4

Gajanan

‘Can you guess who our cuddliest god is?’ said the guru to the child.

‘Baby Krishna,’ said the child at once.

‘Wonderful!’ exclaimed the grandfather as everybody laughed in appreciation.

The guru smiled broadly. ‘You’re right,’ he told the child, and to the grown-ups, he said, ‘sometimes we have to learn from our children, like Shiva learnt an important thing from his younger son, Kumar.’

‘Let me put it differently,’ he smiled at the child. ‘Who is Shiva’s eldest son?’

‘Ganapati,’ said the child promptly.

‘Can you describe him?’

The child looked at her mother, who nodded.

The child put her hands together in namaste and recited:

‘Mushika vahana modaka hasta

Chamara karna vilambita sutra

Vamana rupa Maheshvara putra

Vighna Vinayaka pada Namaste’

‘Very good,’ murmured the guru. ‘Do you know the meaning as well?’

‘Would you like to show it in dance with your hands while I recite it for you?’ said the mother gently, to encourage the child to express herself.

The child’s eyes lit up even as she nodded a little shyly, and she stood on the carpet to demonstrate the prayer through the mudras she had recently learnt in dance class.

They applauded when she finished with a namaste.

‘Now who will translate it into words?’ said the guru.

‘Let me try,’ said the child’s father and shut his eyes for a moment to invoke Ganapati’s blessings, before he said:

‘Whose vehicle is the mouse and who holds a sweet in his hand,

Whose large ears are like fans and who wears a long sacred thread,

Who is compact in stature and is the son of Maheswara, Lord Shiva

I bow at the feet of that “Vighna Vinayaka”, the Remover of the Obstacles for us, his devotees.’

‘A good attempt and absolutely correct,’ said the guru. ‘That’s not an easy thing to do at all because Indian poetry, especially from Sanskrit, is very difficult to translate satisfactorily into English. It’s almost impossible to get the rhythm even though you get close to the meaning. But I see that you are all like Ganapati in wanting to know the meaning of things. Your daughter has got this good habit of questioning and finding out from you all.’

‘We’ve taught her to do what our parents did for us,’ smiled the mother. ‘For instance, each time I came across a new word, my father trained me to look it up at once in the Shabda Kosh or the Dictionary. Today we just ask “Googleshvar”, it’s all become so easy with technology!’

‘Does Ganapati also like to learn things?’ asked the child.

‘Oh, yes! He’s very particular about understanding something properly. That’s why we like to see him with an elephant head since we consider the elephant the noblest and wisest of beasts,’ said the guru.

‘I heard a story in school that his father cut his real head off and replaced it with an elephant’s head,’ said the child questioningly.

‘The old myths are strange and strong, like I said when I told you the tale of Kalakuta. They are from so long ago that there are several versions of them. It’s as though people down thousands of years couldn’t resist retelling them, sometimes with extra spice. One version goes that Shiva asked for proof of his son’s love and Ganapati instantly offered his own head, which was then replaced with an elephant’s head. Sacrifice is a big theme in old religious stories, you know, like how Yahweh, the tribal god of the Jews, asked Abraham to sacrifice his son Izak as a proof of love.’

‘Then, for instance, there’s the story that Ganapati broke off a tusk to take dictation; to use it as a stylus on palm leaves to write down the story of the Mahabharata as Vyasa composed it and said it aloud. But another, even more powerful story goes that Ganapati just let his tusk be broken by the angry sage Parshurama, out of respect for his father, since Parshurama had thrown an axe at him that belonged to Shiva. Imagine that level of respect,’ said the guru.

‘I don’t know that story at all, do tell us,’ entreated the mother.

‘I certainly shall. But before that, I would like to clear the ground in general about having different versions to a story. Since Rama was an ardent devotee of Shiva, who was his aradhya or beloved personal deity, let’s take the Ramayana. It is said to have over three hundred and twenty five versions in India alone. There are more versions all over Asia. The Ramayana is “the Epic of Asia” in ways not fully counted yet. There’s even a version in Mongolia in the far north and in Japan in the farthest east.’

‘I, as a believer, like the root Ramayana best, which is Valmiki’s. Also, I stay with Valmiki’s first six books, which end with the hero’s homecoming, coronation, and the phala shruti or list of listener’s benefits. So the Ramayana ends for me with its sixth book, the Yuddha Kandam,’ said the guru.

‘What makes you do that, Teacher?’ said the grandfather, startled.

‘I choose to stick with the root story because I don’t want to be confused, or confuse others. There’s a seventh book to Valmiki’s Ramayana, the Uttara Kandam, which has dubious twists like the killing of a non-kshatriya, Shambuka, and Rama sending pregnant Sita away to the forest, their twin sons, and their terrible last parting. It doesn’t fit Rama’s character as built up in the first six chapters that end with the phala shruti, which always comes at the end. So the seventh chapter seems tacked on later. It does not seem in keeping with Valmiki in some scholarly opinion, which suits me.’

‘Valmiki began the Ramayana by asking Sage Narada, “Kon asmin sampratam loke gunavan? (Which man, in this present world, is the man with the ideal qualities?)” He then lists sixteen ideal qualities, which include dharmagnyascha—of righteous conduct. It was a contemporary account, an itihasa, meaning “as it happened”. Sending Sita away like that simply does not fit. So I find it impossible to accept the Uttara Kandam, although it’s so well-known.’

‘But then, Valmiki didn’t have Ahalya turn to stone either. Her husband Rishi Gautama merely curses her to become invisible and immovable at home in their ashram until liberated by Rama. He says, “You will remain here unseen, lying on the ashes, with the air as your food. One day, Rama, the son of Dasaratha, will enter this ashram. His presence will make our home blessed again and restore you”.’

‘Rama never put his foot on her. Can you imagine him doing that to a woman? As he went by, it was the dust from the paduka on his feet that flew up and landed on Ahalya where she lay unseen, which brought her back. After setting Ahalya free, when Rama, Lakshmana and Vishvamitra arrive in Mithila, Vishvamitra tells Sita’s father of their adventures. Janaka’s high priest, Sadananda the Rajguru, sheds tears of joy to hear this account for he is Ahalya’s son and overcome with emotion that his mother is back and his parents are together again. So it wasn’t Valmiki at all, but Kalidasa who turned Ahalya into stone in his Raghuvamsha—and others after him did so, too. Valmiki didn’t have a “Lakshman rekha” either. Did you know that it was Tulsidas’s invention?’

‘Incredible!’ said the father, ‘These notions have taken such deep root in the public mind.’

‘Well, I, for one, curl my lip at the “Lakshman rekha” as a literal device that’s medievally prudish and I feel sure that Valmiki would curl his lip, too,’ said the guru, making a rueful face.

‘In the root Ramayana, Ravana drags Sita away by her hair and holds her in his arms. But Tulsi, gallant soul, obviously couldn’t handle the thought in the sixteenth century of Ravana laying hands on Sita and neither could others elsewhere, so they respectfully or prudishly changed it. Therefore, it’s about them, not the epic. Much as I honour and appreciate Tulsi’s concern, it’s another reason why I choose to clinically stick to the original Valmiki.’

‘It’s the Ramayana “as it is” without the little zari curtains and pyjamas,’ smiled the grandmother.

‘Exactly!’ said the guru. ‘But Tulsi had great clarity on the larger picture. He rescued religion with his “people’s Ramayana”, the Ramcharitmanas, composed in Avadhi, the everyday dialect of his region. It simplified matters for the common man. Tulsidas, as noted by Ramayana scholars, observed that the public was prone to be easily impressed and misled by all kinds of fantastical ascetics and their doctrines.’

‘Tulsi disapproved of yogis who grew long nails, bound their hair in dreadlocks, wore strange, frightening ornaments and, so to speak, dressed for the fairground. He said in another work, the Vinay Patrika, that “Bahumat muni bahu panth puranani, jahan-tahan jhagaro”, meaning that seers profess many opinions, there are many old stories about many paths to salvation, and there are quarrels all over the place.’

‘He said that real religion was much less complicated, that it was a direct connection between a soul and God, whom he was personally taught by his guru to see as Rama.’

‘Therefore, Tulsidas’s repeated spiritual advisory for people living out their lives in this particular age, which we called Kalyug, was brief and straightforward: “Kalyug jog na jagya na gnana / Ek aadhar Ram gun gaana (In Kalyug, neither austerity, nor sacrifice nor deep knowledge is required / Singing in praise of Ram is the only path to salvation)”.’

‘The public of the day could not resist the triple impact of the simplicity of Tulsi’s case, the heartbreaking appeal of Valmiki’s story that Tulsi retold with his own twists like the “Lakshman rekha” incident, and Tulsi’s poetry, which seemed simple but was in fact profoundly musical and meaningful. So the history of religion in North India changed forever with the Ramcharitmanas.’

‘Awesome,’ said the father wonderingly while the fascinated elders nodded in recognition of the truth in their guru’s words.

‘But I don’t understand how anyone could write that a very proper person like Rama banished his pregnant wife to the forest. It’s unbearable!’ said the mother.

‘It’s a terrible mystery that’s never stopped tormenting us. If you indeed accept the seventh book, the Uttara Kandam, as Valmiki’s—which, by the way, no traditional religious speaker discourses on—your only acceptable explanation is that given by the Right Honourable V.S. Srinivasa Sastri.’

‘Shastri was born to very poor rural priest and came up by his own hard work. He became a silver-tongued Independence activist, administrator and educator. He was born the same year as Gandhi, in 1869, and died in 1946. He was totally against the idea of Partition. I have a copy of his book, Lectures on the Ramayana. It contains the thirty public lectures that he gave in 1944 in Madras. He boldly pointed out that “to err is human” and since Rama was in human avatar, he made “a great mistake” putting his royal duty as he saw it above justice to his innocent wife.’

‘There is only one small consolation to be found here, and even that takes a bit of detective work. You can find it in the discourses by young, modern religious speakers. Such a speaker would point out first of all that Valmiki’s ashram in the woods was one of the places visited by Rama, Sita and Lakshmana during their exile, so he was known to them.’

‘Valmiki, whose original name was Harit, had meditated for so long that an “anthill”, a termite mound, really, called “vaalmeek” in Sanskrit, grew to enclose him. So when Harit emerged one day from the mound, he was called “Valmiki”, “of the mound”. It was a like a new birth for him. The Vedas say that such termite mounds are “the ears of Mother Earth”. So since Valmiki was “reborn” from the “ear” of Mother Earth, he was figuratively her son. That is the next point.’

‘Now we know that Sita, too, was found on the ground by Janaka, she was a daughter of Mother Earth, which is why she has names like Bhumija, Kshitija and Avanija, all meaning “Earth’s Daughter”. It’s the custom, even today, for a woman to go to her mother’s house, or brother’s, to have her babies. Since Valmiki and Sita were both children of Mother Earth, they were technically siblings. So Rama ordered Lakshman to leave Sita near Valmiki’s hermitage and Valmiki took her home, exactly as set up. Valmiki was about sixty-two then and Sita, thirty-five. He was a very fatherly brother to her.’

‘We have to cull these points and join the dots to console ourselves that Rama, a very correctly behaved person, was being proper in this as well. He didn’t abandon her just anywhere out in the wild, nor did Valmiki find her just by chance, as popular TV serials may depict. She was sent where he would find her.’

‘There’s something there, I suppose,’ said the mother, wiping away her tears for Sita.

‘It’s almost too ironic. “Videha” means “bodiless”. Yet Sita Vaidehi was judged physically for being kidnapped,’ said the guru.

‘But what about Ganapati’s tusk?’ said the child, not wanting to lose her story in this grown-up talk.

‘I’m about to tell you,’ smiled the guru.

‘The story goes that Sage Vyasa wanted to dictate an epic poem, the Mahabharata. He needed someone to write it down as it flowed from his mind. Nobody capable was found to exist on earth, so he approached Ganapati or Ganesha, meaning “leader of Shiva’s troops, the ganas”. Ganapati was also known as Gajanan, meaning “elephant head” and Vighna Vinayaka, the remover of obstacles. Vyasa requested him to help out.’

‘Take dictation?’ said Ganapati.

‘If you please,’ said Vyasa.

‘Very well, I shall,’ said Ganapati, but added the condition, ‘You must not stop at any point or I shall stop writing and go away.’

‘We’re taught that the gods love to twist the odds for men just to see how we will react, since Creation is their divine play or lila. Since Vyasa was clever—he had to be, to compose a long and complicated epic like the Mahabharata—he made a counter-condition that Ganapati had to understand every word before he wrote it down. Ganapati was pleased to agree, secretly delighted by this clever move of Vyasa’s. He broke off his own tusk to write with, as proof of goodwill, and they began the task.’

‘Every now and then, Vyasa would compose a number of verses in extremely layered and dense language. Ganapati would have to pause to think them through before putting them down on the palm-leaf pages. This allowed Vyasa to draw breath and compose more verses in his head, to stay ahead.’

‘We had a workshop at office in which this story came up,’ said the father to the guru. ‘Vyasa’s response to Ganapati’s proviso was pointed out as an example of an organic solution to a problem. Vyasa came up with this pragmatic strategy because he was goal-oriented and intent on fulfilling his mission. They said that this legend was a popular teaching story to inspire focus and concentration, and that its iconic reminder in daily life is the broken tusk on all Ganapati idols.’

‘An excellent point,’ said the guru.

‘What’s the second story about Ganesha’s tusk, please, Teacher?’ said the child.

‘Years ago I saw this story beautifully danced in Thailand in their classical dance style called Khon, and I still relish the memory. The story is from the Brahmanda Purana. It tells of Parshurama or Rama of the Axe who was Lord Vishnu’s sixth avatar. He is believed to have never really gone away but to be meditating even now on earth in a secret cave in the mountains.’

‘Lord Shiva had given Parshurama the axe to help him fight the tyrant Kartavirya. When Parshurama’s task was over, he made his way to Mount Kailash where Shiva lived, to return the axe and thank him. But at the mystic mountain, he found his path blocked by Ganapati. Lord Shiva had ordered his son to guard Mount Kailash against all visitors since he was about to go into a long, deep trance and did not want to be disturbed.’

‘Parshurama, a devotee of Shiva, was furious at being blocked by Ganapati. “Ho, Devaputr! Move away!” he raged. But Ganapati stood calm and immovable. Losing his temper, Parshurama forgot all propriety and hurled the axe at the Devaputr, the Son of God.’

‘Ganapati could have easily deflected the axe. But since it belonged to his father, he did not stop it out of love and respect and let it break his tusk. He couldn’t help crying out in pain though at the force of the blow. Parvati appeared at once, hearing his cry, and roundly ticked off Parshurama for hurting her child. But Shiva was very proud of his staunch, loving son and Ganapati proudly carries his broken tusk ever after because of that.’

‘So which story is the right one here—and about the elephant head?’ asked the child.

‘You may choose, like I have with the Ramayana,’ said the guru, in all seriousness.

The family held its breath while the child thought it over.

‘Ganapati loved his father very much, didn’t he? So I choose the story about him offering his head himself. That fits with the tusk story that Ganapati let Parshurama break it because he loved his father,’ said the child.

The family looked quietly at one another, waiting for the guru’s reaction.

The guru smiled. ‘A good choice,’ he said affectionately. ‘Shiva prema pindam bhaje vakra tundam (Hail the Lord with the broken tusk who is Shiva’s own darling).’ And privately, he thought, ‘Sound emotional logic. How much one learns from children!’ which was the silent opinion of the child’s family as well.

‘So Parshurama, like Ashvatthama, never went away from earth,’ noted the mother.

‘It’s intriguing how these ancient stories animated so many minds across space and time, and continue to do so,’ said the grandfather.

‘And how people still make modaka for Ganapati’s birthday,’ said the grandmother. ‘I can’t imagine why I stopped making them when you went away to college,’ she told her son, who threw up his hands, smiling.

‘I wonder if you would like to make a royal umbrella for Ganapati this year on his birthday,’ she said to the child.

‘I would! How do I do it?’

‘This is a sweet custom for children. When I was a little girl, we had neighbours from many places in India and we happily shared each other’s food and some special customs. So, a month before Ganapati’s birthday, which we call “Ganesh Chaturthi”, I, like the other children in my little group of boys and girls, was told to save and smooth out toffee wrappers in jewel colours for Ganapati’s umbrella for our pujas at home. My mother and I would then go choose a small terracotta idol from the bazaar for the day that Ganesha “came to live” in our house for ten days on his birthday and it was my duty, as the child of the house, to make his royal umbrella. First, I cut a perfect circle from the cover of an old notebook. Then, a long, thin piece of wood was pierced and glued through its middle for the stem. Then the whole thing had to be covered with crepe paper and toffee wrappers and a nice, neat fringe had to be added. I did my best but did not always get it just right.’

‘However, Ganapati is the special god of children, and so my crooked umbrella was ceremonially presented to him. It was such a nice feeling to see my present to him there in the puja. It stayed over him for all ten days until the day of Visarjan, when we took his mud idol to a lake nearby and gently put it in the water to dissolve back into Nature. My mother made mountains of salt and sweet modaka at home for his birthday. She made an extra batch to give to poor children outside the neighbourhood temple where we went every Monday. These steamed or fried rice-flour dumplings had two versions; one with a salted lentil filling, and the other with a sweet filling of coconut and jaggery,’ said the grandmother.

‘It sounds delicious,’ said the mother. ‘I love Ganapati. I need his picture or a little statue of him around me always, to feel established and secure about where I am. I couldn’t really bear it otherwise, could you? Looking out at the world, I mean, with its deliberate cruelties? Ganapati is my best and truest anchor in such a world and I feel I know exactly why our people chose him to be a god. Scholars can theorize all they like that we were afraid in the old days of wild elephants destroying our crops and so we “propitiated” them. I don’t think those scholars come from elephant countries. They didn’t grow up with a culture of elephant-whisperers and perhaps they couldn’t understand our natural attraction. We admired and respected elephants and so it’s not surprising to me today that Ganapati is a noble and good-natured presence in our lives.’

‘I didn’t know you had such strong feelings about Ganapati,’ said the father, surprised.

‘You know I lived in Mumbai where Ganapati is respected by almost everybody,’ said the mother. ‘So I was devastated on a visit to Chennai when I was about eight, to see a bunch of men, their lungis at half-mast above their knees, actually blocking a roadside shrine to Ganapati. The lungied men stopped people from laying down their offerings at the foot of Ganapati’s granite idol. They were such nice offerings of red hibiscus, coconut and bananas, and Ganapati’s noble head shone lustrously black from the oil of a million worshippers’ lamps. But the men had wounding words ready for him instead.’

‘Their leader sang loudly,

Andha Ganapatikku

Tondi peruthavidam

Eppadiyenraal . . .

And the rest chorused,

Kolakattey thinnadinaley

Anney, Anney!’

‘It means, “Ganapati’s paunch got so big . . . from eating modaka, brother, brother!”’

‘How do you remember that when you don’t speak the language?’ said the guru, deeply interested.

‘My local ayah had taken me there. She told me the meaning and taught me the words, I insisted on knowing. I’ve never forgotten it. Their sneering words hurt me so much that I started crying. Surely Ganapati would burst out of his idol, ears flaring and trunk raised, to crush them underfoot? But no, not one flower did he bother to drop from the garland around his neck. Instead, he stared benignly into the middle-distance. My ayah produced a hanky and wiped my face.’

‘The men, who were part of the “rationalist” political movement out there grew tired because once they were done jeering, they had nothing more to say. The most memorable thing, though, is how the people who had come to pray to Ganapati stood aside and waited. My ayah told me they were just regular, everyday people who went to work, to pull a rickshaw, unload a ship at the harbour, sit at a desk or stand over a stove.’

‘They didn’t shout back. All they did was to move into the cool, pungent shade of a neem tree nearby and stand there without moving, waiting for the men to stop shouting and go away. They drew together, carefully holding their offerings of flowers, fruit and coconut. They were silent, patient and calm—and monumental like an elephant. They became like an elephant in their strength and silence. They waited for nearly half an hour without saying a word and so did my ayah and I, watching the drama.’

‘I saw that those who loved him really loved him. People could say anything to Ganapati and he was good about it. He was fond and forgiving. That’s why the regular people were there, to say hello nicely with little offerings; and they did not go away until they were done greeting him. They made a long, well-behaved line to get their turn face-to-face with Ganapati and silently tell him whatever they had come to say.’

‘I thought that Ganapati was just like a mother—kind, protective and solving all your problems. Mothers could die—you know mine did when I was thirteen. Suddenly, just like that, she was gone and I never saw her again. But the elephant god didn’t go anywhere. I understood that he never would, that he was deeply rooted in the soil. He couldn’t talk to me like my mother had or brush my hair or hold me and tell me stories or sing me to sleep. But he was always there, and I could talk to him. I knew sweet little songs about him and little prayers to say every morning and evening and at his shrines. I could see him on the road, at the temple, at the zoo. I knew I could see him in the jungle, too, if only someone would take a little girl there. And I could always read stories about elephants.’

The child drew close and the grandmother leaned across to pat the mother’s hand.

‘I feel I was there with you,’ she said softly to her daughter-in-law. ‘Speaking of Shiva has made us share these things.’

‘The very first elephant film I remember seeing was Hatari!,’ said the father, to give his wife a moment to compose herself. ‘It came out much before my time but they had a special screening at my school because it was interesting for children’.

‘Like you, I saw it at a special screening, sitting between my father and his sister at my father’s club,’ responded the mother, appreciating his cue. ‘My aunt was nice to me but I was a bit afraid of my father, who was very tall and very short-tempered. “Hatari” means danger in Swahili and the film began with a terrifying chase after a rhino by American actors playing wildlife catchers.’

‘The hero was John Wayne, and the heroine, Elsa Martinelli, played a photographer. They had an argument when she suddenly turned up to photograph his adventures,’ said the father.

‘But it took a long time for the scenes with the baby elephants to appear and I squeaked, “When will the elephants come?”’ said the mother, laughing now. ‘My father sternly told me to shut up, and I was frightened into silence at once. My aunt whispered that I had to wait for the elephants. Soon, three little baby elephants got adopted by the heroine and she led them to the pool for a bath with such a funny, bouncy tune playing that I promptly forgot about being afraid. It was the “Baby Elephant Walk”, and I thought Ganapati would have loved it. There were many Indians in that film, it was shot in Tanganyika, which is now part of Tanzania. The shops and streets looked just like those in India and nobody seemed afraid of those three little elephants running around town.’

‘Then, my friend’s mother took me to see the Walt Disney film Dumbo, the story of the flying elephant and I felt very sorry for Dumbo through his troubles. I loved the song “Pink Elephants on Parade”. I was so surprised later when other people told me that they were scared by that hallucinatory song. “But it’s about elephants!” I said, and completely failed to see that it could be disturbing for some.’

‘I want to see Hatari! and Dumbo,’ said the child.

‘You will. We’ll watch it together,’ said her father. ‘And maybe we’ll eat modaka again.’

‘We should revive the custom, Ma,’ said the mother. ‘I’ve always been too busy at school and college and work and getting married and being a mom myself to learn to make modaka. But you described it so well that I’m suddenly inspired to learn.’

‘I would love to show you, it’s quite easy. A no-fuss treat for a no-fuss god who doesn’t need grand temples. He’s perfectly at home anywhere you want him—on your desk or out by the road, under a tree or by a little village pond,’ said the grandmother, eyes twinkling.

‘I want to learn, too,’ said her son.

‘Me, too! I want to learn to make an umbrella and modaka for Ganapati, both,’ said the child.

‘Project Ganesh Chaturthi is announced,’ said the grandfather. ‘How did we let this nice festival to this very nice god lapse from our lives? Will you really make modakas? Our son’s childhood comes back to me, thinking of them. My own childhood comes back.’

‘And mine,’ put in the guru with a droll look.

‘Done!’ said the mother, laughing, and they got up to wash their hands for dinner.