When Durga comes home for an all too brief visit
Over the years life has changed in India, so has the way we celebrate our festivals. Tradition is hostage to a long-forgotten past. What remains unchanged is the blossoming of kaash phool
Where I live, far away from the madding crowds, kaash phool grows in great abundance in vacant housing plots, by the sides of eerily empty roads, and the open fields that stretch into the hinterland of western Uttar Pradesh. This is the season when kaash blossoms, the graceful long stems with white feathery flowers swaying gently in the breeze under a cobalt blue sky. Those readers who have seen Satyajit Ray’s classic film Pather Panchali (Song of the Road) would remember the memorable scene where Apu and Durga race through a field of kaash phool as a train with a steam engine chugs by in the background.
The idyllic though impoverished rural landscape of Bibhutibhushan Bandopadhyay’s 1929 novel, on which Ray based his eponymous film, does not exist anymore. Like steam engines, idioms that once upon a time defined life vastly different from the one we live now, have long disappeared. What remains are memories that come alive occasionally, as they do for me when I chance upon the first cluster of kaash this time of the year.
There was a vast open field, uneven and part rocky, the iron-rich soil a rust red, beyond the boundary wall of the industrial colony in which I grew up in Jamshedpur. The field gently sloped towards the sandy bank of Subarnarekha whose dark, still water gave no indication of the swift undercurrent of the river sinuously snaking its way towards Domohani at the other end of town where its robust lover, Kharkai, would be waiting to passionately embrace it.
The field would wear a barren look during winter, dry leaves rustling in the cold breeze that blew down the Dalma hills; in summer, the rust red soil would simmer in the heat. When the rains came, as they did every year in an incessant downpour, the river would swell. On the other side was a steep incline, ancient rocks standing sentinel over an ancient land. Tall saal trees cluttered the land beyond.
Corrupt officials had not spotted the virgin forest till then and contractors were yet to descend with their chainsaws to fell the trees held sacred by Mundas. The river could not spill onto the far bank, so it would breach the bank facing our colony. By mid-monsoon the field would be inundated and often the flood water would lap at the boundary wall of our colony. And just as suddenly the rains would cease, the sky would clear and the water would recede.
Within days the barren field would look green, the rain-moistened soil sprouting green shoots of grass that would grow tall in thick clusters as monsoon gave way to autumn and mellow sunshine filled the lazy afternoons of small town Jamshedpur.
In the backyard of our home, the shiuli tree would be in full bloom, the cool morning air redolent with the pungent sweet fragrance of its white flowers with bright orange stalks that would form a thick carpet on the mossy ground. Near the shiuli tree stood a sthal padma (land lotus or Hibiscus mutabilis) bush, its supple branches laden with light pink blossoms that would turn into a deep shade of shocking pink by sunset. In the front garden we had a custard apple tree which had grown from a seed thrown casually some years ago and now stooped over the wicket gate. After the rains we would spot custard apples that had miraculously appeared on its branches; the bats would have a go at them even before they could ripen.
In the northern plains the monsoon is followed by a spell of dry weather, the days are hot and the nights cool. And soon it’s winter when fog hangs heavy during both day and night. But in east India the season changes in a more graceful manner, like a slowly revolving kaleidoscope. Barsha gives way to sharat, best described by Keats’s Ode to Autumn: A season of mists and mellow fruitfulness. That’s when Bengalis celebrate their biggest festival, Durga Puja, and reassert their cultural identity which is increasingly wearing thin.
By the time Kali Puja (Diwali) is celebrated, hemanta sets in. The days begin to get shorter and the nights, damp with shishir (dew), longer. This is followed by smoky winter, an all too brief chilling of the weather. By the time the Dahlias begin to blossom in their pots, basanta, or spring, is in the air, followed by grishma, or summer. And then the rains arrive, completing the cycle of seasons.
Life in Jamshedpur was, to a great measure, regulated by the seasons of the year. During summer and monsoon, school would begin and get over early. The rest of the year classes would start at nine in the morning and stretch till three in the afternoon. But some things wouldn’t change. For instance, throughout the year dusk would be heralded by girls practising their music — the plaintive strains of a hundred harmoniums would rise in unison in our colony, accompanied by a cacophony of sa-re-ga-ma-pa-dha-ni-sa. As darkness settled, lovers would surreptitiously meet in the service lanes, hoping to avoid the prying eyes of mashimas, pishimas and kakimas (mothers would be blissfully unaware) who would take it upon themselves to keep a watch on the young and the daring.
But we digress. The thick clusters of tall grass dotting the field would send up feathery silver stalks that would gradually turn snow white, overwhelming the green of the leaves, and sway gently in the breeze. Nothing could be more delightful than the sight of kaash phool. It meant various things to various people in our colony. For the men, it signalled the arrival of annual bonus day. For their wives, it marked the beginning of Puja shopping. For the 20-something layabouts, of whom there was no dearth, it was time to start working on the colony Puja. For us children, it meant school would soon shut down for a month-long Puja vacation.
The community Durga Puja, compared to what we see today, was a humble affair. A hugepandal would come up on the football field, very geometric and functional. At one end was the mandap, in the middle was a raised stage where jatra was performed, the other end led to an open space where people, usually the 20-something layabouts, lounged around, surreptitiously smoking cigarettes and furtively trying to establish eye contact with girls in their late teens as their mothers, exuding the heady smells of Jabakusum hair oil, Himani Snow and Kanta scent, kept an eagle eye. Layabouts did not make good potential sons-in-law.
The idol would invariably be a traditional ekchaalaa protima — Durga, Saraswati, Lakshmi, Kartik and Ganesh resplendent in daaker saaj (glittering tinsel; in times past the foil would come from distant Europe, possibly Germany, by daak or post, hence daaker saaj). The dhaakis, my grandmother discovered one year, were descendants of refugees from her hometown in East Bengal; she couldn’t stop weeping after that and insisted on getting photographed with them. A black-and-white print exists somewhere at my parents’ home. There were no sponsored stalls or fast food counters. Old Dukhiya would shift his alu-kablitrade from a nearby handiya shop to the open space outside thepandal for four days and business would be brisk.
Nobody cooked at home during the Puja days as all meals became community lunch and dinner; steaming hot bhog was served on platters made ofsaal leaves (what we would call eco-friendly disposable plates today) that made the food far more tastier than it probably was. My father’s garage would be appropriated and turned into a dressing-cum-make-up room for the jatra artistes. The stars, of course, would use our bedrooms and emerge looking their parts. Neither Nal nor Damayanti had looked either dashing or so charmingly demure when they got off the bus that ferried the jatra team from town to town during the ‘season’.
All that and more, of course, now belong to the realm of distant, fading memories. What remains unchanged is the blossoming of kaash phool. It grows wild where I live, far, far away from Jamshedpur.
(The photograph is by Subrata Majumdar.)
