Tales of Silver Horse, Ancient Snake and Singing Colonel

When I returned to India last year, after a gap of three years I found myself in a country which I hardly knew. I felt as if I was in a strange land where morals had degraded, politics has stooped to its lowest levels and intellectuals had displayed worst form of dishonesty in inciting caste and religion based hatred by questioning the very essence of Hindu philosophy and culture in the name of protecting secularism. I met India where social media and larger incomes had released pent-up sexual frustration which could be seen in the form of illicit relations and the videos like ‘My choice’ and national enthusiasm for such non-sense, kids had lost their innocence and energy in the murky world of online porn, video games and gadgets. My experience in Delhi was the worst one. One could hardly find a place for an innocent and healthy soul in that city not just because of worsening pollution indicators but because of the degrading morals, and a general upsurge of dishonesty and brutal race for self-advancement at the cost of human values.

However, India has always been a mystery and it has always existed in layers. When I came back to my home town, I felt that still there are some points where I can reconnect and it is worth doing that. But, when I say that I reconnect, that is purely in a poetic, spiritual and philosophical domain and it is not even remotely associated with even the remnants of nationalism which I have left far behind. In this journey of reconnection, I met a few people who belonged to the India I knew. In this post I will write about them.

The most important and the eternal worry of the mothers and housewives in India is their domestic help or house maid who is addressed as ‘Bai’ in the common parlance. My mother is no exception to this phenomenon. Being a witness to one of her regular arguments with our housemaid Suraj made me engage into a light conversation with her. She is young, dark and a beautiful girl who has a spark on her face which reflects firm conviction and desire to enjoy the pleasures of the worldly life for which the more appropriate term would be “Grihastha” or “Sansaarik” life. She has 3 children who are all suffering from malnourishment. She earns $81.96 in a month and her husband earns $147.54 in a month. They send their children to school now and want their son to study well.

“But, bhaiya, daughters have to learn house work and get married one day. I will stop sending my daughter to school after class 8^th ”, quipped Suraj at my rather strange questions. She comes from a caste of ironsmiths who are called ‘lohaars’ in India and she has a strong faith in her caste rituals and religious duties. In spite of the extremely poor conditions in which she is living, she recently organized a religious ceremony on which she and her husband spent $983.60. I asked her the rationale behind it. “Baawsi (a spirit/God) will punish my family and disaster will come to our village. She is saving money now to donate a silver horse at the temple of Baba Ramdev(local deity in Rajasthan who performed many miracles) where she plans to go on foot, for which she will have to walk about 500 miles. I feel that it’s not just the humans and the capitalism which is responsible for making people poor but also the element of the divine, the abstract and the misguided faith.

Mr. Vyas, popularly known as “Pandit Ji’ , at a first sight would remind you of the native Karkuns and Peshkars (Clerks) who served under British colonial military officers in 1850s. Pandit Ji spent his life serving as an accountant in Mewar Bhil Corps (MBC). MBC was created by British rulers in 1838 in the remote tribal region of Kherwara in Rajasthan, and it is still considered the oldest police force of India. It looks more like heritage palace or an exhibition of vintage cars but it is still in use, as a force to maintain law and order. Pandit ji had served under my father when he was the Kommandent of MBC. Since both of them hail from a Brahmin caste and both have a great desire to enjoy culinary pleasures, strong bonhomie developed between them. Now both of them are retired. When a bureaucrat in India retires life becomes quite difficult for him because he spends 30 to 35 years of his life in a status-quoist system where time and space cease to exist. In their domain only b’crats or babus exist. Even the elements of nature can’t overrule their authority. They become used to paraphernalia which includes guards, orderlies and a permanent bunch of three to four yes-men. After retirement, this paraphernalia disappears like an illusion and they tend to lose interest in life. They realize the meaning of “Virakti” (detachment) and temporary nature of the world. It happens so quickly that one gets reminded of Sage Ashtavakra who said few words to the king Janak and he transcended this narrow world of desires and greed. Old Kommandent is going through this phase of his life. However, when even the faint remnants of the old paraphernalia resurface then one can witness real bliss and the revival of the old autocratic manners in his persona. Pandit ji visits him quite often and on such occasions he feels that he is the Kommandent again. But, the reasons for pandit ji to visit him are totally different. On one such occasion, pandit ji was invited for a Shraddha feast (a vedic practice in which feast is given to pay tributes to dead ancestors). I saw him leaping upon the food like a crouching tiger and he ate 20 pooris, 3 bowls of kheer (sweet pudding), 2 bowls of dal (lentil soup), 3 bowls of halwa, 2 bowls of vegetable and 4 bowls of gulabjamun (sweet balls). When the Kommandent raised the issue of political violence, he pleaded ignorance and expressed his desire to fully concentrate of food in a very subtle way. “If the soul of the Brahmin remains unsatisfied, the grihpati i.e. householder will be burnt in the raging fires of Hindu hell for thousands of years, and, truly speaking Brahmin soul is very simple as it just needs another bowl of Kheer”, said Mr. Vyas. I never expected such a terrific performance from a lean and lanky fellow who looked like a bag of bones and weighed not more than 50kgs. After that performance he was awarded the title of “Bhootnath” (Lord of the ghosts) by my father. Pandit Ji is a master of strategic thinking. I often see him arriving at 11:15 in the morning when he generally joins my father in his late breakfast. He makes a move at 1 pm when my mother requests him to have lunch and after a little persuasion he readily agrees.

Ghee Chand Jain owns a petty general store opposite to my house. Ever since we moved into this house, I have seen him sitting in that shop from 8 in the morning to 11 in the night. He is petite man with dark complexion. He seems to be shrinking more and more over the years and his complexion is getting darker with every passing day. Whenever I see him, he reminds me of a local belief which I have been hearing since my childhood and took it quite seriously for a very long time. In rural areas of Mewar, it’s believed that baniyas (merchant and business caste) become coal-black snakes after death, and since in human form they have extreme greed for gold, after death also in the snake form they protect hidden treasures of gold. His demeanor, body language and endless desire for gold and wealth make him look like the mythological cobra who sits on the jars of gold. He wears a dirty and torn vest with sleeves which by the end of the day gets soaked in dirt, flour and, smells of ghee. When I visit his shop sometimes in the noon, he burps right in your face after his heavy lunch and it smells of garlic and pickles. I have often seen him secretly collecting used plastic bags on the road in front of his shop and giving stuff to customers in those used plastic bags (rather nasty way to save money). But in spite of his typical life style and miser nature he is the part and parcel of the people’s life. He supplies everything which includes the material for birth, marriage and cremation. He knows the woes and sorrows of every household in the locality. Few days back I got to know that he was robbed of 50 lakhs by a tantric (people who practice mystic rituals) who promised him that he would bring a shower of gold and money in his personal room in the midnight if he slept alone and in return Ghee Chand would have to give 50 lakhs to him. Ghee Chand got so blind with his desire that he could not see the fraud and lost all that money. What surprised me was the fact that he had so much money. With his life-style and thrifty nature I always assumed that he was living in penury. I never saw him going out for any party, movie or any other source of recreation. I never saw him wearing anything other than that dirty vest and torn trousers. However, now I feel that this man comes straight from mythological stories where people were presented in black and white. But, I still wonder!!! Should I call him a saint of wealth as in his obsession for money he has never felt anything else in life or a man steeped in worldly desires? The simple and austere lifestyle which he follows is not even practiced by ascetics yet the desire which he has for bhog or wealth, reflects a men neck-deep in the muck of desires, sorrows and happiness.

Gulab bagh is officially a zoo in Udaipur where one can find poorly kept deers, an emaciated tiger and few disgruntled beers sweating like hell, who are on the verge of revolution against the corrupt forest bureaucracy for stealing the coolers which were originally brought for them. My father goes to Gulab Bagh every evening for his customary walk. He meets a bunch of veteran joggers every evening. Mr. Marmatta is one of them He served as a telephone engineer in a government owned company but his interests were always in the spiritual domain. Over the years he became an ardent follower of Arya Samaj movement (Hindu reformist movement of early 20^th century which spoke against idol worship, polytheism, rituals etc. and urged the Hindus to go back to vedic practices). Dayanand Saraswati, founder of Arya Samaj laid heavy emphasis on logic and refuted all the other religions by engaging their scholars in “shastrartha” or intellectual debate.)

Mr. Marmatta has mastered and literally learned all the doctrines and texts of Arya Samaj. The moment you meet him, he is ready to invade your cognitive faculties with his discourse. Therefore, sometimes we are advised to carry an aspirin with us in case if his logic and religious fervour becomes a threat to one’s biological immunity. A few days back I had a chance to meet Mr. Marmatta. I found him a very interesting character that is ruthless with his intellectual dictatorship. “Atman or soul is different from god or brahman. That Shankara was wrong in his vedantic philosophy. That Shankar was not even a true Hindu. He was a pseudo-Buddhist. “, roared Mr. Marmatta. I suddently felt as I am transported to India of Sunga era when Brahmins and Buddhists violently clashed with each other. 

“But, Mr Marmatt, in deep states of meditation the great seers have experienced Atman as one with Brahman or God.”, said I . “Oh shut up you foreign returned ignorant young man. All these seers are fake and false. Nothing happens in meditation. There is no super-sensory experience. One can experience God only through Yajnas or vedic sacrifices.” fired Mr. Marmatta. Meanwhile a petty mongrel came towards us by mistake. Mr. Marmaata, who was barely 40 kgs kicked the mongrel with his entire life force and the poor fellow flew into the air before crashing on the ground. “Such a disturbance, these stray dogs are in our discourses where we are defining the religion, duty of a man, humanity and the future path of righteousness, mercifulness and honesty on which a human should tread.”, said Mr. Marmatta, pensively. In a while three other members of the group joined in. Kalakand bhai Mehta was an old wealthy Jain merchant. He was a very intimate and old friend of Mr. Marmatta. Kalakand Bhai had great faith in the teachings of Mahaveera i.e. abstinence, aparigraha (non-accumulation of wealth), non-stealing etc., though he had been caught thrice by the police for black marketeering and having links with gold smugglers of Marwar. However, he had donated a lot of money to Jaina monks and was a man revered for both his wealth and religious temperament. When he heard Mr. Marmatta calling all the seers as fake, he asked, “Do you hold the same opinion for Mahaveera (Jaina saint) also ?” Mr. Marmaata said, “ Yes, of course. That nude and shameless man was a fraud.” Next moment, Kalakand Bhai was furious with rage.  “ You , bloody donkey’s arse, how dare you say such a rubbish against my God”,  fired Kalakand Bhai. Mr. Marmatta shot back, “It’s not just your god, I say the same thing for all the prophets, be they of Islam, Hinduism or Christianity”.  The very next moment three veterans i.e. Kalakand Bhai, Pandit Narmada Shankar Ji and Wali Noor Saheb were punching Mr. Marmatta, calling him dirty names and asking others to join to beat that heretic, for calling their prophets as tricksters. It was quite a sight, in fact a very rare one. I had seen Hindus and Muslims fighting against each other but never a Hindu and Muslim joining forces against a religious reformer or intellectual autocrat. Last time, this kind of union had taken place in the year 1857 against the East India Company. It seems that India has not come very far from 1857.

Colonel Shiv Shankar Bhatt had become a regular visitor to our house last year. He would always come, impeccably dressed up in his blazer, cravat and a beret cap. My father entertained him for three reasons- firstly, he was a disciplined old style army officer i.e. someone from his era, secondly, he followed a very strict protocol and gave due respect to the former Kommandent, with his salutes, and lastly, he was a Brahmin reaching such a high post. Colonel Saheb would often come and initially used to have umpteen number of tea with my dad. Gradually, he came closer and accompanied my father in his parties with high-official circle, field club sports of tennis and golf. He would share a drink or two and then sing old Hindi songs. Though his voice was almost like a roar of a Patton tank, but he thought that he was the only legitimate heir to Mukesh (Famous Bollywood singer of 1950s, 60s and 70s).

One day, Kommandent had gone for a wedding at the house of Brigadier Rathore, where all the veterans had come with their tales of chivalry and a variety of mustaches. During a conversation, with Brigadier Rathore, the Brigadier ordered his attendant- Shiva, please get me glass of wine. Next moment, what my father saw was shock of his life. Colonel Shivashankar appeared with a glass of wine. My dad asked Brigadier Rathore, “ Who is he?” He is lance Nayak Shiva. Then some other officials and field club visitors also joined and were terribly shocked to see the singing Colonel, serving wine.

Next day, around 12 pm, doorbell was rung and Col. Shiva Shankar appeared again in his cravat and beret. I went inside and told my father that Colonel Sahab had come. He asked me to bring him to his room. I ushered him in, where my father waiting with his police cane, without a second, gave him  few lashes. “You bloody cheat, ranga Siyaar ( a jackal from Panchtantra stories who pretended to be a divine figure and  was caught later), Natwarwal (famous conman of India who cheated on the president), you thug. Today I will teach you, what it means to be a Colonel”, shouted my father. Col. Shiva said, "sir please don’t beat me. I want to sing a song. I did all that drama because you always listened to my song patiently. You are a great audience. I have prepared a very nice song today. Please, let me sing".