Swades Revisited-I

It had been around 7-8 months since I had gone home and may be 4-5 year since I celebrated Diwali at home last so this time my mother insisted that I spend Diwali holidays this time. She had already planned a grand puja in my village called Hanna Vinaika (a village at the SW end of UP in Banda district). Infact, I think I was the last to know that the puja was to be done. The reason: my family had undertaken a mannat that they will do this puja at the end of successful completion of my two years in job life and this was hinted to my mother by some pandit of my village. And here is the catchy deal, that entire had to be on my hard earned money. The only consolation was that by the time I would reach my village the puja would be nearing its end and I would just be there in the puja for around 3-4 days.

Ok, so how grand was this puja. Well most of my relatives were coming from outside for this puja (this grand puja is called Pandit as I came to know later). The custom in my village goes that whenever you invite any relatives from outside you’ve got to bear all the expenses for their coming and going + some gifts are obvious.(Thanks god they don’t ask for accommodation, which anyways is managed by sharing house-pool of the family; I mean my house, my uncles’ house etc). The pandit also entails some dakshina to the pandits and a feast to the entire village. The pandit is done at Hanumanji, a temple some 2-3 Kms away from the village. It’s a very famous temple with lots of stories attached to it.

So when I reached Allahabad (Alhbd), I was denied my unusual rest and was asked to proceed towards the village (some 120 Kms far from Alhbd immediately). To add to my troubles was unusual weather which was extremely hot, erratic transport service to my village. I was hinted that I might have to sleep on the floor at the site of puja. Now I was furiously searching this pandit who’s giving this kind of expensive hints to my mother. And this idea, I simply refused to do this. So some religious arguments were given as to why my sleeping there won’t cause any harm.

Infact, this reminds me of what I said to one of blog-interviews, that spirituality and religion lack confidence twisting traditions and practices to modern day person’s convenience and that may be spirituality is identical to Indian Penal Court wherein any arguments for/against something is unacceptable just to justify it.

So the next day puja began, I can’t really tell you all the details but it contained all the usual things: hawan, aarti, mantra, honking bells, obeisance, chadhawa, distributing charnamrit etc etc. I was sitting just getting bored after the first round when the charnamrit was being distributed. The Pandit was distributing it and everyone was taking it with respect. He went and gave the prasad to a lower cast person from a distance, cursing them on and off. And this was all acceptable to the worshippers, pandits (who ironically sometime back were telling mantras that God loves all equally). I thought of giving prasad to them with respect but by the time I made a decision and looked for prasad he was gone.

The experience is big and space small…. To be continued in the next blog. To be out soon