River Town Chronicles (9 page)

On the tenth day of
Dushera,
a giant effigy of the demon Ravana, made of paper and bamboo and stuffed with fireworks, was set ablaze to mark the triumph of Rama and the return of Sita. The crowd shouted
“Jai Ram”
(victory to Rama, a common greeting among Hindus), as a huge ball of fire consumed Ravana and his head burst into flames, much to the delight of the crowd of onlookers. It was as if the crowd of onlookers had somehow participated in Rama's victory and had themselves become, at least for the moment, citizens of Ayodhya.

R
AMA'S PRESENCE WAS EVERYWHERE
in River Town. Images made of clay were sold in the bazaar. Posters with scenes from the epic
Ramayana
decorated the walls inside houses. Men assumed the name of Rama as their own, as had, for example, Ram Swarup (the image of Rama). Along dusty country roads, people approached each other with the greeting,
“Ram, Ram” or “Jai Ram”
(victory to Rama). And then there was
bhabhi,
who began each morning by singing Rama's praises while sweeping and making ritually pure her small cooking space that she now shared with Brian.

In early November, Roshan suggested we visit a sacred place of pilgrimage where heroes from the other Hindu epic, the
Mahabharata,
were said to have visited in ancient times. So I boarded a bus with Roshan and set out to visit this place of pilgrimage first hand. When we arrived, there were throngs of pilgrims roaming about and we joined them. At first, I didn't see anything that could possibly attract so much attention. All I saw were small ponds of stagnant water flanked by small shrines attended by story telling Brahman priests. We stopped at one of the shrines to hear the story of how the Pandavas (the heroes of the epic
Mahabharata)
had cleansed their weapons in the pond next to the shrine in order to get rid of their sins for having killed their relatives and teacher, Dronacharya, after a great battle. We were also told that a shrine on the western edge of the pond was where Bharata, the younger brother of Rama, had placed an image of Rama in his honor. “And over there,” the priest continued, “is where Lord Shiva himself bathed to purify himself of all sins.” “Look! That stone phallus was placed there by Shiva himself after his bath in the pond.”

Greatness as expressed here was far different from that found in my own and many other cultures. There were no grand monuments to the past, no Taj Mahals or mosques reaching to the sky. There were no sacred performances designed to convince us that what we were seeing was real. There were only pools of water, small, insignificant looking shrines and inanimate stone objects scattered around the landscape. What brought these lifeless features of the landscape to life, I discovered, were the words of the Brahman priests who sat next to them and told their stories. They “breathe” life into them through their words. The miraculous is transformed into the marvelous and revealed for all to “see” through the voice of the Brahman.

Roshan and I washed ourselves in the water where the god Shiva is said to have bathed, entering the pond at one end and emerging at the other purified of all sins. I wasn't sure that would work for me, but it was certainly worth a try! After our bath, we had tea and something to eat at a small stand before boarding the bus back to River Town. There was a crush of people all trying to get on the bus at the same time. I thought I felt a hand in my pocket and looked around to see the man standing behind me looking innocent and trying to attract the attention of the conductor handing out tickets for the bus ride. “Maybe that wasn't a hand in my pocket,” I thought, but just to be sure I took my wallet out of my back pocket, placed it in my front pocket and covered it with my hand. After much pushing and shoving, we managed to get seats in the bus just before the conductor closed the door and the driver pulled out of the bus stop, with several latecomers clinging to the outside of the bus. We hadn't moved more than a few hundred yards when a woman cried out from the back of the bus.
“Choori ho gaii!”
(I've been robbed!) “My money is gone.
Ay Bhagwan.”
Then a chorus of similar shrieks came from different directions in the bus. “Someone untied the edge of my sari where I had my money hidden.
Ay Bhagwan.
He took it all!” Roshan turned to me and said, “Pickpockets. The thieves hid themselves in the crowd and took all their money.” I reached into my pocket again to check on my wallet. Whew! It was still there. I felt relieved to know I was on my way back to River Town, cleansed of all sins and still in possession of my wallet!

D
URING THE WEEKS FOLLOWING MY RETURN
from the sacred ponds of water and shrines associated with the epic
Mahabharat,
I turned my attention to the many local shrines and temples in River Town. The sacred boundary of the town, as mentioned before, was marked by the original tree stump that symbolized Shiva's miraculous regeneration at the time of the town's origin. The temple there (Gauri Shankar Mandar), was located at the northwest entrance to the town. In addition, the northern entrance to town was marked by a temple devoted to the goddess Kali. At the eastern boundary of the town was the Hanuman temple, honoring the monkey god Hanuman, who helped Rama obtain victory over the evil Ravana (and whose army still ruled the rooftops in River Town!) And the southern entrance to the town was marked by the “River Pond” temple, the source of the underground connection to the Ganges River as well as the source of the name “River Town” itself.

Sacred places overflowed within the inner sanctums of town, where merchant families negotiated with their gods and goddesses with much the same intensity they applied to their account books, their zinc and copper, their brass pots and pans and their relatives in blood and marriage. They negotiated with them because the ability to command them, care for them, feed them and build temples to honor them was a measure of their own
izzat
(honor, prestige in the eyes of the community). Among the merchant families, the alloy of commerce and religion, worldliness and otherworldliness, were two sides of the same coin. The elaboration of wealth was accompanied by the elaboration of gods and goddesses and the temples to house them. The search for
izzat
was reflected in the proliferation of over thirty temples crowded within the narrow lanes of River Town and sustained by the otherwise ordinary looking men in caps and
dhotis
armed with account books, ledgers and balance scales, sitting cross legged in their shops, forever weighing their
izzat.

L
ATE IN WINTER
, Kaga arrive with her usual fanfare, swishing her broom around and acting tough. “My daughter is getting married,” she hissed in my direction. “That's good news,” I replied. Kaga continued to sweep the drain. “She's marrying a boy from Rampur village.” Kaga fell silent for a moment “His family is poor. If we had money, we could arrange a good marriage for my daughter—like the Lallajis (merchants) do.” Kaga went on to tell me that her daughter was marrying into a bad family, that her daughter's mother-in-law would treat her poorly. “When she goes off to live in her husband's village, I will miss her.” Kaga picked up her basket and slipped out the side door.

A week later, there was a
tamasha
(a loud commotion) at the entrance to our house in the bazaar. Drums were beating and a brass band, sadly out of tune, played joyfully out front. We all rushed out to watch as a musician beat the double ended
dholak
strung across his shoulder, his eyes wide open, as if in a trance. Behind him were several men in khaki trousers, shirts and hats askew, making noise on their trumpets and bugles. All of a sudden, Kaga appeared, twirling around in a wild dance to the steady beat of the drum. She was dressed in a brightly colored sari, a tight blouse and bangles piled high on both arms. She was barefoot, and around her ankles were a set of
gungurus
(bells) which added another beat to the sound of the drum. The band reached a fevered pitch and Kaga matched their intensity. The entire group seemed to be high on
bhang
(hashish) and alcohol. Suddenly the music stopped, and Kaga grasped the hand of a young girl, about fifteen years old. She was dressed in a new
shalwar/kamiz
and her face was hidden behind her
dupatta
(scarf). Kaga lifted the
dupatta
and a beautiful young girl looked passively at me. “This is my daughter. The one I told you about. The one getting married.” Kaga looked proud, with no hint of the doubts and concerns she had expressed to me earlier. She smiled and then pulled the
dupatta
over her daughter's face.

Bhabhi
came out and greeted Kaga, then handed her a bag filled with rice and a pile of chapattis. I reached into my pocket and pulled out a fistful of rupees and placed them in Kaga's hand. She touched her forehead and flashed a grin. Then the troupe moved on down the lane with horns blaring and drums banging and Kaga twirling wildly in their midst.

T
OWARDS THE END OF WINTER
, the pace of religious festivals and wedding parties slowed down. People seemed worn out by winter and anxious for the arrival of the warmer months of Spring. Pat and I often took this opportunity to walk around the edges of town in the morning to search for signs of Spring. In the afternoons, we would spend some time in the bazaar to see if any new fruits or vegetables had reached the marketplace. During one of these afternoons, I wandered off in the direction of a mesmerizing sound coming from an instrument played by a man squatting on the ground in front of a gunny sack. Something inside the sack was moving and the man was swaying back and forth while blowing into his instrument, without stopping to take a breath. Out of the sack slithered a cobra with his head gently swaying to the sound and movement of the mans arms and shoulders. The cobra lifted its head, spread its hood and hissed. A crowd of children had gathered around the snake charmer and stood motionless and speechless, with their eyes wide open. The snake charmer continued to play, while the cobra swayed back and forth in an ever widening arc. I asked one of the children about the instrument. “It's a
biin,”
I was told. It was a beautiful instrument. The body of the instrument was made from a gourd decorated with tiny beads in the shape of lotus flowers. A mouthpiece made from a tube of brass was at one end, while at the other end there was a long, slender brass bell that allowed sound to exit from the instrument. Wired to the brass bell, and inserted into the gourd, were two hollow bamboo tubes with finger holes cut out of them to allow for different sounds. I later discovered that the bamboo tubes had small, reed-like slits positioned inside the gourd. The different parts of the instrument were held together with bee's wax poured around the seams of the different parts.