Yesterday, or today (depending upon your religious calender), was/is Jamnashtami, the birth of Lord Krishna. It brought back a number of memories.
Since this was the first Janmashtami after returning to India, my wife decided to do it the traditional way - preparing the laddus, payasams, puliyodarai, etc etc. My daugther drew the footprints from the outside door to the altar - symbolic of Krishna walking in. And we did the puja. And like the true sardar who loves his langar, I relished on the food subsequently. My kids then chanted Vishnusashasranamam - credit to my wife for teaching this to the kids.
Janmashtami brought back memories of two years ago, when Ramki (IIMA 86, D2) came down to visit us in London on Janmashtami day. He is a disciple of Krishna Premi and after the satsang at Sundar's place, we asked him to speak. For those who dont know Ramki - he lives in Chicago and spends a significant amount of time on religion. He and his wife are deeply religious and he regularly discourses at temples, marriages and other places in the US. After campus in 1987, I got in touch with Ramki in an interesting way. I was posted in London (the first time) for a brief 3 months in 1995 and on one of the evenings, my wife and I decided to visit Wembley. We were having dosas in a wembley restaurant, when I spotted Ramki with his wife in the same restaurant - I promptly reintroduced myself and went to his house - which was ofcourse a temple - I discovered then how religious the couple were. We have since kept in touch on and off. I did visit him in Chicago in 2004 and true enough I got to partake some prasadam on the cold January evening - because there was some religious event on that day. So, coming back to two years ago, it was indeed a treat for us to listen to Ramki and his wife Saroj on that day. He left us a CD of one his discourses on Rukmini Kalyanam - what a discourse. Felt so proud to listen to this fantastic discourse, while at the same time feeling totally like an ignoramus for not really knowing much about our religion and the scriptures.
Back to Malad yesterday, my wife and I decided to visit the temples. About a kilometre from our house is Bangur nagar, a mini Matunga to us - this area has the Tambrams, the mallus and the bongs with the temples - there is a Ramar Temple, an Iyyappa temple and an Bengali temple. You have a branch of Giri Trading next to the Ramar temple and a shop similar to Mysore concern, where you can buy Ambika appalam, pickles, murukku and a lot of the south indian items. So, as you can imagine, my wife and I feel like home here. So at 10 pm, after the puja at home, we stepped out to the Ramar temple, which was open until midnight for the Janmashtami. and as expected, there was a group of people doing bhajans. We then went across to the Ayyappa temple and there was well, there was a satsangh with devotees singing to Guruvayurappan and Krishna. We also visited a community hall, where the Bangur Nagar charitable association had put up a really large idol of Krishna and prayers were going on.
The night was young and the kids were at home - I had frankly slept through the afternoon (being a saturday). My wife and I decided to go to Gokuldam, the outstanding temple in Goregaon, near the Oberoi Mall. We reached there at 11.15 pm, the temple was not open, however there were crowds outside and we were told that the temple will open for midnight arathis. There was a Cafe Coffee Day (CCD) exactly opposite the temple and we walked across and took a garam masala chai while we waited for the temple to open. So were a few other people. The mix of religion and tradition with modernity is just heady - I could not have imagined having a coffee at Starbucks/CCD just before a darshan a few years ago.
The temple opened at 11.45 pm - there was a large rush and there was also a police bundobust outside. Talk about the power of faith - a really large group of people- men, women, children assembled for darshan close to midnight. Faith brings unity. And we could see that. Such crowds also are an opportunity to put on a quasi-anthropological hat on people behaviour. The first thing that comes to your mind is the way people behave in crowds. In India, there is a lot of jostling, pushing around. Even when the crowd is still. People are always trying to push forward and there is usually little courtesy to let the other person first. As an opposite, I used to travel by train to work in London and for those who know Victoria station – usually there is a crowd standing outside between 8.15 am to 9.15 am or so. The amazing thing about those crowds is that – while there are lots of people, no one is actually touching anyone else. There is a respectful space between the people despite the crowd and even as the crowd moves, people keep that few centimeter distance – so that you don’t really get pushed around. That does not happen here.
Interestingly, this jostling behaviour, the push to be the first one is not restricted to the crowds at temples, where people come from all backgrounds. Yesterday morning, I had gone to my daughter’s school for the parent teacher meetings, meeting 8 of her teachers took a good two hours – the principal reason was that there was no particular order for people to see the teachers, and we all waited around the teacher’s table. This is an international school and you see parents from very well off families, but when it comes to waiting for your turn, it is non-existent. It was almost embarrassing for me to push through and with one teacher, my daughter and I patiently waited, while other parents went out of turn. Fortunately, the teacher noticed that we were not getting to see her and after one of the students, promptly called us.
My mind also went back to the Iskon temple in London, where the crowds and the ambience are quite different from the Iskon temple at Juhu. My wife had proposed that we go there today, but I have turned it down just to avoid the crowds. I see that the cable operator is offering live darshan of the Iskon temple proceedings – we might see that for a while. Though I must admit that one reason I like the Iskon temple at Juhu, is the samosa that you get at the food counters. (There is one sight that I will never forget at Iskon temple, London – someone had brought a large rabbit/hare on a leash. I have never before seen a pet rabbit on a leash – so that memory will be completely indelible).
So it has indeed been an interesting day yesterday – the schools, the puja, the temples, the people behaviour. We slept late, it was past 1 am when we went to bed. This morning has been a lazy start so far. A perfect time to write a blog, which is what I am doing, but my internet connection keeping going on an off, and I am writing this on Microsoft word. When the connection comes on, I will cut and past this out on the blog.
I am looking forward for the rest of this Sunday.
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