million years ago that lead to faster evolution of creatures that had hair. Then I walk to the kitchen to protest against pollution caused by fossil fuel burning.  On some days we drink Earl Grey tea as a signal to the British that we have forgiven them for doing what they did not know they were doing,..

There are umpteen ingenious ways to make a political statement, my apolitical friends. In fact, you can make your life a series of political statements by doing things that are totally unrelated to the issue that you are protesting or solidaritising – if I may take liberty with words.

Now to make your life more meaningful and socially, culturally, historically relevant, all you need to do is to find issues to make political statements, so that the whole of your waking life becomes a political statement.

Wait  for the next post: how to find issues for showing solidarity or to protest. 

Devasthanam, Kochi

"Have you met Amma?" he asked.

Suddenly an anxiety gripped me. I tried to keep my face calm. He was a keen observer and he might catch the emotions that flit through.

Why was I anxious? I am in touch with dead people like Ramakrishna, Ramana, Krishnamurthi. Is it because she is alive that I fear the touch?

Or is it because she is a woman? While I so very comfortable with Aurobindo, I am not, as much, with the Mother - though she speaks with such clarity and simplicity.

A kind of macho attitude?

I meditated on my ambivalence while I was returning to the guest house.

* * *

"Sir, I live in the past", said my sarathi. "I don't know whether it is a strength or a weakness. But I like old songs, old films. I live in the past."

Is that my strength and weakness too? I wondered.

"I have met many people," my sarathi continued. "Older they get, the more stuck to the past they become. But I have seen one old man who lives in future. Kalam. He always seemed to me to be concerned with future."

Time present. Time past. Women may come and go, Michelangelo remains.

****

I reached the hospital guest house where we were staying

So very different from the hospital that I visited in Pune. I am comforted as if I were in Ramanashram or Aurobindo Ashram. I don't see suffering, though all around, there are patients, relatives...

People from different parts of the world come, find relief and go. Perhaps all hospitals should provide prayer halls and places for worship?

I wonder.

Chennai to Pune: without reservation

1

Can you wake me up at 5:30? I asked at the reception of World University Centre at Chennai. The guys at the reception promptly promised that it will be done.

I spent one more night in a room full of mosquitoes.

I was woken up by them once to find that it is 6:00 am!

Shi-…  I am late. Washed my face, grabbed my bag and ran down two flights of stairs. The young man, who was quite vocal in his promise to wake me up at 5:30, smiled at me.

“OK, I am off. I am late.”

“Sir, your receipt”

“You keep it”.

I ran out. Caught the first auto, got to the railway station, ran up and down the over-bridge and got into the train in a bogy reserved for people who did not have a reservation. It was already full. No seats. Many were already standing, leaning against whatever is nearby.

Never trust others to wake you up in time…

2.

I stood near the door. A man was giving some money to another and there was some whisper about a seat. My ears perked up. They disappeared into a compartment and the man who had received the money came back with a towel which he did not have when he went off. I blocked his way and said: “seat?”

Once money was exchanged, he led me to the next compartment and removed another towel from the seat and asked me to sit. I was comfortable with the reservation system in the unreserved compartments of Indian railways.

When I looked up after pushing the bag under the seat, I caught the anxious eyes of a burkha clad woman opposite me. I smiled and did an adab arz. Her body relaxed. My attire was designed for rough travel, but then I could be mistaken for a Hindu fanatic. My days in Jamia and acculturation to Islamic traditions came in handy.

There were policemen outside, trying to get the porters to carry something. The reluctance of the porters was understandable: it was a dead body, covered by a sari cloth. The power of the police prevailed. The last journey from a railway station on a stretcher.

Suicide, somebody said, as our train started moving.

A mobile rang. The burkha clad woman snatched her mobile from her bag and stared at it. She allowed it to ring till it stopped. She smiled and declared that she had saved two rupees. If she answers the phone while roaming, she would be charged extra. There was triumph in her voice.

She asked me how much I paid for the seat. I held up two fingers. She turned to her husband who was sitting next to me and scolded him for giving 60 rupees for two seats. And then went on to eat his ears. Their daughter sitting next to him leaned on him to show support.

When the train started picking up speed, the Burkha asked her husband to get the kids. The husband  went off with the person sitting next to him and came back with two more children, a boy and another girl, from another compartment. A case of exchanging reserved seats in unreserved compartments. There was some pushing and squashing before things settled down.

When she interacted with the kids, she was dripping honey. When she talked to other passengers, she was smiling and happy. As soon as she turned to her husband, her face clouded over.

Then at a station, the husband got up and stepped out. After some time the train started moving and the husband had not come back. Burkha’s face went through concern, anxiety, fear… She tore at her oldest daughter’s chappal, wore it and stood up to search for her husband.

Just then he came back. The relief on her face was mingled with her love for him.

But then, soon Burkha went on to eat her husband’s brain.  About how he did not earn enough, how she saved money while he squandered it… The boy sitting next to her was beaming. The girl next to the husband was almost cuddling him to comfort him. Soon the woman started eating his balls. The boy started squirming.

A lady standing near the burkha was intently listening to the monologue of Burkha. I could see that she empathized with Burkha and sympathized with the husband. She met my eyes and there was a smile that showed that she was also enjoying the drama. TV serials can never be this realistic.

I looked around at the people sitting on the seats, lying on the upper berth, sitting on the floor. I was comfortable. I was at home.  

Vasudhaiva kudumbakam.

3

I closed my eyes.

Albert Camus was not helpful. His Sisyphus was resigned to fate whereas Naranath Bhranthan was actively involved in the folly of life, symbolized by pushing a big stone up a hill and then pushing it down. Culturally, I was closer to Naranath Bhranthan. I would rather jump up and down with glee when the stone went tumbling down, unlike Sisyphus who was resigned to his curse.

And Camus’ understanding of suicide was not satisfactory either. Even Durkheim was not satisfactory. The unwilled vision of one’s own violent end, coming repeatedly uninvited into the mind, is a mental health problem that is not completely explained by Freud’s notion of death wish either. The obsession with one’s death on the one hand, and denial of death on the other, living as if death is not something that happens to the self, squandering time waiting for Godot or the Imperial Messenger. Humans are most funny creatures.

People who saw the body some time ago does not relate it to the newspaper report of the farmer who committed suicide in public at AAP rally. Clustering of such events during certain times – is it natural? Are humans like the proverbial Lemmings? Or is it an artifact of skewed media reporting?

4

Aurobindo also had explored in his Savithri, the realm in which life seems not worth living. In his Life Divine, he describes the deeper meanings of human life. I used to use the book as a soporific, reading it in bed. It was so tedius that I would easily I fall asleep. During the day, I would read Castaneda where fear and humour mingled. Aurobindo and Castaneda mingled in my mind.

Death is one’s greatest advisor, standing behind you at your left shoulder. What should I do with my life?

I opened my eyes, took my notepad and wrote down my bucket list of things to do before I die.

5

In Guntur, a lady who spoke Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Hindi joined the crowd at my feet. I noticed that her Tamil was peppered with Hindi and Marathi terms. I had a similar problem: when I open my mouth to speak Tamil, Hindi comes out.

Burkha, her husband and kids got down after Kadappa. The polyglot thanked Siva loudly for the seat and glanced at me, as if for approval. I smiled. Here is another sister who won’t bite me – just because of  the colour of the two pieces of cloth around me.

It was getting hot outside. The fans in the unreserved bogy suddenly stopped.

I was happy. Contented. So I couldn’t complain.

I shall be fit enough to execute my last dance when I face my death.

Pondicherry - the game starts: love all

1.

Reached Pondy - or, to be more politically more correct, Puducherry – early in the morning. Did not take an auto rickshaw immediately: closer to the bus station, you are normally charged more. 

Walked till the stiffness of sitting in the bus all night wore off. Stopped a young autorikshaw driver and told him to take me to a lodge – not too costly, please.

He took me to Bliss inn, walking distance from Nehru Road. The receptionist, a young person touching 30, gave two keys to a lean, hungry looking guy and asked him to show me two rooms. 

We went to the first floor and stopped in front of a door. He was about to open it but stopped short and told me that I would prefer the other room and promptly walked up to the second floor. I dragged my body after him. He threw open the door and declared that it was nice and breezy. 

Yes, it was, and there was a terrace to dry my clothes. I thanked him and got into the act of washing my clothes. 

Bathing and one more savasan refreshed me. I was hungry.

Got dressed and went down. The lean dark guy was there, as if waiting for me to come down. 

“Food?” he asked. I noticed that he had the eyes of a drunkard. Vitamin 12 deficiency.

Yes, where should I go for breakfast?

He directed me to the street past Nehru road. And ordered me to get four idlis for himself. I laughed. He looked surprised. I nodded that I'd get him his idlis. 

Ate two idlis and got four idlis packed. He was waiting for me and took the packet eagerly, went running up to the receptionist. While I was going up the stairs I noticed that they were sharing the idlis. I smiled.

By the time I reached the room, I couldn’t contain my laughter anymore. Three people sitting in the corridor looked at me surprised. 

Laugh with the lord. 

I could not imagine Aurobindo laughing. Never seen a photograph with even a smile. Compared to Ramana who always had a sweet smile, Aurobindo looks very dour, I thought. 

Is it because he was laughing with the lord? Laughter unfit for human ears?

2.

Smoked a cigarette, rested my back. Rearranged my wet clothes drying on the terrace.

Sunlight told me that it was office time. So off to my parallel work in this world.

Pondicherry University. The trip back and forth showed off the dark blue sea, bound by off-white sand and light blue sky split into vertical pieces by coconut trees.  

It was nearly six in the evening when I reached back. Wandered in the streets, slowly making my way to the beach.

They have extended the beach a bit. Now people can walk on the beach, instead of on the road. Though the beach was about 15 feet higher than the sea. To touch the sea, you would have to be a good mountaineer.

I went to the park. The trees looked just the same as when I saw them in ‘90s.

Slowly wandered to Dr Surya’s last residence. It was locked. The footpath near the house was cordoned off by a metal fence.

The door had a sign which declared that it belonged to the golden chain. I am not a part of the chain, just a pendant hanging on it.

I smiled: Express what you want to experience.

3.

Looked around for a place where I could have a beer and a cigarette. It would be a shame to leave Pondi without having a drink.

A building painted rose colour. Lazy Jazz caressed the green surroundings. I sat sipping cold beer.

The last lines of the Savitri resounded in my head.

I was getting ready. Now the game should begin.

Love all.