Long night...

March 20th...Seems like a long time since I have since I have felt like this. Tired... Happy... In a clean  place, that is full of peace and quiet...well, as quiet as it can get when a bhajan is being sung (loudly, with speakers and all) by some very enthusiastic people next to next door...It doesn't disrupt the peace much, even if it is 12.30 in the morning, not my peace anyway (these things are to be expected during the Navratra celebrations when ‘jaagrans’ are in vogue....proves peace is just a state of mind)...Just finished cleaning the rooms of stay, very properly, and then had a refreshing bath too... The jolly dholak beats and the rich blend of voices reiterating the verses sung by the pujari cum lead singer, who in between songs, prays to the goddess in a very cajoling way, with intonations and inflections that make him sound like a father bribing an insouciant child to climb down from the tree...They  just make me tap my feet to the rhythm and do away with the songs that I usually play in the lap while typing (wouldn't be able to hear them over this sound anyway, I think)

It brings back fond memories of the Sree Dharmasastha Bhajana Samithy, of which my father was a co-founder, and the endless bhajans in the 'mandala' time which we attended while we were in Delhi..Hymns would be sung to all the Gods, beginning with Lord Ganesh, and ending in Lord Ayyappa after traversing the pantheon's major personalities. I had a particular fascination with Lord Shiva when I was a kid – my reasoning was that he was a fair guy, with a good sense of what equality meant, dispensing death to all and sundry with certainty; while the Creator created unequality and the Preserver kept it preserved in one way or another – I remember asking the singers at a special bhajan (twas my birthday or something) to sing more of Shiva bhajans, and how they exhausted their stock of Mahadeva's paeans (all 5 of them), and asked me wearily/warily if I had enough, and if they could kindly move on to Lord Vishnu (we wouldn't want to keep the other Gods waiting now, would we?). We used to go to different houses for the Bhajans, and there usually was great food after the singing. And there was this grand Bhajana in the Kalkaji Ayyappa Temple, at the peak of the season...

“If plain adoration is seeing what you project in an object, adoration of divine is about finding the reflection of what you are adoring in yourself.”  Hmmm... that sentence just got typed, and I wish I knew who said it before this. It is easier for something that may be suspected of profoundness to be passed off as a quote from some important person, or some vaguely important person, or even a totally unheard of person whose name sounds like a sneeze and a name of an exotic animal mixed together, it will get more contemplation than just saying it as a stand-alone. And all wisdom that 'comes' to you is bound to have been circulating around for a few millenia, it had shined in someone's psyche before, and someone must have most probably put it into words. Finding them, these words, is the only task – given the 'n' number of living languages, the 'y' number of dead languages, and the 'x' number of languages that existed/exist without our knowing anything about it. That leads us to the next quote, which also welled up right now - “All of wisdom is but a translation of the One Spoken Word of God”...I think I'll attribute this one to a Dr. Krishnananda Thomas (The name also suggested itself) … Meanwhile, the ceiling fan has started making odd and disturbing clicking sounds all of a sudden, as if it is also trying to keep time of the bhajan, which has become a tad more vigorous now, with cymbals and bhangra type beats and the unexpected loud chants of 'Jai Mata Di' and such...

I tried to sleep for some time, then got up again... 1.57 am. And they are still going strong. Recollections of some stuff about Ghatotkatchas army in the Mahabharata (Ghatotkatcha was the Pandava Bhima's son by the demon giantess Hidimbi, and he and his legion grew in might as the night advanced, terrorizing the opposition) arise somewhere in my mind, which seems to have its edge taken off by the gentle lulling of sleep on the periphery. I can hear the small voices of the children in the group amplified into big small voices. The pujari must have invited them as guest singers or something...

Sleep tries again, and then gives up as I take a drink of water. It's either them or me, it says, and goes to a corner to sulk, sending a yawn or two reminding me that it is there...I think it'll be 'them' for quite some more time, given the vibes of energy coming from the bhajan, the night is still young for them... Man, the Goddess Mother will be happy when the night is over, bet she'll be looking forward to some sleep – just kidding, for the record, I have no intention of blaspheming, Holy One...

Main to paida hoon maiyya ke pairon mein... I am born at the feet of the Mother... thus they sing now...

And they come to a close of that song.. the chant goes around...'Bole sacche durbar ki...jai'...  Glory to the sincere/true group would be a good translation... anyway, ‘Jaagran’ – I just lived the what I think is the meaning… Goodnight, sleep.

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And on it goes. It is now 3.30 in the morning. And after many days, I'm awake at the Brahma Muhurtam, if the technicality of sleeping before waking up is done away with. Finished a Discworld novel in the meantime. Hmmm... I think they're winding up, or atleast turning the speakers down, or perhaps my sleep deprived ears are shutting down. Perhaps I can manage to have a short nap...