A few days back on an
auspicious Tuesday, I along with my eighty year old father completed a Char Dham Yatra, by visiting JagnathPuri.
Not be confused with Chota Char Dhams, these include Badrinath , Rameswaram,
Dwarka and Puri in four different cardinal directions of the subcontinent.
A
Quest for Moksha or compulsive religious
fervor was certainly not our Raison D’etre. Ironically, both of us being
extremely non-religious were the first ones ever in our family to have undertaken
this journey. Being from the Choti Dhoti
Brahmins clan of Kumaon, and not belonging to the Lambi Dhoti cult, didn’t deter us from our evening, ritualistic,
tipple. We may have been very different in numerous ways, but we do share a few
similarities which get pronounced as the evening twilight approaches. Though a self-proclaimed
Bhakt with an always right self belief, my dad reconciles to a peaceful coexistence at the point where our frequencies
resonate.
In
the evening after visiting JagnathPuri, while standing on the famous Golden Beach
next to Swargadwar, I saw a multitude of people, exit the Jagnath Temple filling narrow by lanes, akin to the way ants come out
of the ant hill. The crowd later merged on to the main market, dressed with a large
number of colorful umbrellas adorning bright lights. The sight is something that promises
to stay with you. The Word Juggernaut(Jag -Nath ), I guess must have originated
here .
It
was a loud and chaotic crowd with a unique binding madness and peaceful coexistence, which has kept us
together, alive and thriving for ages. This is real India aka Bharat, I said to
myself where people interacted freely. The locals and tourists here had only
Artha and Kama (pleasure) in mind; I was certainly not alone here. With an
overtly crowded liquor shop at the main intersection surrounded by a number of non-veg
street food joints doing brisk business, there was no religion, politics, dogma,
left or right dividing us and I simply savoured the unique joy of being an Indian.
I
experienced similar spectacle at food stalls at Hunar Haat, Lucknow, which in
itself was very well organized festival for artisans, craftsmen and culinary
experts from all over the country. Nobody was bothered about Jhatka or Halal; people
just pursued Artha and Kama in peaceful co-existence. Crowd forced people to
share tables with strangers, without bothering about religion, food habits, ethnicity
or anything else. You just had to look in the eye, gestured to occupy a vacant
place on the table and go ahead with
business. It was quintessential display of Indian unity in diversity
I
yearn for Moksha which is not to be confused with Vanprasth Ashram. I am contented
with both Artha and Kama alike. After my pilgrimage I wish to recite the
following couplets:
“Where the country is not divided by religion,
social media, protests and the like,
Where right is not always right and left is not
left out,
Where we choose to understand and embrace our
uniqueness
Into that heaven of freedom, My father let my
country awake “
WRITTEN :FEB 22 ,This note has been amended by our writer friend Ech Pee
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