Dakshineswar

We set off in darkness, before the crack of dawn. The rickshaw puller we had hired the previous evening, was  outside, curled up, sleeping in his rickshaw. It was a  strange, indescribable feeling, traveling through the slowly awakening town, on our way to Dakshineswar. It was one of my coveted destinations. I had been there as a child but the memories had faded. One of the most revered shrines for Bengalis. Home for Dakshina Kali and her beloved son, Ramakrishna.

We saw people on their morning walks. A man, scattering handfuls of grains for the birds,as he walked along.When we reached the temple premises, the shops selling the pooja thalis had begun to open. We bought one. Heaps of  blood red jaba (hibiscus) flowers lay on the shop counters. It was magical for me . To see the room  Ramakrishna lived in. His bed, his personal possessions. The balcony where his beloved Mother had first appeared to him in person. He had seen Her standing there, hair unbound, looking at the Ganges as it flowed nearby.

The door to the sanctum sanctorum had not yet been opened.There were only a few people around. And from the way they exchanged pleasantries with each other, they appeared to be regular visitors who probably lived in the neighborhood. I envied them in my heart. Living so close to such a place. Being able to visit whenever they wanted to. Such good fortune! While I lived in the hot desert sands of a mid-eastern country. Arid in so many ways.

 The sun had not yet risen and the frenetic activities of the day had not yet begun. In the early morning light, I sat on the temple steps. A few hundred pigeons were perched on the temple domes.Groups of them taking flight all of a sudden and then settling down.And then a mangy looking stray dog came, lay down right next to me, and appeared to go to sleep.

My impulse was  to move away but I willed myself to keep sitting there. Somehow, it did not seem right to move away, sitting as we were, a few steps away from the shrine of the universal Mother. And I noticed that no one was shooing him away. The people, the regulars were talking to him, asking him to move a bit, give way, as though he was one of them, a familiar friend, a fellow human being. Speaking to him and treating him with tenderness, affection.

And why not, I thought. He was as much Her child as any of us were. And had as much right to be where he was as any of us had.

The shrine doors opened and the worshiping began. I too stood in the queue and paid my obeisance to the Mother.

Since then, I have visited many other famous temples and magnificent churches in India and abroad. But the memory of sitting there on the steps of Dakhshineswar temple, with the mangy, stray dog, is the holiest one I have.