The Goddess Kali
Daktari meditates in younger days The next morning I am allowed in at Baba’s compound for his once a week ‘guru puja’ – devotions at the feet of the guru. An event not to missed on my short stay in India.
First I devote myself to the “All-in-One” personal hygiene station from whence I emerge ‘clean clear through and deodorized too’. I note that I have picked up a disturbing cough. Initially, I attribute this to a virus from the flight. But then I cough a loogie of dark black phlegm. Yucch! Later, I realize that the air in Kolkata is so polluted with soot that coughing black sputum is a normal morning event like brushing one’s teeth. “Too many diesel farts from too many auto rickshaws,” I surmise. Even one’s boogers are black in Calcutta.
This seems appropriate since the city of Calcutta is named for the goddess Kali. Kali, in Sanskrit, is the feminine of Kala or black. She is the Hindu goddess of death and destruction. In union with Lord Shiva she creates or destroys worlds. The Tantric approach to Kali is to display courage by confronting her on cremation grounds in the dead of night, despite her terrible appearance. Meditation in cemetaries at midnight is one of the spiritual practices recommended by my guru. Needless to say, I have never had the courage or the opportunity to actually confront Kali on these terms.
All the people I meet tell me it is too bad that I have missed her annual festival – the Kali Puja – by just one week. However the decorations are still up and everywhere one sees statues of Kali – her open mouth dripping blood, a necklace of human skulls round her neck and covered by her devotees with garlands of marigolds.
As I walk down the main thoroughfare away from the Hotel Bliss, a Bengali tradesman beckons to me. At first I don’t think he means me. So I point to myself in the universal gesture for, “Who me?”
He gives a vigorous Bengali head nod and I stroll over to his roadside ‘duka’ (informal stall or shop). As I approach he reaches under the counter and proudly brings out a battered brown plastic water bottle. Sure enough, it’s my canteen! He must have seen me drop it and he has kept watch over it until I returned. I offer to give him something but he refuses any reward. I perform ‘namaste’ greeting and shake hands vigorously to show my gratitude.
Believe it or not, Calcutta is one of the friendliest and most polite cities I have ever visited. The streets of Calcutta seem to offer up examples of caring to visitors on every corner. My ‘canteen miracle’ seems to be just one of the many daily miracles in this municipality of the miraculous.
I arrive at the guru’s house just as the ‘guru puja’ ceremony begins. An intimate gathering of as many followers as can be crammed in a small gymnasium listens to Shri Shri Anandamurtiji give a lecture followed by his blessing. Baba is a small white-robed figure at the front of the assembly. It’s the first time I’ve ever seen him in person. How exciting. Unfortunately, the lecture is in Bengali and about two hours long. This combined with the body heat of a couple hundred attendees and my residual jetlag induces torpor and then sleep. Luckily I am not the only worshipper to conk out!
I do wake up in time to receive the guru’s blessing or ‘prasad’. This is a twist of newspaper holding a dollop of rice crispies blessed by the guru himself. (I was hungry but didn’t eat the prasad. Instead I saved the blessed rice crispies for two decades, then lost them when we moved to our new house about six years ago. The moral of this story re: rice krispies – if you got ‘em, eat em.)
Afterwards, my guru exits the lecture hall. Anandamurti is helped into the back of his black 1952 Packard sedan and then is whisked from the compound for his evening drive. We all wave ‘bye-bye’. Then a group of saffron robed monks organizes a 24 hour ‘kirtan’. It’s a sort of devotional dance marathon to Indian music. Participants chant and dance in relays for a full day and night. Very fun but I don’t want to stay all night. As evening falls I clutch my canteen and my small packet of holy rice krispies and walk back to the Hotel Bliss. In a fog of devotional good feeling, I forget to gather up the red plaid wool blanket from Scotland that I sit on for meditation. No miracle this time – it’s gone for good. In the spiritual seeker game – you win some and you lose some! Next installment - life on the streets.
First I devote myself to the “All-in-One” personal hygiene station from whence I emerge ‘clean clear through and deodorized too’. I note that I have picked up a disturbing cough. Initially, I attribute this to a virus from the flight. But then I cough a loogie of dark black phlegm. Yucch! Later, I realize that the air in Kolkata is so polluted with soot that coughing black sputum is a normal morning event like brushing one’s teeth. “Too many diesel farts from too many auto rickshaws,” I surmise. Even one’s boogers are black in Calcutta.
This seems appropriate since the city of Calcutta is named for the goddess Kali. Kali, in Sanskrit, is the feminine of Kala or black. She is the Hindu goddess of death and destruction. In union with Lord Shiva she creates or destroys worlds. The Tantric approach to Kali is to display courage by confronting her on cremation grounds in the dead of night, despite her terrible appearance. Meditation in cemetaries at midnight is one of the spiritual practices recommended by my guru. Needless to say, I have never had the courage or the opportunity to actually confront Kali on these terms.
All the people I meet tell me it is too bad that I have missed her annual festival – the Kali Puja – by just one week. However the decorations are still up and everywhere one sees statues of Kali – her open mouth dripping blood, a necklace of human skulls round her neck and covered by her devotees with garlands of marigolds.
As I walk down the main thoroughfare away from the Hotel Bliss, a Bengali tradesman beckons to me. At first I don’t think he means me. So I point to myself in the universal gesture for, “Who me?”
He gives a vigorous Bengali head nod and I stroll over to his roadside ‘duka’ (informal stall or shop). As I approach he reaches under the counter and proudly brings out a battered brown plastic water bottle. Sure enough, it’s my canteen! He must have seen me drop it and he has kept watch over it until I returned. I offer to give him something but he refuses any reward. I perform ‘namaste’ greeting and shake hands vigorously to show my gratitude.
Believe it or not, Calcutta is one of the friendliest and most polite cities I have ever visited. The streets of Calcutta seem to offer up examples of caring to visitors on every corner. My ‘canteen miracle’ seems to be just one of the many daily miracles in this municipality of the miraculous.
I arrive at the guru’s house just as the ‘guru puja’ ceremony begins. An intimate gathering of as many followers as can be crammed in a small gymnasium listens to Shri Shri Anandamurtiji give a lecture followed by his blessing. Baba is a small white-robed figure at the front of the assembly. It’s the first time I’ve ever seen him in person. How exciting. Unfortunately, the lecture is in Bengali and about two hours long. This combined with the body heat of a couple hundred attendees and my residual jetlag induces torpor and then sleep. Luckily I am not the only worshipper to conk out!
I do wake up in time to receive the guru’s blessing or ‘prasad’. This is a twist of newspaper holding a dollop of rice crispies blessed by the guru himself. (I was hungry but didn’t eat the prasad. Instead I saved the blessed rice crispies for two decades, then lost them when we moved to our new house about six years ago. The moral of this story re: rice krispies – if you got ‘em, eat em.)
Afterwards, my guru exits the lecture hall. Anandamurti is helped into the back of his black 1952 Packard sedan and then is whisked from the compound for his evening drive. We all wave ‘bye-bye’. Then a group of saffron robed monks organizes a 24 hour ‘kirtan’. It’s a sort of devotional dance marathon to Indian music. Participants chant and dance in relays for a full day and night. Very fun but I don’t want to stay all night. As evening falls I clutch my canteen and my small packet of holy rice krispies and walk back to the Hotel Bliss. In a fog of devotional good feeling, I forget to gather up the red plaid wool blanket from Scotland that I sit on for meditation. No miracle this time – it’s gone for good. In the spiritual seeker game – you win some and you lose some! Next installment - life on the streets.
