Portraits from Ayodhya by Dubey Scharada

Author:Dubey, Scharada
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Non-fiction
Publisher: Westland Publishing
Published: 2012-05-21T16:00:00+00:00

12

Gauri Shankar Das

Kanak Behari’s Minstrel

Kesav! Kaaran kaun gosain?

Jehi apraadh asaadh jaani mohi tajeu agyaki naiee.

(O Keshav! What is the reason? Keeping which sin of mine in mind are you casting me aside like an absolute stranger?)

—Vinay Patrika by Goswami Tulsidas

T

he Kanak Behari temple in Ayodhya is one of the best places to pass an evening in happy contentment. Before or after one has had a darshan of the white marble deities of Rama, Sita and Lakshman, it is good to sit on the shallow steps around the black and white checkered inner courtyard and watch other pilgrims come and go. Or look up at the evening sky and watch the stars emerge while the breeze from the Sarayu blows pleasantly.

In one corner of the courtyard, just outside the sanctum of the temple, a singer usually sits with a harmonium, accompanied by a tabla or dholak player, singing bhajans.

Gauri Shankar Das has been one such singer for twenty-five years. He is today Ayodhya’s only true-blue classical Dhrupad artiste.

Born in the Tulsi Bari area of Ayodhya on Shivaratri in 1939, Gauri Shankar Das is a sadhu who lives in the typical single-room dwelling of the ascetic. However, what makes his place somewhat forbidding is its proximity to the Sarayu river, a few hundred yards from the water line. On the occasions I have visited him, always in winter, the strong and chilly winds blowing in from over the water make it difficult to open the door or window a mere crack. Only in the afternoons does Gauri Shankar open his house to receive students. Otherwise, he has to stay entombed in his small room at Sadguru Sadan at Gola Ghat, waiting for the season to change. Moreover, since he doesn’t have a private vehicle, and lives in this comparatively distant neighbourhood, he is cut off from the more oft-visited areas. To top it all, he was the most fragile looking of all the sadhus I met, which made me worry about his health and well-being.

‘My father was a sadhu too,’ recollects Gauri Shankar Das. ‘He was a pujari at the Jaunpuria Mandir, a poor Brahmin who lived on the offerings of people who visited the temple or called him to conduct pujas. Food, and donations of cloth, grain and other provisions, this is what used to help our family get along. Such charity and generosity was possible in the Ayodhya of that time. It was an Ayodhya full of mahatmas – the Badi Chhavani, Mani Ram Chhavani, Tapasviji ki Chhavani – all had sadhus living in them who were truly spiritual. At the time, the Sarayu flowed very close to the town, was never very far from us. There were only pontoon bridges on the river, not big bridges like there are now.’

In the Ramanandi tradition, most of the sadhus have Vaishnav names, most often derivatives of ‘Rama’ like Ram Sharan, Ram Kripal, etc. How Gauri Shankar got his name is an interesting story. ‘My mother said I was born at 4 a.

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