Revival ...

After merely two posts in 2006 when I started this blog, I had stopped. Plain lazy, nothing else.


It was in March 2006, that we - myself, Bharati Thakur (Nasik) and Ushaprabha Page (Pune) completed the Narmada Parikrama. March 12th we reached on the outskirts of Amarkantak, the same point where we had embarked on the pilgrimage. And on March 14, with a formal puja at Mai Ki Bagia, we completed the cherished dream.


With this post, I hope to revive the blog. In these many months that I was missing in action, a lot of things have happened. But just last week, I had gone to the Narmada banks. So I think, this can be a good time to think of revival of the blog. Narmade Har !!!

Index

1. Why Parikrama?
2. Narmada Parikrama
3. Revival

Narmada Parikrama

This seemingly unreal world was ours for nearly six months - five and a half to be precise. We -- just three ladies – walked approximately 2200 kms along the Narmada banks to complete one parikrama. Starting from its source, Amarkantak, we walked along the entire south bank first and then after crossing over by a mechanized boat on to the north bank at the maiyyaji’s confluence with the sea, we trekked back along the north bank to complete one circumambulation at Amarkantak.

Well, here’s some statistics for the uninitiated. Originating at Amarkantak, Narmada – the fifth largest river of India - is known as the lifeline of Madhya Pradesh. After flowing westwards for 1312 kms, the river, which is encased between the Vindhyas in the north and Satpuras in the south, empties itself into the Gulf of Cambay (Khambat).

`Narm’ is happiness and `da’ is a giver, hence Narmada is synonymous with pleasure giving, it’s a goddess who gives happiness to all. And how! Because you are a parikammawasi, you are treated with utmost reverence. Because you have undertaken the arduous trek, it is taken care that you do not face any trouble. People are just willing to feed you, offer you whatever you need and at times almost pester you to accept what they have to offer. Why?

“Nothing jarred in our relationship from start to finish and it was this river (Narmada), capable of arousing my love, that ultimately answered my basic question about the nature and personality of river goddesses. The answer being, that when you love, such intellectual enquiries hardly matter.” That was the famous travel writer Bill Aitken about Narmada river in his book “Seven Sacred Rivers”. Exactly what I too found to be true.

The chaiwala won’t take money from us as we are doing a punya kam. The boatman, who takes us across the nth stream which comes to meet the Narmada, refuses to take his charge. “Give whatever you think okey,” is all that he says when we insisted on paying.

I vividly recall a middle-aged lady sitting in front of her house chewing tobacco in a small village in Dindori district. Her husband had gone to take bath in `maiyyaji’, the nearest point being some 2 kms away. “We don’t call it a river. For us, it is the Narmada maiyya always,” the lady told us after asking her daughter to prepare tea for us.

That we were perfect strangers did not bother heras we were parikammawasis (one who undertakes the parikrama) and that was reason enough for her to help us. Not just this time, day in and day out, we experienced later, how maiyyaji is the central part of their lives, how it gives these simple people faith to withstand any adversity and how it becomes the pillar of strength for even those socially backward.
N I V E D I T A ...

Why Parikrama?

There goes this poem "Beyond the Sunrise"

Silence is the heart of all things,
Sound the fluttering of its
pulse,
Which the fever and the spasm
Of the Universe
convulse.

Every sound that breaks the silence,
Only makes it
more profound,
Like a crash of deafening thunder
In the sweet, blue
stillness drowned.

Let thy soul walk softly in thee,
As a saint
in the heaven unshod,
For to be alone with silence is
To be alone with
GOD.

(From the book `Silence as Yoga')

Perhaps "to be alone with the GOD" is one of the most important reason for which perennial nomads like me undertake various journeys. I concentrate on "adventure pilgrimage" (a term coined by me for the religious treks I go for once in a while).And what better than a `Narmada Parikrama' to get the benefits of so many things together.

You actually feel the presence of the divine power at every step, you can experience the solitude even though you may be in a group, the natural beauty can keep you hooked and the pollution-free environment rejuvenates you like no modern spas can do. The topping on the cake is the sweet innocent people on the Narmada banks who go to any extent to help you, to see that you don't face any trouble.

"Your real parikrama starts now!" was what a sadhu told me on the last day of my Narmada Parikrama. I kept on wondering as to what he meant by it till I touched Nagpur.

We travelled on foot by the river side, through woods and/or deep jungles, sometimes on barren rocks and also through `hare-bhare' khet khalihan, through small and big villages and some big cities too. Cutting across three states (MP, a portion of Maha and Guj), the river Narmada (maiyya as everybody call it), is the real `jeevan daayini' is what we saw, nay, actually experienced.

Indeed the parikrama did not complete there at Amarkantak, but now when I tell you all about it and almost re-live it, when I think about all those good souls on the Narmada banks who helped us and many such things, I feel I am still in parikrama mode.

That old saffron-clad `babaji', chanting Lord's name with a tulsi mala in his hands, sat in front of his simple thatched hut. Barely six-feet by eight-feet with a roof just so much above the ground that one can hardly stand, it can well pass of as the ancient hermitage amidst the jungle.

And whether you offer anything or not in front of the `Narmada maiyya's' idol besides him, he sees you off with a blessing and a twinkling smile with a benevolent look. Sure enough to confuse you which is the real world - the Narmada banks espousing mythological magic or the modern world where we are trying to dam the most ancient river of the world.

N I V E D I T A ...