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Indian Gods that migrated!…
It was refreshing to be seated with no one I
knew on either side of my seat on the Air France plane that I boarded after a
hectic schedule dealing with our monastery and other worldly affairs and
bidding farewell to my disciples at Bangalore. Finally, I could be with myself
and felt a lot lighter. When the air hostess brought me a few papers to read, I
could recall an incident that I had read just three weeks before. An Air France
Carrier that had been in Bangalore on an earlier date had taken off from Rio de
Janeiro airport in Brazil only to crash-land into the ocean just minutes after
takeoff and hundreds had perished. That scene replayed vividly in front of my
eyes. Two years ago, a similar incident had happened on a flight to Paris that
I took from Bangalore and I had a fleeting doubt if this could be the same
carrier. The pilot, mindful of a technical defect, had suddenly applied the
brakes just at the last second before takeoff and the plane had come to a halt
with a roar akin to a winter thunderbolt.
It is said that air travel is much safer compared to travelling on train
or bus. There are no obstructions on
the airways. Every vehicle that is moving in the opposing direction is like a
messenger of the Death God Yama! They charge towards us like bullets. Whatever
care you take travelling on the left side, if the driver of the vehicle that is
moving towards you from the opposite side is “LOADED” (drunk) what can you do?
Can you avoid going outside and just sit at home? What guarantee is there that
you are safe even at home? You could just slip in the bathroom and crash your
head. Is it not ridiculous if you think you can wear a helmet into the
bathroom? Even then, how can you be
sure that you would not slip and break your leg? In situations like these, the
popular Indian expression is, “whatever has to happen will happen, no one can
prevent it”.
I
recalled the popular saying from Basavanna, “Do I have a choice other than to be born at a place where You want me
to be born or die at a place where you want me to die?” The lives of all passengers are in the hands
of the Pilot and the Pilot’s life is in the hands of the Lord Almighty. There
are instances of Plane crashes where an infant in a mother’s arms had escaped
death even as the mother herself had succumbed to death. The popular Indian
belief is that no matter what a man does to safeguard himself, it is impossible
to circumvent the invisible hands of the Creator. My eyes drooped just as I was
recalling the words of Akka Mahadevi, “Like
a monkey at the tips of a stick, like a puppet tied to a rope, I play the game
that you want me to play”. The air
conditioning, a comfortable seat, and the mild humming noise of the plane
ensured that I got into a deep slumber.
Carrying hundreds of travelers like me and the cargo safely in its
belly, the plane had taken a giant leap from Bangalore to pierce the dark sky
with a roar and a long jump of about eight thousand kilometers to land us at
Charles De Gaulle Airport at eight o’ clock in the morning. Arriving a half
hour early, the plane had pushed everyone’s clock back by three and half hours.
The book, “Impressions of my France Trip” given to me by the author
Nagathihalli Chandrashekar as a ‘travel companion’ was staring at me with open
eyes after having spent a sleepless night in my arms! His travel experience
stated as, “I floated on the clouds and swung in the sky-earth swing” was true
to the letter except that I was not in a position to say, “I grasped the speed of the earth’s movement and measured the vastness
of of the ocean with bare eyes”.
As
we were about to alight from the plane, an unknown fellow passenger, an Indian
mother, saw me and instinctively bent down to offer her respects and instructed
the little baby in her arms, “jai bolo
beta”. The baby who was obviously tired by a long all night journey,
conceding to her mother’s instructions, took a few baby steps and waved to me.
The way the mother instructed her child made me assume that she was probably a
north Indian lady settled in Bangalore. The popular Kannada saying, “Home is the very first school and mother is
the very first teacher” gave credence to the incidence that I witnessed.
Mother does not need a formal School to teach her child; she is the
personification of mother earth! It is interesting that mothers from the West
focus on civilizing their children with mannerisms and etiquettes, while the
mothers of Indian origin focus on their spiritual development in a land of
diverse cultures.
I
was hardly a few pages into Nagathihalli’s book at the Paris airport, when the
call to board the plane to Chicago came over the PA speakers. Just a change of
carrier, but the full body security screens had to be gone through. Not even
the defense minister from any country is exempt from these security checks.
Shoes from the feet, belt from the waist,
mobile phones from the pocket, handbags, glasses, wrist watches, pen and
loose change - all these need to be
placed on a tray to be scanned through
the X-ray machines. An alarm beep while passing bare foot through a metal
detector brings you back to be checked again. Religious leaders need to
tolerate a bit more of these checks. A situation of non-belief all through! A
cultural torture to be borne for a safe journey! The protocol was put in place
as everyone is a suspect basically
through man’s built-in cheating
tendency; by people wearing good
citizen masks.
Journey
time from Paris to Chicago is around 9 hours. Another hop and jump from the
plane. Time to open up my laptop and
review the edited version of “Ganakaashtaadhyaayee”, a Sanskrit grammar based
on Panini’s tenets and adapted for use on computers. Concern, when the low battery
indicator came on, turned to relief on noticing the electric socket on the arm
rest. A sigh at the thought that so
much time without disruptions and distractions would not be available when on
land! I felt that Bhavabhoothi’s words, “kaalohyayam
niravadhirviphula cha pruthvee” need to be replaced by “viphulam cha vyoma” in my case.
The air hostess was compassionate that I stuck to just water and fruit
juice throughout my journey. She brought me extra cashew nut packets along with
the juice with a pleasing smile. The motherly concern to make children eat
something when they refuse to eat was very much evident in her attitude!
When
we landed at the O’Hare (O! Hare?) Airport in Chicago, Dr. Shivakumar, my
disciple, was there to welcome us with his family. To a query I had posed to
him by e-mail just before I left Bangalore, ‘if his children would be seated on
the back seat of the car taking me to his home from the airport’ I had the
answer. Children who had now grown up to be responsible young adults were
holding the steering wheel while the parents were seated in the back! When we
reached home, the door was opened by none other than Namitha and Ganesh Desai,
the artist couple, of “E-TV Degula Darshana” fame. After the mutual greetings, showers and prayers, the topic of
discussion at lunch centered on Kavya Shivashankar, the 13 year old NRI girl
who had won the Scripps National Spelling Bee Contest, just a month before. Our
pride on her achievement got even better after we learnt that she was from
Mysore. At this young age of 13, she
has won 40,000 US dollars, roughly equivalent to twenty lakh rupees.
Award of such a large amount has never
been awarded to any famed author in our country. Asked by reporters if she
wasn’t distracted by all the spectators, TV reporters, and Press cameras, she
had replied, “I never pay attention to
them. I am totally focused on the word to be spelled!” Her response was similar to Arjuna’s reply, “I
only see the eye of the bird that I am aiming at” to Dronacharya’s
question, “What all do you see on the
tree?”
It
is not only the Hindus that have migrated to America. Along with them, Hindu
Gods have also migrated! Shiva, Parvathi, Ganesha, Subrahmanya, Rama, Krishna,
Venkateshwara, Lakshmi, Bhoodevi and others! Numerous temples have sprung up
across the Americas. Instead of naming the temples by Individual names, it has
become customary to call them as Hindu Temples. According to one estimate more
than 300 Hindu temples are there in USA and Canada combined. From the
architectural angle, these temples are no lesser than the ones in India. From
ancient times, Indian temples have not been the places of worship only, but
have been artistic, architectural, literature and musical development centers
as well. We find such multicultural environment in these American Hindu temples
also. On festival days special poojas are offered along with social and
cultural activities. In ancient Indian temples there are no lodging facilities
offered to the priests. But the specialty here is that the facilities for the
priests are planned for during temple constructions. Even though poojas are
offered daily, devotees are seen in large numbers only on weekends. The people,
who work so hard here from dawn to dusk, hardly find any time to chat with
their spouse and children. Therefore, “Even
if God comes, He will have to wait for the weekends!” is the phrase
sentence here. The temple constructions have not been devoid of native
resistance. People who have built residences in suburbs to be away from the
hustle and bustle of the cities resent it and have opposed the constructions in
courts, citing obstruction to their peace of mind. There are instances where
the internal administrative tussles among the Hindu board members themselves
have sought court assistance for resolution.
The
day after we arrived here, I noticed several responses by the readers to my
last week’s column, “Does God catch
cold?” Supportive remarks by appreciative readers provide the proper
inspiration for me to continue to write despite losing out on my quota of sleep
time. Among them, Nayana Rao from
Bangalore had provided me with valuable information that Lord Puri Jagannath
catches cold during the month of June and so, a cocktail (payasa) made from
crushed pepper and cardamom is offered
to the Lord earlier than usual and his chambers locked to give him additional
rest time to recover. On reading this, I am reminded of my visit to a Sri
Krishna temple operated by the ‘Hare Rama Hare Krishna’ sect at the famous
American City of Atlanta. It was a little late in the evening, as I recall,
when my disciples brought me over there. A wheat- complexioned American Krishna
devotee wearing a dhoti, a cloth spread across his front, with a tuft of hair
on his head, had met us at the gates. When my disciples had explained to him as
to who I was and requested him to open the doors to the temple, he had humbly
folded his hands and said, “Sorry, our
Lord Krishna is sleeping now, we cannot wake him up!” You may laugh at his
statement. But for that Krishna
devotee, he had done ‘shayanotsava’ to his Lord Krishna with ardent devotion
and nothing could shake him to disturb his Lord. The dharmic rituals we do
without such dedicated belief is, in my opinion, just an exhibitionist
devotion. Referring to such people only Basavanna had stated, “They don’t trust me, they don’t believe in
me, simply they call me for their wants. So trustless are these earthlings!”