Of Gods And Demons - And Boundaries and Banks - And Choice

Durga Puja 2018 - Festival Special #2

Of Gods And Demons - And Boundaries and Banks - And Choice 
First posted on 1/10/2016

These chance sunsets are game changers. And they determine how I craft Evening Pages even when I already have an idea of what I need to be writing. That’s happened again. While finishing a too-cold cup of tea and grumbling about my running nose, I suddenly hear the dhaak in the distance. There have been a few false alarms and I’ve been hearing the dhaak in my head a lot of the time. But this time they are really there. Heralding Day #1 the first phase of the moon (yesterday was Day Zero - Mahalaya, the new moon) with hopeful beats. 

The Dhaakis are starting to arrive earlier and earlier each year. There was a time when they’d burst out of the trains on Panchami (the fifth moon phase and the day most pandals are thrown open to public) and start drumming up a frenzy at the railway stations. They come from our most flood-prone and cyclone hit areas of the state. They never get their homes properly repaired by the government and typically Puja organizers will haggle with them over a few rupees while they pay extravagant amounts for all the ludicrous frills and trappings that they append to their festivities. Often quite masking out, indeed reversing the process of vanquishing demons that the festival is about.

So often one approaches a pandal and wonders whether the demons have been installed for worship and the Goddess is a mute spectator. I recall one year when the ghot bisarjan* at a pandal was over and Durga who is essentially the guest of honor at the celebrations and the focus of attention, was left in solitary splendor on the stage,  a soft sad smile on her lovely face. The spectators were gaping at the decorations,  that get louder and less tasteful each time. Mom remarked “poor Durga, this is not the way to treat her.” 
Indeed yes, we invite a special guest home and instead of  treating her like God, we leave her to fend for herself, while we busy ourselves showing off our special decor to neighbors who drop in. Well I guess in this case we tell ourselves she IS God but apparently not a wrathful or vengeful one, so we don’t need to bother too much with her once our work (the rituals) is done.  I am amazed at how seamlessly this led me to connect to the theme I was scribbling down this afternoon as my concluding post of a series, before a change in mood and mode took place. Of that connection, more in a moment.

Returning to the chance-sunset-effect, what opened a portal to this connecting, was a sudden glow in ruby and rose quartz that startled me and made me grab Chloe (my faithful, aging camera phone) and run towards it,  even as the sounds of the dhaak moved away from me. There was only so much I could click and it was teasing me from every part of the sky through every window and skylight. Be still, my heart. I had to choose – yes you will come back to the idea of choosing, down the page. Even as I saved as much as my sight could grab up in the recesses of my memory, I had to choose what to capture on camera. I chose and making the quick dash between windows I clicked furiously.

Chloe takes  2 minutes to turn on and she gets hot as hell when I leave her on so I actually lost a couple of minutes of the brilliant fringe of orange. But you see this evening’s gift up above. The air has changed and the emptiness is starting to fill will light. Not the light of leave-taking like yesterday’s but the light of coming events, casting their shadows behind them, – yes this is Puja and everything changes – and sending their joyful drumming messengers ahead of them, like Gabriel with her trumpet to announce Advent.

This is in many ways like Advent – a birthing of renewed selves. 

Wow, as I write this Mrs Banerjee's evening conch does her signature sostenuto thrice in a row.

Pujo Eshe Gechhe! 

Coming to the aforementioned connection, what I wrote about Durga losing her pride of place, linked me with the part in A Night’s Tale**,  where the guests are welcomed in a modified Indian style. However there is something more important than the guests themselves and that is the book in whose service they are have assembled. They are there to contribute to the story. And they are more excited to be doing that than they would be if they were only just there to party and write their exams papers thereafter. This writing exercise has led me to understand that we, the creators are not bigger than our creations. 

While writing Morning Pages I am not meant to keep any boundaries. However, through the week I observe that boundaries have been forming, albeit soft, flexible ones. When I start the process of writing a tap is opened. Sometimes a trickle emerges, at others a torrent. In fact sometimes it is dry like the taps in our estate mysteriously become. I have to gently coax the thoughts out. Gently and very patiently, inducing the flow with water in a siphon (I remember the days of defrosting our old fridge and pulling the water out with a pipe.)

 Reading something inspiring, watching a sunset (they are no longer easy to come by) or talking to one of you. Or sometimes just turning away to something totally different and creating a kind of opposing force on which the words are bound, by Newton's 3rd law, to react. 

There are times when my outlet pool is hungry and voraciously demands that I pour glass after glass from the one-glass-well till it finally spills over and floods everything around. The way ravenous children over estimate their capacity, pile their plate and then waste some! Akin to the mysterious “arrhythmia” of water supply on this estate. 

That overflowing pool is the comrade-in-crime of my inner desire to pour. And I, with so many stories to tell even on the same theme, just letting them all tumble out. Somewhere one needs to choose. And this is the defining moment when you choose the book you want to write, over everything else. The river has split into branches. You pick a stream and follow it. It could change course but you start with some boundaries. As the stream flows – and occasionally overflows its banks, or sometimes pauses as still as a lake – the boundaries can be redrawn, if it is in the service of the story. 

Here’s where “Pages” play their part. The excess that doesn’t belong to the defined purpose is not wasted. It is poured out in pages and banked/tanked. It is often dipped into while the process of crafting the book evolves. Sometimes we take out one bit and leave it aside and put in another bit. And if this gets a little challenging, we pause and decide whether we need a major reinvention of purpose. Whether sailing a different branch of the river would be closer to our intent? We do this early on, hopefully. The next two weeks are going to be those boundary-definers for me.

Footnotes: 

• The picture I selected shows how the divine touch of the sublime, renders the gross demon of that structure almost-beautiful.
• This has been the toughest post of all to write. It was fueled by intent and intention. There was a purpose and a message that I needed to convey. I put it together from jottings, but the jottings are just a few lines that led me to show the intent. All the rest had to happen on its own to create this post and not a different one with the same message.

Thoughts expressed by readers on the original post -

Kim:  It's a spectacular pic and you are right, the splendor of the sky renders the most ordinary cityscape features "almost-beautiful." And it's a fitting backdrop for your thoughts here. I was reflecting as I read that your use of the present tense and your observatoins of the scenes around you have combined to create the perfect tone for your books (both the Maine night, and the meditation one I dreamed about.) I think you have Found Your Voice. 

Sridevi: Reading your Pages is like an out of body experience Chakra. The beauty moves me. I am filled with more thoughts and questions and not to speak of the lingering fragrance. <3

* ghot refers to the clay pot tied to the feet of the goddess. The pot actually receives the worship. It is detached at the conclusion of the worship and taken to the river and immersed.* Thereafter the image can be immersed any time. According to tradition, it all happens together on Dashami, but for some decades past, images are retained in community pandals so the public get extra days to witness the splendor!*

** A Night's Tale is the book being written "connecting" Maine with Kolkata**

Footnote: