[nukkad] ref mumbai us zamaney ka continued

["HOMI KAIKOBAD" <>]

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MUMBAI US ZAMANEY KA continued:

Everyone sort of made up the city and there was never any paksha pakshi,
maybe because the Gora was the common, or maybe we were gentler people who
had not yet tasted blood and gone silly because the politicians and clerics
said go crazy.

The most striking aspect I saw then and which I never saw anywhere in a wide
number of places in the world I worked and lived in, was the absolute
democracy as far as worship was concerned. One could see an obvious Parsi
gentleman in a temple supplicating to old Ganesh maybe asking him for a
gentler wife, just as easily end up at some baba's shrine to hand in another
application just in case the first one fell through. Moslems went to
Christian churches and places of worship because miracles were reported,
Hindus went to Moslem dargah all decked up with a chata-pati handkerchief on
the head pirate fashion, Parsis went to both and to the several atash-gahs.
It was as if Rabb was maherban just as Ram was. At Kalimata's where things
were always more ghambheer, no one wanted to fall afoul of a lady apparently
in bad temper making a point with a decapped cerebrum in one hand and waving
interesting knives in the others, and the multi-zaat supplicants could be
seen singing bhajans in atrocious mistune and dutifully offering prasad. I
had a great deal of time on my hands and got to see faces and graces of
people more than attending to the resident deity and this stood me in good
stead in later life ijn ways I would rather not tell. I also developed a
marvelous sense of facial lines, surati, nirati, kaya darshan, and by
extension, maya paricharan.

When I was small I had occasion to wander into one such a place where I
became a regular and would hang out on th periphery watching the pujas and
bhajans and bells and things with the heathen interest of a 9 year old. I
believe it was a Hanuman temple with an ancient murti cast by what I would
later learn as Dravidian handiwork circa 1000 BC. A woman who swept the
place and was apparently sudra would offer me pedas and gundi and monthal,
just as in a similar incident in a Shiv mandir across the border, I seem to
attract Bali-Baman ka bhojan. Several kindly bystanders tried to dissuade me
from eating, speaking furtively of jadoo and maro-toro spells, but I
remained immune. For a long I had it good, Hindu prasad beats home dal
anytime of the year. I believe my absolute absence of any sense of
superstition made me battar-bandh and it endures to this day.

So for the Mumbai basi in those days hari kripa was where you could get it
and apart from titular membership in one's own kabila one was free as the
savage to partake of the blessing at any and all places where it was
available. I think the going slogan was, and is perhaps to this day in
Mumbai:

Ram na dey, Rahim sey mang ley; Rahim muh pher ley, to Maata

Maata kahey na to Murti paas ja; Murti naraz to jaan Hari ka raaz

Data Duta Dutta Darvesh, Digambar, Danesh, Daana jan

Mahadev, Murti, Surti, Saritaj, jinne diya usey apna pahichan.

This liberal approach believe me reflects a sort of Ekta of the bhakti
rasam, opposite of Dwaita, juda kari dekha to bhuja ukhar gayi. I am certain
it originates in Mumbai and is unique to the place. Next time around see for
yourself. And see if you can find it's equal anywhere else on this globe.

Shab-ba-khair.

Arya




















































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