A walk down the holy town

It was some years back that the verdict had come about Hinduism being a way of life. This has continued to an issue of debate. India has also seen the consolidation of right wing religious forces in the last two decades with communalism, both majority and minority, raising its head again and again. In order to see how much has the common man been affected by the diatribe of right wing preachers, I decided to visit the most sacred of Hindu places ---the Har ki pauri—at Hardwar on Shivratri eve.
The signals that come from the place are something that is not being reported and perhaps it never will be. A trip down crowded narrow market at the Har-ki-Pauri reveals what an ordinary Hindu stands for. Take for examples the books being sold at the stalls there. There are heaps and heaps of religious texts starting from various Upanishads and Puranas to the different Kathas. There are hundreds of Chalisas for sale. The Hindus continue to accord the status of God to forces that have been reformatory in nature. For the first time in my life I saw a Chalisa dedicated to Sai Baba. Then there are hundreds of books available on occultism, tantra, mantra Siddhis and such stuff.
And at the same time these stalls are selling books which are bang opposite in content to those listed above. There are books on Kabir and Raskhan on sale which are picked up by the devout visiting the place with same fervour as they would pick up a copy of the Gita or Ramcharitmanas. I was surprised to see Saadat Hasan Manto's short stories up for sale. Right besides this was the copy of a book entitled 'Khallas---A to Z to Indian Underworld' and then there were small booklets on doctor jokes, female jokes and the likes. All this gets sold under one roof and the amazing part is that quite a few of these stalls are run by Sikhs. Those running the stalls say that most of their customers, who come from all corners of the country, do seek religious books but at the same time they pick up other stuff. Kabir and Raskhan continue to be some of the best sold books.

As one approaches Har—ki—Pauri, one is greeted by cacophony of blaring music. It takes time for a person to realize that the ruckus is the result of a series of stalls selling audio and video CDs and DVDs. These are mainly religious. It was enlightening to see a series of new DVDs being played on the Shivratri eve about Lord Shiva and Goddess Parvati. Most of these were remixes of popular bollywood songs. It came as a little surprise that one of the numbers belted out in the form of a hymn turned out to be a video based on the popular Bollywood number Billo Rani from the film Goal. Instead of seeing actress Bipasha basu dancing around John Abraham, here was someone dressed as Parvati dancing around Shiva. Nobody even batted an eyelid!!!
More surprising was a video that showed a tiny tot Lord Shiva driving up to a tiny tot Parvati in a toy car and singing "Gaura (one of Parvati's names) baith bolero mein, main to teri khatir laaya (Gaura come and sit in this Bolero that I have brought specially for you). The quizzical look on my face was addressed by an old woman, probably from eastern Uttar Pradesh with the words,"The times have changed. I do not think there is anything wrong if youngsters take the name of the Lord in any way they feel like. After all cars and music are a part of our life today, so what if a spiritual touch is given to them." I wonder why the entire right wing moral brigade creates a ruckus over one odd painting by M.F. Hussain or one odd thing that comes up somewhere and is deciphered to be anti Hindu and hence anti India.
The same market sells a lot of cheap toys that are replicas of the ones that are available in big shopping Malls in the metros. One can easily come across a cheap replica of a Barbie Doll, a laughing Buddha and a Ganesha being sold at a similar price of Rs 10. "It is affordable," said a man smiling to me as he went on to purchase one of them. Before I could ask him anything, he told me himself,"I belong to Najibabad and have just lost my job in Punjab due to the melt down. But tradition demands that I cannot go back home to my grandson empty handed and hence I am purchasing this."