Disclaimer: The following article is a travelogue and
is not intended to hurt any section or sect of the society. Yet, if any
religious group who wholeheartedly believes in their God find it offensive; I
request you not to file a lawsuit against me. Have faith in your God that He or
She or It will punish me.
I wonder how many of you have been to Dwarka. It’s a beautiful place.
Or atleast the landscape says it once must’ve been, until it became a tourist
hotspot. For the uninitiated, Dwarka is a small island off the coast of Gujrat
which is said to be the kingdom where Lord Krishna ruled. Now there have been a
number of controversies regarding the facts whether Dwarka was submerged or
whether it’s a Hindu religious hoax or whether it really was Krishna’s home.
This article is not about all that. It’s about a particular scene I saw at the
place which is known as Dwarka, and believed to be Lord Krishna’s home.
As one reaches the coast of
the island, one can’t help but notice the only superstructure on the entire
island is a gigantic temple with a red flag. Almost immediately you are told by
someone (usually someone who’s been there before and heard it from someone
else) that the population of the island is 2,000 which is dominated by Muslims.
I smiled at the irony of Muslims handling all activities in an island which was
known and revered for being the home of one of the Hindus’ biggest idols. As
one enters the temple, the pundits (temple priests) waste no time stating that
since the island is dominated by Muslims
the temple has its own water supply and doesn’t use the water the rest of the
island uses. I was 20 and knew by now not to question on such idiosyncrasies. The
pundits took their time showing us around various rooms of the Lord’s house. He
seemed to have a lot of bedrooms, but then I remembered that one of the things
the Lord is known for, was having a lot of wives (16,108 to be precise. Most people can’t handle one. I guess he was a
God for a reason). Again, something I couldn’t ask anyone. Specially the
someone’s who’d been here before and still cared enough to come back.
But I mean no disrespect to
any religion or any belief or any someone. As I said, the motive of my article
is to talk about a particular scene. However, one does face so many
distractions when writing on the topic of Dwarka. But I’ll come to the point
now.
The time for the temple to
open was 5 AM and as fervent Hindu devotees, we reached the temple area at 4:30
AM. The temple area was a large circular room which housed idols of Krishna and
his family on 4 sides. All these idols were placed in small digs inside the
larger room and the doors were to be opened at 5 AM. I could read the labels on
the doors to find out which dig housed which idol. There was the Lord himself;
his brother Balram; his wife (I couldn’t figure out which one) and his mother
Devki. I tried to look for Yoshoda, Krishna’s foster mother but couldn’t find
her. Something inside me died. Something else, smiled.
As 5 AM drew nearer, I felt
people push me to get nearer to Krishna’s gate. At 5 AM the gates would open
and the first thing the Lord would see would be hundreds of devotees waiting to
get a glance of him. Anyone who’s ever been to such a temple knows the
demeanour of such devotees, so I’d not comment on that. I just felt bad that
just to have a glance at an idol, these people didn’t care if the crowd
seriously wounds someone in the process.
I guessed since I didn’t care
enough to see the God that I didn’t want to be the first in line (or rather, the first in the crowd), I
politely got out and walked towards the back of the room while my Mom signalled
me wide-eyed waving frantically. I ignored her and went to the very end of the
room where I now saw hundreds of believers with their backs at me. Turning
around, I saw the room of Devki (Krishna’s birth-mother) right opposite to me.
By fate or by plan, her room was built right opposite to her son’s. Had it been
an empty hall, I imagined these two would wake up everyday to see each other.
Devki would smile and bless her son and he, being the child he was, would
simply smile back affectionately. But now Devki wouldn’t be able to see her son.
Him having his own devotees to see first. But she’d just see the scene everyday
and be proud of her son. After all, what more could a mother ask for?
My chain of thought was broken
by the temple bells. At precisely 5 AM all priests opened the doors to their
respective idols and people huddled infront of Krishna’s idol. At that point,
seeing hundreds of backs fighting to get an inch ahead, closer to their idol, I
felt bad for Devki. Each one of those men and women wanted to get as close to
Krishna as possible. They were so obscured with this goal that they were
rushing away from Devki. There must’ve been around 500 of them and not one,
even not the one who was in the end and had no hope to get infront for atleast
an hour, even that guy wouldn’t turn around and pay some respects to Devki.
I wondered if these idols
really thought, what would go through Devki’s mind everyday. Everyday she woke
up to see hundreds of backs towards her, trying to flee away from her, towards
her son. Would she feel bad for herself, or would she be proud? I looked at
her. She seemed to be smiling, yet I felt I saw a tittle of sadness in her
eyes. Maybe she was sad because she wanted to see her son. Maybe because she
would have liked it if atleast one of those devotees ever turned back for her.
Maybe she was having personal problems with her husband at that time. Or maybe
it was all a figment of my imagination and she really was smiling with full
zest. I didn’t know. She didn’t tell. She just stood there, with a smile on her
lips and mysterious eyes.
I normally don’t do much at
temples, but this time I turned towards her to bow down and touch her feet. I
stood infront of her for a while and then quietly left. The quizzical pundit’s
eyes followed me till he was sure that I wouldn’t return.
- Vishal Gupta
