It was some cosmic coincidence that the "Ekadasha Shraddha" or the 11th day Ritual of my mom coincided with the "Mother's Day" as per the Gregorian Calendar. This was my first ever Mother's Day without my mother. I celebrated the occasion by giving my heart to her soul, religiously doing the 4 hour ritual with she in my mind, her photo adorned with flowers smiling at me. There is no words left in my vocabulary repertoire to describe the void she has left in my life. In the process of doing my "Kriya Karma", I got familiar with many aspects of the ritual. Learnt the trick of Sabhya (civilized) and Asabhya (uncivilized) mode of changing the Paita (sacred thread worn by Brahmins) from left to right and right to the left respectively.
The 11th Day Shraddha was arguably the most gruesome day of the "Kriya Karma" with one long procedure during the day, followed by a walk in the evening to the "PINDA KUNDA" (The dumpyard of the offerings to the soul) not far from where I live. The last and final ritual of the day was during night at a nearby dark place just outside our home. Finally, the long day ended at late night. I was glad that I could contribute in repaying a fraction of my debt to my mom, how meager it may be, fully aware that still I will carry the burden of her debt in this life and next.
The morning of the 11 the day, the day after I shaved off my head to become a skinhead, part of the "Dasah", the 10th Day Ritual, I took a lump of Shampoo on my palm in shower and before applying it on my head, I suddenly realized that I got no hair on my head to shampoo. It still feels weird to be skin headed as I have forgotten the last time I shaved off my head.
Human reflex actions could be embarrassing. I am now reminded of this incident not long ago at an European Airport. A Virgin Atlantic flight was about to take off and the names of passengers not boarded yet were called. An Air hostess swung by, shouting on top of her voice - "ANY VIRGIN HERE", obviously looking for some missing Virgin Airline passengers. Couple of girls raised their hands. Everyone close by started looking at them, some with chuckles and half baked smiles. The shy girls retreated to their privacy by dropping their heads over their smartphones to hide their embarrassment, still peeping through corner of their eyes. Non of them got up to board the flight. We humans are slaves of inadvertent reflex actions.
However skillful you may be, you can never be 100% accurate, especially in the art of inviting. We invited with 99.99% accuracy, but still missed couple of folks we wanted to invite. It was purely unintentional and inadvertent. So we had to profusely apologize to them. You may do your job with accuracy, but it's that .01% error is going to getcha.
The 12th Day Rituals were conducted during the day, followed by an evening event "Shradhanjali" in my mom's memory attended by around 250 people. After several days of gruelling rituals it was a fitting finale to the departed soul of my mom. When I left the venue looking at her picture, unknown to me few drops of tears fogged my eyeglass.
Goodbye mommy. The day you left I dreamt of you walking on green pasture. During the rituals I sincerely prayed for you to have a blessed next life, born in a place like New Zealand, the land of meadows, for you always loved nature. To steal this stanza from the famous Mukesh song in movie "MERA NAAM JOKER",
"CHAHE KAHI BHI TUM RAHO,
CHAHENGE TUM KO UMR BHAR
TUM KO NA BHOOL PAENGE"..
Roughly transliterated...
"Wherever you are going to live,
I will long for you all my life,
Will Never forget you"....
No comments:
Post a Comment