Mi tar korde paashaan

 


In the last post I shared a photo of my handwritten notes for the bath time chants. Some readers with a keen eye noticed 1987 on top of the page. 


In the early to late eighties I was in Mumbai for college education. Those days I would frequently visit Anna Sathe of Vijay Stores in Vile Parle, who was my uncle. Many times during those visits I would end up staying with them for several days at a time. One morning after I woke up Anna observed that I brushed my teeth and came to the kitchen for breakfast. He was furious. What kind of young lady are you ? Don’t you say prayers after waking up? He took a pen and paper and wrote down three or four shlokas on it and prescribed them for me to chant each morning before I eat or drink anything. 

Vakratunda Mahaakaaya Sooryakoti sama prabha I 
Nirvighnam kurume deva sarva kaaryeshu sarvadaa II

( O God with the twisted mouth/ elephant trunk, large body and the effulgence of a million suns,
May all good tasks always be fulfilled without obstacles πŸ™πŸΌπŸ™πŸΌ)

Gananaath Saraswati Ravi Shukra Brihaspati
Panchaitaani Smarennityam Veda vaani pravartate
 
( The Vedas proclaim that one must always keep five divine powers/ deities in the mind: Ganesh the God who removes obstacles and brings auspiciousness, Saraswati the Goddess of Learning, Ravi/ Sun who removes darkness, Shukra/ Venus who promotes all skills and Brihaspati/ Jupiter/ Guru who is the Preceptor of the Gods, the ultimate teacher). 

Gurur Brahma Gurur Vishnu
 Gurur Devo Maheshwaraha 
Guruh saakshaat ParaBrahma
Tasmai Shree Gurave Namaha 

( The hymn that declares that the Guru is God Himself and therefore one must surrender and humble himself/ herself to the teacher to receive blessings of knowledge)


Saraswati namahstubhyam
Varde Kaamirupini
Vidyarambham karishyaami 
Siddhir bhavatume sadaa

( i prostrate myself to Saraswati. May she carry all my learning ventures to fulfillment).

Sarvepi sukhinah santu
Sarve santu niramayaha 
Sarve bhadraani pashyantu
Maa kaschit dukkha bhaa bhavet 

( May all attain to happiness, good health and prosperity and be freed of all sufferings)

It was embarrassing to be admonished by Anna at that age but Anna’s words were my command. I faithfully began to say these prayers since that day. I did express a grievance later to my father for not passing down to me what he was taught to do in his childhood. My father till the end of his life continued to do snaan-sandhya, chanting the traditional stotras during and after his bath and doing the rituals, puja of the idols of deities at home after bathing. But he never thrust the rituals on me or my siblings. It was Anna who impressed upon me the value of these prayers and rituals. 

I went and bought a book about rituals and took upon myself to learn the prescribed shlokas starting from Karagre vasate Lakshmi to the bathing prayers to prayers chanted at dusk( shubham karoti kalyanam) to the bedtime chanting of Ram Raksha. 

Living away from parents starting at age 15 wasn’t easy. The challenges kept mounting after entering medical school. The huge curriculum was daunting by itself and the invisible pressures of competitive classmates did not make things easier. 

Out of all the years so far I would consider that 1987 was the most life changing year for me in many ways. I was in the final year of MBBS at the time. There were pressures on the head from the final exam due in October that year. About a month or so prior to the exam my mom suffered a seizure and cardiac arrest. Having a physician husband to witness the episode made the difference between life and death. She survived that event. Severe headaches preceding that incident for several months raised more concerns than before. My father’s suspicions proved right. CT scans revealed a fairly big sized tumor at a critical location in her brain. It had to be removed. The surgery was not going to be easy. 

The entire episode from her initial cardiac arrest to recovery from surgery threw me off track from the focus on my exam. I deferred taking the exam for 6 months. All my friends and classmates sailed past the exam in the mean time. I was left behind to study by myself in the dark room of the ladies hostel. Those were days filled with loneliness, despair and depression. 

It is in the darkest times that the seeds are sown for the future in sunshine. In those days of despair I tried to hold on to anything and everything that seemed to instil hope, offer peace and showed a way for redemption. I was all of 22. I began to feel like a sinner whose past karma was coming to fruition and that’s why everything was going wrong in life. 

Those shlokas of snaan vidhi ( bathing prayers) I chanted with the hope that my sins would be washed away. Now it brings a smile on my face to look back at the naΓ―ve behavior but at that time it was my lifeline. 

I had come to own a copy of the Bhagwad Gita a few years before that. With my rudimentary faculties I tried to nibble at the advice given in the book. “Be a friend to yourself. Don’t pull yourself down” Shri Krishna said in that book. I didn’t know how to be a friend to myself but I tried. “Keep doing your duties without expecting rewards“. I did the best I could at that time.

There were many challenges to come in later years. And all along these scriptural teachings and chants were like a strong rope to hold on to. 

I had added many more to my mental library along the way. By sheer chance or destiny I got introduced to the divine music of Smt MS Subbulakshmi after I moved to California. So much was her influence on me that I learned most of her stotrams by heart…. shiva panchakshar stotra, Ganesh Pancharatna stotra, Lakshmi Ashtottara, Naam Ramayan, Durga Pancharatna, Govindashtakam, Madhurashtakam, Bhaja Govindam. Her style of Raagmala( changing of the raga with each stanza) was so beautiful and enriching I just immersed into her songs. Her Hanuman Chalisa is like no other version. I know to sing her version fluently but I fumble if I attempt in any other tune. It’s the flow of her composition that my brain has learned to recite and reproduce from. So much was I drawn to her that I got my hands on nearly every recorded song / album of hers. I learned her Meera bhajans and other devotional songs. Even Tamil favorites like Kurai Ondrum Illai. My Tamil friends would invariably ask me to sing these at their homes. With great difficulty I managed to even get a copy of the movie Meera in which she had acted and sung all songs. It was my dream to meet her someday in person. I cried the day she left her mortal body. The dream to touch her feet would never be realized. But her music would never leave me. To this day each morning as I drive to and back from work hers are the only stotrams I hear in the car. They have only strengthened the ropes of my spiritual ladder. 

Seeing my leanings towards the spiritual compositions my mother in law introduced me to Das Bodh of Samarth Ramdas. She would do solo keertans at temples in Pune whenever she found time. I became an automatic successor to inherit all the spiritual literature she had possessed. Tukaram Gatha, Dnyaaneshwari , Eknathi Bhagwat soon entered my home. 

The effect of gathering the pearls from all these sources is that at some point it spills out into the open.
Many reached out to me after reading my recent posts with questions regarding how to study the Bhagwad Gita or simply with words of appreciation and/or encouragement to keep writing. To those who are young and find reading such spiritual subjects interesting I would encourage you to continue your journey with the study of these at a pace that is comfortable for you. The worth of diamonds becomes known after polishing. Similar it is with these gems. They will not fail you, that’s for sure. The ultimate benefit will depend on each person’s merit. Nonetheless, no one will ever miss out on becoming a better person than they were at the beginning of the journey. 

The perspective of viewing these treasures has changed considerably with the years for me. They are still supports to get through this life but they are also much more than that. They contain truths that continue to unravel each day and take me deeper into a dimension that I had not ever imagined existed. 

And ironically, the more I seem to understand the hitherto hidden meanings in these scriptural texts, the more empty I begin to find myself. As if it all stops at the intellectual level. Often it feels that at the level of assimilation and action I am not much wiser than before.

I remembered a funny anecdote my mother in law would narrate. Those years my father in law was posted in rural areas while my mother in law stayed with the kids in Pune. My husband being the youngest of all siblings didn’t get to see his father much and considered him an outsider, a guest whenever he visited Pune. When my MIL cooked Diwali faral( festive food) and started to pack it into tiffins to send with FIL, my husband would be very nervous. “ Don’t give him everything! Keep more for us! “ he would tell her in a hushed voice. 

After a flurry of writing about the wisdom of the shlokas recently I found myself in similar distress as my husband. I prayed to God “ please let more of the wisdom in those words stay in my brain than go to others “ πŸ™πŸΌπŸ™πŸΌπŸ˜ƒ. 

There is an old proverb in Marathi :
Dusryaalaa saange Bramha dnyaan 
Swataha korde paashaan! 

A person tries to share or teach scriptures to the masses while sadly, as often is the case, he/she is like a hard rock, impermeable and incapable of absorbing this wisdom within himself or herself. 

May I always bear in mind that when I think, write or utter anything it is more for myself than for anyone else. As Steve Jobs said “ Stay hungry! Stay foolish “! Let me never deceive myself that I know everything. For I know nothing. Mi ek korde paashaan !! 

Saree a simple Bengal taant cotton in a delightful shade of yellow. The flower and bee motifs woven with Jamdani technique are endearing. Although suitable in every way for spring or summertime, I pulled this one out on a cold and foggy winter day to bring some cheer. Matched it with a kalamkari print blouse in a contrast green color. 






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