Get out of my face, 'nagar sevak'

It’s so routine, that it seems naive to talk about it anymore. Come festival time, and shopkeepers are forced to cough up money to an array of dubious mandals – goons and louts turn up and blatantly extort, and have the gall to say things like: “Array, kuch toa acha kaam karo, pura saal itna kamatay tum log.” A friend recently asked one such goon twisting our grocer’s arm: “Aur tum kya karta hai pura saal?” His answer came out pat: “Nagar –seva”. Hmm, I believe you, she said, sardonically. The shopkeeper, used to this stuff every year, gently told her not to tangle with the lout. And coughed up Rs 1111 (we may extort, but see, we extort in auspicious figures; we may be goons, but we are devout goons, no?) for the tenth time that week.

With the money amassed from hapless hardworking shopkeepers and homeowners around the city, these devotees and sevaks proceed to assault us for 10 continuous days, with sound raised to a volume beyond human endurance. And oh ya, before that, they dig deep holes into the city’s already pock-marked roads to support pandals, and then proceed to block half the road with these ‘devotional structures’. And who are you to object? Once the word ‘sarvajanik’ is uttered with a sanctimonious look, then you’re labeled elitist as well as irreligious, if you don’t play along.

On top of it, go past any of these pandals in the middle of the day, and there isn’t a single ‘devotee’ around. What happened to the old practice that you never left the Ganpati idol alone? In our childhood, the standing instruction was that someone must always be in the room with the idol. There we would sit, sometimes staring into those benevolent, playful eyes, or mugging up our 13-times table in Ganpatti Bappa’s presence, secure that as dukh-harta, he would deflect the wrath of the scary lady who taught us maths.

In public places today, however, what He has as company is ‘music’ – songs blasted at him, involving dils, ishq, dhak-dhaks, matkas and jhatkas, with kaantas and chhatiyas thrown in for good measure. Well, we encourage our kids to gyrate to Bollywood songs on Teacher’s Day too. So why would we spare our gods…but that’s another story.

People may be able to chest-thumpingly encroach on roads, blast the daylights out of the populace with their loudspeakers, install an idol, even hold prayers. But there’s a very large chance, that their god will give this place the total avoid, and quietly visit the homes of true devotees.

That’s why I simply did not go into the city at all this year, ‘Ganpati baghayla’. I visited the homes of friends who install the idol with true fondness and devotion, without getting in anyone’s way, and without, for sure, endangering lives and consuming huge greedy amounts of electricity and blasting our eardrums. And when the traffic situation didn’t allow me to do even that, I said to myself, like Begum Akhtar: Wahi pey mera Kaaba jahan pey mai sarr jhuka doon.

This year a lout-goon sevak of the nagar came to my doorstep too, asking for money for the festival. At one time I would have quietly coughed up, just so as not to ‘take panga’. This time I smilingly told him to get out of my face while I worship in the way I know, not in the way he insists. Because today my head may bow in front of my tiny amber Ganesh; tomorrow it will bow to a child’s drawing of Haji Malang; the day after it will bow to an ageing dog; and on another day to the white signature of egrets flying in a monsoon sky; and next week to the tiny cross a friend has brought me with all her faith from Lourdes.
And I will not have assaulted anyone’s ears or dug up anyone’s road, or cut anyone’s pocket under the name of my devotion.

GOURI DANGE