In search of the cosmic dancer

It was winter of 2008 and Aparna was nicely pregnant (which meant that, by no stretch of imagination could you mistake it for a paunch and neither had she reached the stage where one starts waddling like a pregnant duck {Oh now I know what the phrase means!!}).  I had a hectic many months at work and had been jet setting between Delhi and Bangalore with not a break in between. Taruni had her winter holidays and Aparna was looking for a break from her geek world of Infosys.

We decided to foray into the heart land of Tamilnadu on a Temple trip. Aparna is fervently religious and has a more than a passing interest in history and architecture. We had been dabbling a little into Shaivism in his avatara of Nataraja or the “lord of dance” and this was the perfect field trip for us. So it was Bangalore-Thanjavur (of the famed Tanjore paintings)-Kumbakonam-Chidambaram-Rameswaram-Madurai-Bangalore. Except for probably Rajiv Joe and Rachana, most of my North Indian friends probably wouldn’t even have heard of most of these places. Believe me it’s a treasure trove of temples.

At our first stop at Thanjavur, we saw the immense Brihadeeswaran Kovil (Temple of 

Brihadeeshwara). This is one of the largest temples in India, is approx 1000 years old, built by Raja Raja Chola and is dedicated to Shiva. The Vimana (tower above the temple) is so tall (200 + ft) and is carved of a single piece of rock and to achieve this, a ramp was built measuring about 7 kilometres long and the rock was hauled by elephants and placed at its present location!! The lord of the temple is Shiva in the form an enormous Linga.

As is the norm in most of Tamil Nadu, the innermost sanctum of the temple is unlit by electrical lights and it is by either reflected sunlight or the flickering light of the Aarti that you can glimpse God. Since Thanjavur is the home of the Tanjore style of painting, we looked around a bit especially around the Maratha palace to see if we could lay our hands on a “reasonable” piece of art. I am sure it isn’t common knowledge that the sway of the Maratha empire extended deep into Tamil Nadu and the Nayaks ruled here in the 16^th and 17^th Century. The Tanjore style of painting where gold foil and embedded semi precious stones are used with rich and vivid colours was patronized by the Nayaks. We were even taken on a tour by an actual Marathi speaking artist to his house where he showed us his fabulous works of art. Unfortunately, though we could appreciate it, we couldn’t pay for it. And we had relegated the Tanjore painting to a far second to buying a genuine bronze Nataraja, which we hoped to on this trip.

 Our next stop was Kumbakonam. This is home to the beautiful Sarangapani temple dedicated to Vishnu. The temple had an immensely tall Gopuram (a tower at the entrance) full of

sculptures of gods and goddesses and rakshasas. Surprisingly (unusual in Tamil Nadu), at the corner there were also a number of erotic sculptures of men and women cavorting in the nude. Very voluptuous and again surprisingly, very fair all of them !!! Kumbakonam is also home to the bronze industry and our desire to own a bronze Nataraja was strengthened here. Kumbakonam is also famous for its  “Kumbakonam Degree Coffee”. I am not

really sure what the degree implies, but it is served in a brass tumbler and dabara, is scalding hot, strong and delicious.

The next day that we were to travel to Chidambaram, Taruni fell very ill with a painful catch in her neck and we had to abandon all our plans. Aparna managed a trip to Swami Malai, a nearby hillock with a temple, where the bronzes are actually cast and carved, however, was unable to procure any and came back disappointed. We had just one more day to visit Chidambaram since our train tickets were booked for the next night out of Kumbakonam to Trichy. There is a story about Chidambaram and Nataraja which is intriguing and compelling about the magic and mystique of Shiva. The area around Chidambaram has mangroves which were known as the forests of Thillai.

 Aeons before, in the forests of Thilllai lived Sadhus and  Rishis. These learned men had gone wayward and started believing themselves to be as, if not more powerful, than the gods themselves. To teach them a lesson, Shiva descended to Thillai as a Bhikshathan (mendicant)

along with Vishnu in the form of Mohini an enchantress. Shiva plays his drum or the Damaru and Mohini dances sensuously to the rhythms. The Sadhus and their women folk are captivated by this music and dance and follow the couple in a trance into the forests. Suddenly, the Sadhus are angered at this, especially their women folk being led away and hurl magical curses at Shiva. The snake that they cast at him, he wears it as an ornament around his neck, a tiger that attacks him, he skins with his little finger and wraps its skin around his waist and a demon they set onto him, he tramples and vanquishes as he dances the Ananda Tandava (the dance of bliss) and reveals his true self. It is believed that Chidambaram was the centre of the universe and is home to the famous “Chidambara Rahasyam” or “Chidambaram’s Secret”.

The next day, Taruni was a lot better and to help her, we upgraded ourselves from an Ambassador to an Innova as our taxi and started off to Chidambaram at a leisurely time. Enroute was a temple famous for its curative powers and we perforce had to “Matha theko” there as well. So, by the time we arrived at Chidambaram at 1 p.m., the culmination of our enchantment with Shiva, it was siesta time. What we didn’t realize was that the temples in Tamil Nadu closed at about 12ish and opened around 4:30-5. And our train (from Kumbakonam, more than 2 hrs away) was at around 8 p.m. Our plan had been, to experience the magic of Shiva at Chidambaram, drive to Kumbakonam and shop for a bronze Nataraja and then catch the train. And now, with the temple closed, we had time enough for only one. It was indeed a test of our resolve, of which to choose, and I am glad the spiritual won victory over the materialistic side. We had travelled this far, to the centre of the universe, to feel the rhythm of existence. We could always pick up a Nataraja anywhere, even in Bangalore. Right?

So, we spent a wonderful and unhurried few hours in and around the temple and saw the intricately carved Ratha or chariot in which God is perambulated around the temple. The paths surrounding the temple, where the chariot is pulled by the faithful are called the North, South, 

East and West Car streets. Taruni also delighted us with her version of the Nataraja pose as we waited for the doors to open. While we waited, we were told the story of how Shiva cheated to win the title of the greatest dancer. It seems, Shiva and Parvati had a competition as to who was the better dancer and for every movement of Shiva, Parvati was able to match it step for step. Realizing that he wouldn’t be able to better her without cheating, he adopted a pose where he raised his right leg completely vertical, straight up as he stood on his left. Parvati, realizes that this is a very un-lady like pose and refrains and concedes to Shiva.

The darshana of Shiva was very beautiful, in the form of Nataraja and it only evoked a twinge of disappointment in our hearts that we wouldn’t be carrying him home. Adjacent to the main sanctum sanctorum is a small mantapa which is covered by a richly embellished curtain. It hides within it, the Chidambara Rahasyam. We waited with bated breath to see what wonderment was hidden inside as the Pujari dramatically drew the curtain aside.

And there was “nothing”. I mean absolutely nothing. It was then that it was explained to us, that the Rahasyam or the secret is that, what we see is Maya or an illusion and God and the universe exists within us. I think it needs enlightenment to realize rather than understand this.

Immediately after the darshana, we sped back to Kumbakonam, afraid that we would miss our train. As luck would have it, the traffic was light and the driver was fast and we were back at Kumbakonam with about 30 minutes to spare. A hope was sparked in us, though the light was fading, as we enquired with the driver if there were any sellers of bronzes nearby, at this hour. He took us to the precincts of one of the temples, on the outer side of which seemed to be a few ramshackle shops with some 4 ft  figurines in the making.  The first shop seemed to specialize in large sizes, the second didn’t have any Natarajas ready and neither did the third of the size we needed. Feeling extremely disappointed, I was about to leave, when I spied a Nataraja on the top most shelf, in the dark recesses of the shop, but it seemed to be black in colour. When I asked for it, he seemed a little hesitant and said that it had been around for a long time.

My hands trembled as I tried to wipe the soot and grime away. I couldn’t see the metal, it was so coated with grime and cobwebs, but the features seemed to be angular and clean as Chola bronzes are. I couldn’t even ask Aparna for a second opinion since she was in the car with Taruni on her lap, fast asleep. I turned to the shop keeper and he said 8000 rupees. This was way above our budget of 3-4000. And I didn’t have time to bargain. I quickly pulled out my purse and checked, I had about 5000 rupees. I decided to keep 500 rupees aside and made an offer of 4500. The owner refused outright but quoted 6000. I was desperate and running out of time, so I offered the entire 5000 and said that’s all I had and either he agreed or didn’t, since I had to catch a train. He wavered for a moment and grumbled that it was too less, so I said sorry and started moving away. He called me back and said “fine OK”. My heart took a leap as I thrust all the money into his hand and asked him to quickly pack it.

One of the helpers pulled out a piece of cloth and some liquid and started to polish it. I told him to stop and just pack it. He looked a little bewildered, but wrapped it in newspaper and put it into a box. I quickly carried it to the car and we set course towards the railway station.  Aparna asked me “how does it look” and I frankly said, “I don’t know, but I think it is good”. Just short of the railway station, we stopped at the ATM because I had absolutely no money and we hadn’t paid for the taxi yet. We reached the station with a few minutes to spare. Once inside the compartment, we opened the box and examined the Nataraja.

It was black, except the part where the worker had wiped off a bit of the grime where it was a dull but warm pinkish colour. We dropped a few drops of oil on a hand kerchief and started scrubbing at the grime. Slowly emerged a beautiful figure, the features were sharp and angular, the expression peaceful, with a hint of a smile. The body was sinewy yet lithe, even the slight bulge of the calf muscle was sculpted well. The tiger skin around the waist, the anklets, the damaru signifying the rhythm of the universe, the fire in his left hand signifying destruction, the stubby demon at his foot, Apasmara Purusha signifying ignorance and the act of it being vanquished by Shiva, the cosmic dancer surrounded by the aureole of flames which represents the universe…

Israel

While in the middle of the covid-19 Pandemic all of us under lockdown with nothing much to do, I got a suggestion from my friend Mukul Gupta for watching a serial called Fauda. He promised that it was exciting and I was sure to like it.  So armed with Netflix, Aparna & I launched through the entire two seasons of Fauda. It is basically the story of a counter terrorism outfit in Israel and their operations with respect to some of the anti terrorists operations they have conducted in the heavily contested West Bank portion of Israel.

Since it is fairly violent, Aparna and I watch it without the kids but one of the evenings my daughter Taruni happened to see a bit of it and suddenly remarked “Nana you have been to Jerusalem haven't you? Is it exactly like this?”. So that took me back to March 2012 when I had visited Israel on a short trip for about five days on official work in my capacity as a test pilot. We flew by Lufthansa from Bombay to Istanbul and from there to Tel Aviv’s David Ben Gurion Airport by Turkish airlines.

Except for the fact that Israel had a fairly violent past and really did not have any friendly neighbours, I did not know much about the history of Israel and I was really looking forward to this trip. Somehow, I had an opinion that Israel would be like much of what I knew about the Middle East, mainly through the media, of being a rather conservative society with a fair amount of restrictions.

 

Things couldnt be more different in Israel. As we landed in Tel Aviv and we went through a fairly rigorous check of our baggage at the David Ben Gurion airport, wherein they literally took apart everything, I mean they even opened the toilet kit, AFTER it had passed through the X Ray machine.  One of the company cars of the Israel Aerospace Industries took us to our hotel, The Crowne Plaza, which is on the sea front in Tel Aviv. Fortunately for me I had a room on the 8th floor facing the sea front with an incredible view of the entire beachfront of Tel Aviv which seemed to be very active with a lot of people splashing about in the water and generally having a great time. It seemed pretty much like one of the beaches of America with a number of women in bikinis and easily interacting with a lot of the men around. This was the first shock I got.

At the hotel, I noticed something curious in one of the elevators amongst the bank of elevators. It had no buttons and would stop at every floor and our guide explained this to me  that on the day of Shabbat which is a Friday for the Jews, you are forbidden from doing any work including pressing the button for an elevator, so you just got in and waited for it to take you to your desired floor, whether up or down . Wow that was something I’d never heard of.

The next day was very interesting. We went to this place, a town about 40 kilometres south of Tel Aviv called Ashdod. The facility where we went to had a very rigorous security setup and we had to go through a process of security checks before we could finally enter the building. So basically, we had come for a series of meetings with the designers of some equipment that the Indian Air force was procuring and we had to trash out whatever differences the Indian side had versus the Israelis who were providing the equipment.

We were seated in a conference hall about 15 to 18 of us and if I remember on the 4th or 5th floor. The meeting was going on and  I remember that I was helping myself to a cup of coffee from a machine kept on the side and one of the Israelis was briefing to us using a PowerPoint presentation when all of a sudden there was a strange wailing siren which went off. Each and every one of the Israelis reacted like as if they had been shot up their butt,  they all stood  up and much to our surprise the head of the team shouted “drop everything and just run. Follow us”.  We were like What??? He screamed loudly “drop everything and follow us right now”. So we just left everything and ran behind them. We all jogged down the corridor and went down about two flights of stairs and into a corridor which connected two buildings and that is where we came to a stop. We could see that it was filled with people and all of them seem to be taking shelter over there so I turned to one of the people I had made friends with and asked him what the hell was going on

He explained to me that the wailing siren indicated the area was under an aerial attack and that everyone must take shelter. Most likely it was that rockets had been fired from the Gaza Strip towards Ashdod which had been picked up by their Iron Dome security system and the tracking system of Iron Dome had predicted that Ashdod was under threat and had automatically activated the alarms and we were all taking shelter in a bomb proof section of the building. Gaza Strip is a narrow rectangular piece of land south west of Ashdod by about 30-40 km and is entirely populated by the Palestinians.

He then asked me to carefully listen out and in a couple of minutes I could hear a few booms and he explained to me that this was the sound of their ballistic missile defence shield (Iron Dome) firing their missiles and guiding it to intercept the incoming rockets, I was seriously impressed. We waited there for about 15 to 20 minutes till the all clear siren went off and then we went back to the conference room and continued the meeting as if nothing had happened. This kind of an action happened another 3 times in those three days of meetings that we had and each time it was the same protocol that we had to follow. I read in the newspapers the next day that the Derby missile which is part of the Iron Dome had managed to intercept almost all of the rockets which had been fired from the Gaza strip and had a success rate in excess of 90%, which was fairly impressive and the casualties were in single digits.

 

Other than the fact that our meeting was constantly interrupted because of the rocket attacks, there wasn’t anything very remarkable which happened. I did experience the hospitality of the Israelis and taste their food. Being a vegetarian, I did not have high hopes, but boy was I surprised. Their Falafel, Hummus, eggplant and Cous Cous was superb as was their version of Baklava.  The Israelis are easy going, informal and laugh easily. They also keep plowing you with a lot of Israeli /
Turkish coffee, which is strong, black and bitter with a strong cardamom or hazelnut flavour. On the last day, we were given a choice of a small outing, either the Dead Sea or Jerusalem. I instantly opted for Jerusalem, since it was the fountainhead of 3 great religions of the world, Judaism, Christianity and Islam.

 

 The drive to Jerusalem was very interesting. The entire country is almost brownish in colour, fairly arid and reminded me of Rajasthan. However, there are intensely green and well cultivated and fairly large pockets where their villages were. The country seemed to have excellent infrastructure and, in most aspects, reminded me of USA though a much smaller version. I did notice, when we were crossing areas in the West Bank, it almost felt like we were either ourselves in a prison or driving through a path carved within a prison. On both sides of the highway was barbed wire fencing, ironically it reminded me of Moses as he paved a path between the waters of the sea, only here it was barbed wire fencing instead of the sea.

 

Jerusalem is an undulating city, with small hillocks and valleys and the main part of the city, at least the touristy part we were taken to is in a bit of a valley. As you crest the hill, what stood out was the Dome of the Rock, like a shining golden beacon. It is believed that it was here that the Abraham offered his son Ishmael or Isaac (to the Jews and Christians) to God as sacrifice. This is one of the

holiest sites for the Jews, even though the Dome of the Rock is essentially a mosque, since the Jews believe that this was the site of the First and Second Temple and God has manifested here more than anywhere else. The same compound also houses the Al Aqsa Mosque. It is believed to be one of the holiest sites of Islam since Prophet Mohammad is to have been transported to heaven from here.

 

We climbed up an escarpment which led us to the Wailing Wall.  This is a very holy place for the Jews and you can see a number of Jews almost leaning against the wall with their eyes closed in prayer. It was here that I learned that Jews could be broadly divided into two types, the religious (which has further subgroups amongst them) and the secular. The religious Jews either wore long black 

dresses with a black top hat or a traditional dress (generally black) with a skull cap, a yarmulke (much smaller than the one the Muslims wear). Almost all of them have beards and long hair. I noticed that many of these men had their hair in curls as they fell by their cheeks, our guide explained to me that when these men study their Talmud, it could get monotonous and their concentration tends to waver and they doze off. To prevent this, they are taught to run their fore finger in a circular fashion in their hair which tends to form curls. Interesting!!!  Unfortunately for us, we couldn’t visit the Dome of the Rock, nor the Al Aqsa mosque which adjoins it, as this is permitted only on certain days. It was evening time and we could hear the Azaan, the call for the faithful Muslims to prayer, as a dashing bride in all her finery hurried across the square along with her friends. In her wedding attire, I couldn’t make out if she was Christian, Jew or Palestinian, whatever she was she looked happy to embark upon a new phase of life. She bestowed a happy smile upon us as I took a photograph and suddenly, I felt a touch on my elbow. It was our guide reminding me that we still had another religion to witness.

 

 

The Via Dolorosa or the Path of Sorrow or Suffering as the Christians call it is said to be

the path taken by Jesus as he bore his own Cross on his shoulders till Calvary where he was crucified. It is a narrow-cobbled path hemmed in by stone buildings on either side. At each of the Stations, there is a plaque which tells the details of what happened to Jesus at that point. You can see a stream of solemn and quiet Christians, many of them with walking sticks hobble along, feeling the pain that Jesus felt as he bore the sins of his brethren. The Via Dolorosa finally led to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. This again counts as one of the holiest sites of Christianity as it is believed that Jesus was buried and resurrected here. For a place of such importance in the history of Christianity, it is a rather non-descript cul-de-sac. A fairly small building, one has to climb a few steps to enter. The interiors of the church is at sharp contrast to its ordinary exteriors and consists of richly painted walls and dome, the floor has dazzling marble and there are many gold painted figurines of Mary and Jesus on the Cross. There are elaborate lanterns and candle stands, with the air heavily laden with the smells of myrrh and 

frankincense.  There is a simple stone platform, on which Jesus is believed to have been laid to rest and I could see a number of reverent Christians as they silently wept tears, both of sorrow and joy as they kissed the platform. I have seen this kind of solemn prayer and the faithful immersed in self inquiry only at one other place, the Harmandir Saheb or the Golden Temple as it is more famously known.

 

 

I was giddy with the sense of history which surrounded and enveloped me as I realized that 3 of the major religions of the world jostled with each other for space within a few hundred metres of each other, often violently, throughout history, right up till today. The irony of the disharmony between religions became all the more apparent as we climbed down the steps from the Temple Mount. I saw a few bearded young men lounging around the gate. One of them saw me, pointed me to the rest of his companions and exclaimed “Amitabh Bachan, Amitabh Bachan” Though I felt ecstatic at being compared to India’s silver screen God, I immediately realized that they meant Indian and I gave the traditional Hebrew greeting of Shalom, meaning Peace. Instantly I could see a mask of hostility, of dismay and resentment come over them and one of them quietly replied “Salaam Alai Kum”, meaning peace be unto you. I realized I had mistaken the Palestinians for Jews and wondered at the irony; both the words meant peace but it was anything but………