Singers Die Twice - A journey to the land of dhrupad by Peter Pannke

Author:Peter Pannke [Pannke, Peter]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

IV

Samastipur, Thursday, 1 August 2002

I staggered out onto the station platform at about half past three in the morning, not having slept a wink. The train was due just after four o’clock. The loudspeaker rattled, announcing a delay of one hour. Once this term had expired, the delay was extended to one and a half hours and finally to two.

In the meantime, dawn had broken. At six o’clock, a train crept into the station and came to a standstill by the platform, groaning. Clusters of men with orange scarves wound about their heads were hanging from the open doors of the compartments; they let go of the door handles and the footboards and jumped down onto the platform before the train came to a halt.

It was like an invasion. In the blink of an eye, they had occupied the platform. The orange cloths bound about their waists showed that they were pilgrims. Almost all were barefoot. Invocations in praise of Shiva were printed on the cloths in large red letters. Some wore leopard-print T-shirts while others had colourful paper hats perched on their heads. Once the men had jumped down onto the platform, excited to have arrived, the women followed. They had very little luggage other than their staffs and urns—bundles of blankets, a few small bags. Plastic sheets were spread out on the ground and little knots of people gathered on each. They were still in high spirits from the excitement of the pilgrimage and the young men kept calling out,‘Hara Hara Mahadev!’ It was Shiva’s war cry, and his trident was printed on their lungis and T-shirts.

Across their shoulders they carried long bamboo poles decorated with orange flowers and gold and silver bands, water jugs hanging from each end. Mostly these were plastic bottles but here and there I saw an old copper urn. These containers were all protected by a sort of wicker cage that prevented them from touching the ground. Inside was holy water, fetched all the way from the Ganga. It had to be taken to the Vaidyanath Temple. A ritual took place there in the month of Sawan, when this sacred water was poured over the lingam. They were on their way back to their villages and because of the floods this train was their only means of transport.

Strictly speaking, this pilgrimage should be taken on foot, at a quick march and as far as possible without stopping. Things became critical when the man carrying the water had to pee. Since the water must not touch his body while he did this, he had to set the contrivance down and purify himself before picking it up again.

Several such bamboo yoke poles, covered in dust, hung from the rafters of Vidur Mallik’s veranda; his sons had carried them from the Ganga, several hundred miles away. They had told me the story behind this water-carrying ritual. The Shivalingam, the sacred stone at the centre of the Vaidyanath Temple, had been brought thither by the demon king Ravana.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.