Searching for Human in Hanuman!
I have been wanting to write this piece for a very long time, in fact every time I see a picture of Lord Hanuman or see monkeys playing and jumping around on trees, I am reminded of my childhood and my conversation with my grandmother, which I recognize has become that watershed moment that has in fact laid the foundation stone for all that I understand and conceive of religion. My maternal grandmother was a very devoted woman and I observed her devotion towards all the gods by the way she had very meticulously arranged many figures and statues of various gods on a flat wooden platform covered by a mustard colour silk cloth. Her ‘Laddu Gopal’, her ‘Bhole baba’, ‘her Bajrangbali’ her ‘Golu Ganesh’ and many other figures had found a pride of place on that wooden platform. Everyday after bath she would sit in front of this stool and arduously bathe, wipe, reclothe, rearrange all these figures. I used to really envy her and her relationship with her gods as she would literally forget about all her grandchildren and engage herself in a never-ending conversation with these figures on her stool. I have seen her laughing, crying, singing, pleading, cajoling, and joking with them all. At that time, I had no idea about positive and beneficial aspect of that level of spirituality but whenever I used to witness her in that state of utter bliss it used to fascinate me and my ever wondering, questioning mind!
Now after all the experiences, education, work, and travel, I have understood the power of stories, and the influence all these gods’ figures had on my grandma’s psyche and on mine during that time.
In fact, many stories about these gods figure that kept my Grandma utterly devoted towards them, probably resembled her own life story, in many characters she was seeing all her children, grand children, friends, relatives, neighbours etc. that mattered to her!
Since I am writing this piece on the day of Hanuman Jayanti, I wish to narrate few interesting incidents surrounding Hanuman ji and my grandma. In the north Indian city where she lived it was a regular phenomenon to see large group of monkeys descending on the rooftops and courtyards of houses built in the narrow lanes and by lanes of the city. Normally the monkeys would choose the quietest hours of the day and that happened to be the afternoon hours, when the people of the city used to be inside their homes saving themselves from the blistering heat of north Indian summer! These monkeys would descend and create lot of chaos and havoc. They would take away things, break things or simply jump around scaring people. My grandma had a wooden pole to scare them off which she would bang on the floor and say, ‘lage lage lage lage’ to warn monkeys. I noticed that she at no point of time looked troubled by this whole experience! In fact, I saw her sometimes keeping water for monkeys to drink in a stone vessel or keep bananas or papaya for them to have. Monkeys were ruthless and unappreciative of the fact and whenever they could they took my grandma’s sari or her pickle jars etc. Those days we would visit our grandma during summer vacations, and we would witness this show by monkeys and my grandma’s patient attitude towards them every afternoon. I grew up watching this circus year after year and when I reached the age that I could question my grandma one day I asked her, “Nani, every day you pray Bajranbali but these monkeys still trouble you? They are also bajrangbali naa? Why do they trouble you?”
“Are lalli, tun naa jaane ye bajaranbali nahin ye to unki sena hai.” It meant that she believed that those monkeys were Hanuman ji’s army. She also told me that there were some mischievous people in the world, and they usually do not mean any harm similarly the ‘vanar sena’ also did not mean any harm according to her. “Kyun tu nahin ban jaati hai ‘laddu gopal’ jab apni mummy ko pareshan karti hai?” She would compare me to naughty Krishna, troubling his mother!
At that time, the significance of this interaction was not appreciated by me. I had no idea about religion, identity etc. But today I realize that my grandma had never spoken to me about my religion as such. She just took me along with her on a journey to the world of stories that in her head she was enjoying, the superheroes and super heroines she imagined to be gods and goddesses became like family to her and a way of life she wanted to believe in. The monkeys, the birds, the trees, the flowers became as much the part her life as ‘bajrangbali’ and ‘laddu gopal’ were. So sometimes I became ‘laddu Gopal’ and sometimes my brother became ‘bajrangbali’ when he tried to show some stunts! I understood that my mother, my grandmas all were basically celebrating life by being a link in the ongoing mythological story chain, where sun, moon, rivers, mountains, animals, flowers, and humans all were important and interconnected!
This legacy of appreciating everything found in the nature through bhajans and stories, I have always admired and appreciated. Hopefully, I have passed the same to my children to some extent. Today because it is Hanuman Jayanti, I am reminded of my grandma and I search for the ‘Human’ in ‘Hanuman’ and vice versa, as she used to do!