The battle of the Pukh!

Pukh, short for the revered Pukh nakastra in the Hindu calendar, is the day when according to the folklore, Lord Ram arrived from his kingdom in Ayodhya to the palace of his devout follower, Rani Ganeshibai of Orccha. It comes once every month, so unlike deepawali or holi, there are 12/13 pukhs a year at the revered temple in Orccha. Therefore, it is only natural that the devotees, believing in the maxim of 'the more the better', throng to Orccha every pukh in a windfall.

I have had a few brushes with the pukh previously, but the events were long erased from my memory due to my tendency of avoiding worship at temples as a ritual. However, this sunday, on one of our regular escapades to Orccha, things got serious. Exactly at the halfway mark on the 24km distance from my home to the temple, we came across a 2km long jam, which we thankfully avoided and parried in time. The reason- Lord Ram was visiting Orccha on the very day of my parents' wedding anniversary. Blessed be the name of the believer, and those thousands, who stood in the humid july weather on the serpentine road to the fortress of Orccha. It takes something special to reinforce your faith in our culture and traditions, especially if you have been used to the cosmopolitan way of life. This was one of those moments!

We promised to return later in the day in time for the evening aarti, otherwise the prayer service. Keeping our promise, and hoping that the morning rush from neighboring towns and villages would have subsided by then through the passenger train scheduled in the evening, we made our approach, only to find there were countless others who shared our thought. Nonetheless, the destination was nigh, and as we made our way into the courtyard, the sound of dholaks and folk songs reached a crescendo. The scenes inside were more colorful- men dancing in the sheer joy of the occasion; women making a frantic effort to extract the maximum possible out of the short darshan; and children adoring the deities which were richly decorated and kept outside the inner sanctum for all to see. To say that it wasn't moving would be a blatant lie, for I haven't felt such a strong connect to out traditions for quite a while. As somebody who abhors superstition, which is slowly becoming the staple of modern hinduism much to the chagrin of the learned scholars, I was beginning to believe in a god who is formless and needs to be discovered within oneself. This pukh changed it in a different, and dare I say, a better way. Faith needs a support structure to weather out the periods of calamity and bliss, both of which can be harmful to the conscience's battle against ignorance. And the sight of men and women, young and old, dancing and enjoying the mutual feeling of reverence to Lord Ram may just be that additive anybody needs.

A beautiful composition from our best performer at the Oscars yet!