HANUMAN BHAKT
Amongst many things that he despised, Google came very much at the top.
Not that he was against reading or searching up,
Nor was he anti-capitalist or anti-American. But books were his world.
He loathed 'facts' which were floated, but were as mythical and as illusive, as a desert mirage.
Thirsty hoards of gullible readers were ready to assimilate texts without cross checking.
A close second and not too far on the next rung of that ladder of disgust, were trigger happy forwarders, who used social medial as a race. A race to be the first to proclaim an unverified news.
News which was usually sensational or political ,
and yet that often needed correction later.
Later, though, his anger was replaced by amusement on those languishing on both those two rungs of his annoyance ladder.
But of late, it had given way completely, as he reflected that his own realisations of yesterday appeared as much a myth to him today.
His annoyance had morphosed into self doubt and galvanised him towards self search.
He closed the book, having read it twice now. Later that evening, he rang is father, his spiritual and moral compass.
A barometer against whom he titrated his thoughts and corrected his bandwidth of staying in tune with the sublime.
The world of communication had changed so dramatically over millenia.
Before Christ, Roman generals used coded firesticks to get their messages across the battlefields to their soldiers.
It was the heartbreak of his wife Lucretia, whose death news he couldn't receive for 3 days, that led to the invention of Morse code, the non-school attender Marconi who realised the power of radio waves that led towards wireless transmission and the ingenuity of Alexander Bell who converted the pressurised sound waves to electrical waves at transmitting end and back to sound waves at the receiver end that brought Tele phone to the masses.
Means of communications, albeit, are no replacement to the urge to communicate.
Even in this 19th year of the 21st century, with so many ways at finger tips, friends and relations decide to remain incommunicado.
That night, having ruminated over his discussion with his father, he opened up his laptop.
'The 4 days of Deepawali' he began to type.
He had been invited to speak at his daughter's school the following week.
In front of year 9 children. These angels were well versed with the traditions of St Nicholas and the festivities s in December.
It surprised him that the date of birth of the son of God is not stated in any gospels.
Theologians argue that the birth occurred in the century between 6 BC and 4 BC.
Equally vociferous is their contemplation that the month of birth probably is not in December.
Yet Pagan and deep rooted believes turn that last week of the year into a wonderful celebration.
Little were those angels also aware of the happenings of another festival that occurred around Halloween, a couple of months before December.
Hence, the school head teacher had entrusted him and sought his help, as his daughter was one of the few brown skinned ones studying at that school.
He started with some text and graphics which were mingled amongst believes and rituals on a few slides.
He had managed to get some pictures from his external hard drive from last year's celebrations.
He was now stuck on the fourth day of festivities.
Bali Pratipadaa...
The day when Lord Vishnu's 5th avatar, Vaman, banished the demon king Bali to Netherland, Paataal.
The dwarf Vaman had asked for only 3 steps from Bali.
Bali, in his arrogance, aquiesed.
With his first step, Vaman encompassed the universe.
With the second, all of Earth, except the place where Bali stood.
By now, Bali understood that this Vaman was Lord Vishnu and offered his head for Vaman to step on.
And so Bali was sent to Paataal with a boon to resurface once a year, when million lights would illuminate his arrival.
He walked upstairs, climbed up a ladder and pulled out some old photo albums. They belonged to an era before the digital world had spread it's roots across people's lives.
Many of those albums had gathered dust and smelled of old plastic and leather.
The plastic leaves housing the photos were stuck to the photos and to each other.
He carefully started caressing them apart, trying to find an old memory lost amongst those pages of his past. He enjoyed the crackling noise as he separated the stuck pages of the album.
Rummaging through those bygone lanes, he was lost in those past yesteryears of his life, feeling amused and sad at the same time.
He turned back a leaf of an album, he had just turned over.
The plastic on the photo was crumpled.
He gingerly slid his finger between the plastic and the photo, to prise the memory out of the album.
A little boy gazed back at him from that snap. The boy was sat on a chaurang, a small wooden seat with 4 pegs, made out of Sissoo wood, which came from the Sisam trees of Mysore. Sissoo is strong, durable and keeps its shape well. Though difficult to work on, it can be easily seasoned and takes a fine polish on its grain. This Sisam product was well weathered.
The boy's mother was seen applying a paste of besan, chandan and turmeric on his legs, called as uthna, an age old ritual during Diwali mornings. Though he would cringe at the lumpy feeling of the paste on his face, he would be too excited about the new clothes, sweets and crackers that awaited him.
The man brought the photo closer to lessen the strain on his presbyopic eyes, to see the figure of any elderly man standing in knee length shorts lurking in the corner. At first, he struggled to remember the year it was taken. So he rang his Aai, the encyclopedia of all the memoirs.
"Thats the year Sholay was released. You were 5 years old. Mhadhu would prepare uthna every Diwali morning", Aai reminded him. " You never liked that paste, especially, when I used to rub it on your face.
"Ekdam ghasun ghasun pustaav.
Gora Gora hotaav amcho Chiman", Mhadhu would say in his Malvani
accent.
Now, Chiman wasn't the boys real name. But, Mhadhu had self christened that little boy as Chiman.
No one really remembered when Mhadhu first came into that household.
He came and he conquered.
The fabric of that household was now incomplete without him.
Mhadhu was omnipresent,
His presence was never acknowledged in moments of joy,
Just like that Parvardigaar.
But,
His absence was bitterly felt in
moments of need,
Just like that Parvardigaar...
Everyone's pages stopped turning when Mhadhu was not around. Even Aaji used to frown," Wonder where Mhadhu has disappeared! I asked him to get wintogino from the chemist. He's gone for an hour. This knees are going to kill me!"
Like A K Hangal from Bollywood movies, no one had seen Mhadhu in his younger days.
Whether it was 'Imaamsab' from Sholay or 'Shambukaka' from Lagaan, A K Hangal was old age personified.
A complexion darker than hazelnut chocolate with much darker spots on his face and hollowed out cheeks. The boys memory recalled seeing only 6 or 7 of his front row teeth. The upper ones and their lower counterparts were divorced and didn't line up with each other.
This was complemented by rows and rows of frown lines on his forehead, as if his responsibility didnt end with the chores around that household,
but on his shoulders lay the responsibility of planning the economy of
The United States for the next 5 years.
His 5 feet 3 inches body would move in small slow motions. His stature appeared much shorter because of his stoop.
Years of rigour had turned his arms and legs into spindle shaped bamboo sticks.
His arm and legs movements were well curtailed close to his body. He was never seen to spread out his arms or stretch his body, nor was he ever seen to yawn, unlike his uncle who would release a musical yawn every morning after waking up.
" Utha Chiman.
Shalaa Mastur bomblel !!", Mhadhu would yank out his chaddar in the morning and pack him off to the bathroom.
No one really had seen Mhadhu asleep. He was well awake before sunrise and stayed awake till the owls could be heard hooting in the middle of the night.
The boy called Chiman would create a ruckus on being woken up, but Mhadhu's speech was so sharp that it pierced any of Chiman's defences.
"Char chopdi vaachaa.
Nahitar mazya vaani
hath mandi jhaduu ghyaa ani
Bhandi ghaasaa "!,
he would say as a matter of fact.
Mhadhu loved to work and was constantly on the move.
"Mhadhu, can you get Times of India?"
"Mhadhu, baby needs some milk. Can you go to Poorav dairy and on your way get some flowers for Dev pooja"
"Mhadhu, I need some kite string".
"Mhadhu, the sink is not draining properly. Get the plumber "
He faced attacks from all corners and across all ages.
At the battle of Pawankhind, Shivaji was escaping from Adil Shah's forces.
A lone warrior sardar , Baji Prabhu Deshpande, stood guard in that small escape route and single handedly fought and repulsed the attacks and ensured Shivaji's safe passage.
Mhadhu's performance was on a similar scale..
When Chiman came back from school, he would be very hungry. His tea and biscuits would be ready.
"Biskut khalla?
Aataa humma huppi.", he would declare.
Mhadhu had this funny song rhythm on which Chiman had to do situps.
Rubbing a small amount of tobacco and lime in the palm of his left hand with his right thumb, he would chant,
"Humma Huppi"
Chiman had to crouch and perform his first situp.
"Jai Bajrang"
Next situp.
"Paav hai"
Another one.
And so the chants were rhythmically repeated till,
Mhadhu was happy with the consistency of the tobacco lime mix and he would pinch it between his thumb and index finger and place it carefully between his lower lip and the teeth.
By then, Chiman would have completed 30 situps.
Mhadhu's soul then felt better.
Mhadhu must have been a Hanuman bhakt.
His cycle carried a small moorti of Bajrang Bali fastened on the front handle.
But he wasn't into pooja or fasts. He was never seen inside any temple either.
Like Hanuman,
He remained a bachelor.
Like Hanuman,
His physical and moral compass centred around his master and his master's wife.
Like Hanuman,
That was his world and his devotion.
Perhaps, he truly understood what Hanuman stood for....
On Saturdays, Mhadhu would take the children to Gandhi park. That was the only greenery in a 2 mile radius for children to escape to.
As the children played langdi or lagori, Mhadhu would stand in a far corner. A lonesome figure.
Though there were many benches scattered around the park, he chose to stand.
No one paid notice to a darkened elderly man who stood under the parijaat tree. He must have lost his hair in early thirties and only a few vestigeal remains were seen fluttering like a shendi above his shirt collar, giving him a hip look.
He had the habit of clasping his hands behind his back when he stood.
Almost waiting to carry out a task.
In that summer of late 70's, the kids were playing lagori.
Having broken the lagori on his turn, Chiman ran to avoid getting hit by the ball.
The upswing of an enthusiastic girl on a large swing, cut short his run and he was flung over 3 bushes.
As his eyes fluttered before his brain shut down, he saw a superman in action.
Those around in the park, witnessed how the inconspicuous old man in corner, sprung into action and ran carrying the limp boy's body to Vijaykar nursing home a good 2 and half mile away.
"It's a mild concussion", Vijaykar doctor said. "We will observe him for a day".
From that day, for some reason Mhadhu never ate on a Saturday evening.
The man held the photo in his right hand and prodded the back of his head with his left, to feel the groove where it had hit the park benches decades ago
The boy, called Chiman, grew taller,
He didn't need any pocket money now,
His shoe size was the biggest in his house.
Once he came home with a promotion letter in hand. He had climbed up the ladder to become a bank Manager .
"Yash gavlo? Aata aankhi paisa gavel.
Kaam karaa lokancha", he would admonish Chiman unashamedly.
In Mhadhu's books, humans became more weak after tasting success. He believed that prestige, money and power paralyses human nature and makes them weaker.
"Bank madhi ghotaalaa karal,
Tar tangdi todin! ", his speech was not polished enough for those wearing white collared clothes. There were no pretentious boundaries or false parameters to live upto.
He did not believe in camouflaging his feelings.
For him black was black and white was white.
These unsmoothened sharp words hurt the recently promoted Bank Manager.
"You won't understand", he once told Chiman, who was trying to explain to him to invest in stocks and shares, and take once a month leave and check out his family in Talkarli village.
"i can't understand your balance sheets of profit losses and you wont understand my ledger book either.
Our equations are different and our tallying methods are different too !", the Manager felt insulted and after that day stopped conversing with Mhadhu.
On the third night of his self imposed hostility, Chiman was very late coming home. The incessant rains has caused havoc in the city and he had to walk back from Dadar and reached home just after midnight.
As he was drifting off to sleep, he felt Mhadhu's hands applying Kailash Jeevan on his feet and gently pressed them for 15 minutes.
Chiman feigned that he was asleep.
But his pillow revealed his deception, as it was wet from continuous stream of tears that defied his control and rolled over on the cushion.
Amongst his various superhuman tasks, Mhadhu would climb up the coconut tree at the front of their house and pluck out the nuts, once every 6 months.
He had perfected that routine, having climbed up the tree like a squirrel over hundreds of time.
So, no one paid heed when the nearly 70 year old decided to get on with his routine.
Was it the weak coir rope around his waste? or
Perhaps it was his failing eyesight? or
Was it his trembling legs?
No one was sure.
When they heard the loud noise, Aai and Baba ran out first.
By the end of the day, Aaji brought the Krishna moorti out of Devghar and kept it in water
"Till Mhadhu returns, my lord has to remain under water", she murmured.
For one week, the moorti remained under water.
For one week, Chiman went to the local Hanuman Mandir and did 11 Pradakshina everyday, on his knees.
The knees which had been strengthened by years of situps.
On eighth day;
It happened to be a Saturday,
Mhadhu finally fell asleep.
No one had ever seen Mhadhu asleep like this before.
Decades after decades have gone past.
Gavaskar has retired and so has Tendulkar,
The angry young man Amitabh
Is now a mellowed old man,
Phone call booths and post card letter writing,
Is now an ancient wonder,
Scientist have discovered the 'God' particle.
Yet, Chiman,
the Manager, still doesn't eat on a Saturday evening.
A few days ago, Chiman was teaching his son the way to strengthen the knee quadriceps. The son was to go on a ski trip to Alps.
On the eighth situp, his son asked him," Dad, What does Humma Huppi mean?
His eyes turned misty as he could see the rubbing of tambaku and lime on a palm and hear the echoes of a funny song rhythm. ..
He slid his finger under his glasses to wipe a tear that had swelled at the corner of his eye
That photo slot in the album now remains vacant.
The photo has found its apt position.
In a laminated form, it now resides in Devghar.
Next to Lord Hanuman.
Both, prime examples of selfless devotion...