Life, death and afterlife at Pashupatinath (updated)
Construction frenzy at a
UNESCO-designated world heritage site? You must be kidding, hallucinating under
the influence of weed or daydreaming. If construction work was going on in the
UNESCO-designated site, what were all those capable officials of the Pashupati
Area Development Trust doing? That is what you guys will most probably
say.
Well, yours truly was
not kidding nor he was under the influence of any kind nor daydreaming. Trying
to whet your appetite for this piece, that is what yours truly was doing.
Got bored? Okay then.
Without spinning the yarn any further, lemme talk about the 'construction
frenzy' on that day.
What day was it? It was
the day of Balachaturdashi.
On the said ‘site’, even
grown-ups were acting like children. They would lay one or two bricks or stones
for the 'foundation' and add a couple more above them.
This indeed reminded
yours truly of a game called 'run' that we used to play back in our village.
For this game, we would make a similar structure using pebbles, run and chase
friends.
For winning the game,
the player had to either hit one of the players or the rickety structure,
causing its collapse. After that, the player receiving the hit would do the
chasing, while other players would do the running part.
What amazed yours truly
was that these folks were not playing that 'ball game'. Instead, they were busy
'playing' a whole new ball game.
‘When in Shleshmantak, do as the Shleshmantiks do’. That is what the child in yours truly told him.
So, yours truly ‘rolled
up’ his sleeves, went about searching for pebbles and bricks, chose a construction
site close to the temple of Bahiro Ganesh
(This Ganesh is hard of hearing, so you have to scream a bit to make yourself heard!
Am I right, subject experts?).
What made yours truly sad
was that humanity was busy pulling down structures that others had built to
create ‘high-rises’ of their own.
While engaging in the ‘construction
work’, yours truly struck up conversation with fellow sapiens.
‘K garne? Yasai garnu parchha’.
(What to do? This is
what we should do)
While this selfish game was
going on, monkeys of Shleshmantak were watching with keen interest. Remember, there’s
a proverb in Nepali: Monkeys neither build their houses nor let others build
their own. If the apes knew, they would laugh their hearts out at this joke. It’s
sad that monkeys have no sense of humour, sadder that humans do.
Without running a sweat,
yours truly built two structures, typical middle-class ones, by the side of the
Bahiro Ganesh temple. Though a sceptic
to the core, yours truly had this faint belief that Bahiro Ganesh would somehow protect those modest ‘dwellings’, that
no bull-dozer would thunder into the midnight to rage them.
Work over, yours truly had a small chat with fellow
sapiens. According to some of them, these structures were meant for pitris (our ancestors).
Okay, the ancestors also
need modest dwellings, if not high-rises. And they need them at the sacred
woods of Shleshmantak, a bit from the hustle and bustle of city life. That
makes perfect sense, doesn’t it?
On the day of Balachaturdashi, the faithfuls sow different
kinds of seeds called Satbeej at the Pashupatinath
area. It is believed that pitris feed
into the sacred crops grown thus.
While following a ‘Bagmati’
(of the yore, of course) of humanity along the sacred trail on that day, yours
truly observed that huge quantities of seeds sown for pitris had become dust under the crushing feet of milling humanity!
Even for the sake of
rituals, would it not be good to sow these seeds in the woods and not along the
walkways?
Anyway, inching along
the sacred ‘Satbeej trail’ on the day
of Balachaturdashi with a swollen river
of humanity was quite an enlightening experience for yours truly.
Returning ‘home’ via the
Guheshwori Temple-Mrigasthali-Shleshmantak forest, the Aryaghat (crematorium) and
the Vriddhashram (the government-run old-age home) somehow reminded yours truly
of the journey of life. The Shleshmantak woods reminded him of the afterlife, the
crematoriums of death and the old-age home as the sunset of the journey called
life.
It is indeed the duty of
the state to care for the unborn, the living and the dead.
Yours truly advises our capable
officials and policymakers to visit this trail every now and then. How about talking
a walk in the Sleshmantak woods and thinking about life in general, especially
of the multitudes? How about stopping at those crematoriums and pondering how
hard it is to live – and harder still to die? Inquiring about the state of the
old-age home and the plight of its inhabitants? Yours truly hopes that such
visits will enlighten them and enable them to formulate and implement policies
that address the needs of the unborn, the living and the dead.
Comments
Post a Comment