Koteshwar Mahadev

The Deity was dancing with the beats of drums and tunes of other musical instruments. On the shoulders on his devotees his colourful palanquin was swinging to & fro, up & down and left & right. These palanquins are not very big or with covering, these are open one just like big stools with four horizontal wooden poles to be carried by devotees. But these are beautifully decorated with mostly blood red coloured clothes. On the top rested main idol of the face of Deity made of eight different metals. This one is profoundly decorated with garlands of scented flowers and of coins, various ornaments, golden crown and with a gold umbrella. Beneath this main idol, lined up are other various idol of same Koteshwar Mahadev. One can easily judge the peace, happiness and eternal satisfaction on the face of Devataa (Deity). It seems that people who are carrying the palanquin are themselves maneuvering it but it is said that it is Devataa himself who drives the palanquin. All the four palanquins were moving all around the fair ground which was already filled more than capacity with humble devotees of Koteshwar Mahadev. People of every caste, age and sex were present and glorifying the fair. Young and old residents of Kumarsain were coming before palanquins to carry them and were feeling lucky to get a chance even for few seconds.

I was watching the entire proceedings with devotion, excitement and curiosity. The festivity was enhanced by grey clouds and then by rain. Air was filled with devotion towards Koteshwar Mahadev who is believed to be scared soul blessed by Lord Shiva himself and one is considered King of the area of Kumarsain, a small town around seventy five kilometers up north from Shimla, capital of Himachal Pradesh. For the devotees, this Deity is not some "God" but just like their beloved family member for whom they have extreme love and respect and the one who have blessings of God to fulfill their big or small requirement or to erase their day to day problems. For them this Deity is in constant touch with its people either by dreams or through his 'Gur" the main priest. The occasion was the local festival which comes after every four years when Koteshwar Mahadev would meet his other loving deities, Marechh and Malendu Devtaa. I spent last two days at that festival and was lucky to witness the farewell of all other deities from Koteshwar. Just like young kids those departing Devtaa were so reluctant to leave that their palanquins would not let its bearers take the exit route even when Koteshwar Mahadev himself was waiting at the end of road to see them off. Only the interruption of oldest 'Gur' made them ready to leave for another four years. The festival ended with the 'Nati' (local dance) by the people of Kumarsain. The charm on the faces of idols of Devtaa seem faded a bit cause of this departing.

More pics are available at:

The 18th of June !

Today for Dad, who left us on the evening of this day two years back. He did not even wait for 15 minutes so I could reach and see him before he breathes his last. Can not say who was in hurry, He or God !

In Your Grandeur !

If a lazy person is given a tough and unwilling job to perform, he would utter words like above if the tools to perform that job are broken in between.

This is an old Punjabi saying, meaning, "Thank god, my spinning wheel is broken freeing my soul of such a trouble." ( Jind = life/soul -- Ajaabon = problem/trouble).

These are lines of famous Punjabi heartbroken Poet, Shiv Kumar Batalvi, written for a looser lover, meaning, "That's good that now you (beloved) belongs to someone else, at least mine worries of (How to) own you are over."

Now the link.

These lines are here in the grandeur of our "Oh Ah Ayaee Blue (now red, black & blue all over) Cricket Team. The 'Chrkha' is broken so no wait till 28th April and tension to get that cup is over as well.

Chirag - E - Sahar

Bhagat Singh wrote these words in a latter to his younger brother on 3rd March 1931 from Central Jail, Lahore just 20 days before his death punishment.

The death sentence of Bhagat Singh, Rajguru and Sukhdev was not at all surprising, but the most shocking was that the so called law abiding British government stuffed the three dead bodies in bags and discreetly burned them with kerosene oil near the Hussainiwala bridge and threw away half burned bodies in Satluj. First time in the Indian history the death penalty was done in the dusk in spite of morning. Their families were not allowed to see them before the hanging and and of course their dead bodies were not handed over to them. And we still find many Indians proudly extolling the virtues of British Raj while sipping tea in their drawing rooms.

These are some another favourite lines of Bhagat Singh!

Tarz -e- Jafa = Style of cruelty/injustice

Dahar = Misfortune

Adu = Enemy/Against

Sahar = Dawn

Musht - e - Khak = Part of soil (here 'Body')

Faani = Mortal

Uluf = Mixture(ing)

(I tried my best with these words, any suggestions/corrections are welcomed)

Ups & Downs

After Hrishikesh Da, Naushad and Anil Biswas, another great face of Indian film industry faded away. Musical genius OP Nayyer composed songs which helped Indians to relax and took worries off their heads when ever they were lonely and in down spirits. Who’s gonna follow their footsteps?

Whatever it was behind the scene I feel happy for Shilpa’s to take ride on Big Brother.

Men in Blue clinched the series beating West Indies, Tendulkar came back convincingly, so did Ganguly.

Tata bags Anglo Dutch steel giant Corus for 12.1 Billion dollars. Keep its up guys.

No more Sidney Sheldon’s, the magician of words is gone for magician of worlds.

Arise Awake !!

Some time back in an episode of KBC2, a confused young guy was facing Big B. The question was 'which Indian Sage started his speech with words "Brothers and Sisters of America" in Chicago? The boy had to take life line of 'call a friend' and called his younger sister (or friend maybe). Boy could not even complete the question to girl and came the speedy reply "Swami Vivekananda". Big B said she is the one who should be here at hot seat.


This day is birthday of two great souls I am inspired of. One was born Sanyaasi and other became Vaanprasthi after his retirement from government job at the age of 58.

'Naren' as called in childhood Swami Vivekananda, had only one question for every god man he met, “Have you seen God?” It was indeed a very embarrassing question to reply for all those people who tried to reply avoiding the main part. But it was only Ramkrishana Paramhans who said, “Yes, I talk to God like I am talking to you now.” Since then Naren never left Paramahans.

After untimely death of father Naren had to face enormous financial difficulties to feed his family. His guru Swami Ramkrishan Paramhans send him thrice to Ma Kali for financial help. But Naren every time could only speak of Vairagya and Vivek.

Days before the sessions of the Parliament of Religions, Swamiji used to wander on the roads of Chicago. One day an American staring at Swamiji's saffron chola and turban remarked on him, "what you people gonna speech us about, you don't even know how to dress like a gentleman." Swamiji politely gave him reply, “In your country tailors make the gentleman but in my country high thinking make a person gentleman."

Through out his life of 38 years he kept struggling for the upliftment of Indians. He always insisted to be brave, bold and self esteemed. He used to call for the youths of India,

"Arise Awake and stop not till the goal is reached!”

******************

The other person, for 58 years he lived like a loin in jungle who fears nothing. Living life of a senior government officer he enjoyed all the colors of the seasons of his carrier. He never believed in financial savings. Never showed distrust to anyone. That’s why he was stabbed many times in his back by his so called relatives and friends. But he would always give example of a Sadhu who receives stings while saving a drowning honey bee. Helping people beyond his limits was his favorite hobby.

The second act of his life started after his retirement at the age of 58. He was completely a new person for all of us. Until now I was never able to see his passion, emotions or dedication towards our society or country. He pledged to Vanprasth (one of the four ashrams described in Hinduism) in year 2001 in a ceremony at Hardwar organized by a social institution and devoted his remaining life for our society.

He was given charge of 220 schools of Vidya Bharti (India’s biggest NGO in education sector) in Punjab state for the internal auditing and regularizing of financial norms. Of course this was a non paying social service. Since my birth I very rarely saw him traveling in a bus or wearing a suit without crease. But now he traveled for 20 days in a month in sarkari buses without caring for the iron of his clothes for this noble cause.

His friends, who joined other jobs or started helping their children’s businesses after their retirement, used to ask him that how much is he getting out of this? Some would simply smile that may be there is good under table income in this social service. But he would laugh at them and genuinely reply that for 60 years we have only received from our society and now it’s time to payback. He urged many of his friends to come and join him but we all know it’s never so easy.

He never shared with us but we knew that he had adopted some orphan kids and was regularly paying for their monthly expenses from his pension account. He also pledged to donate his eyes and he did.

In two years of his hard work and dedication he was given charge of entire north India. He was getting busier and busier and moreover enjoying his job despite the various difficulties.

We started missing him as he used to stay away from home for many days. His grandsons kept calling him over his cell for different goodies and he never disappointed them. Until 2005.

We still miss you dad we all miss you badly.

Guru ji Golwalkar

“There are some people whom we start hating without even knowing them. Guru Golwalkar was on the first in my list of such people. Misdeeds of RSS in communal riots, assassination of Mahatma Gandhi, efforts to convert secular India to a Hindu state etc were so many issues I had heard a lot about. Even then being a reporter I could not resist the wish to see him.

“I was imagining that while seeing him I would have to cross various security circles of uniformed volunteers, but there was nothing as such. Not even so, I was under impression that there would be some intelligence guys to note down my car’s registration number, but nothing. The place where he had stayed was a room of middle class family. Outside was a row of shoes and slippers. The atmosphere was surrounded with the scent of incense sticks, as if pooja was being performed there. Ladies were moving around in inner rooms. The sound of utensils, cups & saucers was coming. I get in the room. Wearing pure white dhoti kurtas in Maharashtrian style were sitting 10 – 12 men. About the age of 65, single body, long black curly hairs dancing on his shoulders, mustache covering his mouth, long brown beard, never fading smile and black shining eyes watching through the spectacles, I thought he was Indian Ho Chi Minh. Recently he had surgery on his chest for cancer, even then he seems entirely healthy and happy.

“Being a Guru he must have expecting me to touch his feet, thinking, I bent down but he didn’t gave me any chance. He caught hold my hands and pulled me to be seated near to himself and said, “I am really very happy to see you. I wanted to see you since long.” His Hindi was so pure.

“Me too! Specially, since I read your ‘Bunch of Letters’,” I said with little hesitation.

‘Bunch of Thoughts’, he said correcting my mistake but he didn’t show any will to ask for my views on that book. He holds one of my hands and said – say.”

“I can’t understand where to start? I said- I have heard you avoid media fame and your Organisation keeps itself very secret.”

“It’s true that we don’t want fame, but there is nothing like secrecy. You may ask me anything.” He replied.

So there was open conversation on various issues.
“I took around half an hour of Guruji but I didn’t find any signs of restlessness in him. I asked for leave and he again stopped me for touching his feet by holding my hands in the air.”

“Was I impressed? Yes, I was, I won’t deny. He did not made a slightest effort to convince me of his point of view, instead, he created a feeling in me that they are open hearted to listen or understand any ideology. I accepted the invitation of visiting Nagpur and take stock of actual situation myself. Maybe I could make him agree for accepting of Hindu-Muslim unity as RSS’s missions or may be this could only be a wishful thinking of an innocent Sardar.”

Above mentioned words are of – India’s famous weekly magazine ‘Illustrated Weekly’ ‘s that time editor Sardar Khuswant Singh, who interviewed RSS Chief Shri MS Golwalkar or Guruji (as millions of people used to call him) on 17th November 1972 at Mumbai.


I am around 32 days late to put that account of experience of a famous reporter here on my page but its not at all that much belated as the nation is celebrating Guruji’s birth century this year. I would try to put more about that great visionary as my tribute to him, who lived every tiny second of his last 33 years of his life for our nation “Bharatvarsh”.