Maha Shivratri is one festival that brings with it an ecstatic fervour not found in other festivals. Devotion to Shiva is a perennial observance. Shiv bhakti precedes other observances as is evident from the Ramayana, Mahabharata and the Puarnas too. The third god of the Hindu Trinity is not only a destroyer but also a protector who, easily swayed by devotion to him, showers gifts on his devotees with abundance, said the old pandit of Hari Nagar’s Mohan temple last week. The princely rulers venerated him as he was the one who bestowed power which they venerated more than anything else because of their Kshatriya ancestry which marked them out as the warrior caste and the protectors of their ancient domain, where pigeons were not killed, as they were sacred to Shiva, and who learnt the story of creation from him while he told it to Goddess Parvati.
“Bhole Nath”, as he is fondly called, gives an idea of the innocent benevolence of Shiva. No wonder even on vans, trucks and other vehicles you will find the slogan, “Bhole ki fauj karegi mauj” boldly displayed. When Shivratri comes and people worship the bel leaves, they are harking back to the time when a hunter taking shelter on a bel tree kept plucking its leaves the whole night and throwing them down without being aware that in doing so he was unconsciously paying homage to Shiva on whose image below it fell, added the fasting panditji.
“Bolo bhai bam/Ke bolo bhayi bam/Ke bam Bhole” is the chant of the devotees who travel on Shivratri to distant Shivalayas to offer water to Shambo Nath, whose seat is in the snowy Himalayas. Armed with lathis and wearing vests and kacchas (underwear), they go about even in the dark to fulfil their mission without any fear, amid the cry of “Jai, Jai Shiv Shankar/Kanta lage na kankar”, Delhi has several Shivalayas, not counting the ones in Mehrauli where the Tomar and Chauhan rajas offered worship for power, strength and fortitude, as did Prithviraj Chauhan before the First Battle of Tarain against Mohammad Ghori, which he won — though he lost the second one because of treachery. A foreign tourist, David Sharpe visiting Delhi was fascinated by the small Shiv temples on the roadside, under trees with flickering diyas, and beneath the old city wall, where a lone sadhu sat in meditation for the whole night, quite unmindful of the wordly happenings, lost in thoughts of Shiva, cosmic dancer with the damru.
David Sharpe had come from Australia and what he saw amazed him. His interest was not in the new colonies but in the old ones — the mohallas of the Walled City where a white laddoo or a kulhar of dahi or milk was left by someone as a humble offering to Shivji. A Christian, he at first used to make the sign of the cross thinking that what he was seeing was a manifestation of devil worship but slowly light dawned on him and he came to realise that it was God who was being honoured thus in the quaint ambience of Shiv devotion. The photographs David took back home were not only a record of his rambles but a discovery he wanted to share with his folks about strange worship and practices of which his countrymen were naturally ignorant. Here is a note he left behind by him with this scribe in 1973:
“A sadhu sits trishul in hand at the gate of the Udaseen Ashram near the Kamla Market. His matted locks match his mien. Behind him on the cool ashram floor several inmates are either asleep or lying with an air of resignation that is peculiar to ascetics who drink bhang of Lord Shiva, whose ‘Bhagts’ they are. Hardly any sunlight seems to penetrate the place. Perhaps long ago when Delhi was still partly inhabited with a Pather Ghati in the centre, this ashram was just a mound below a tree where wandering sadhus set up abode for a while and went their way, like the Gauri Shankar Mandir which also came up on one such site.
“Now the place has an identity. Some of the sadhus are resident here and willy-nilly affected by the modernity of the Capital. There are among them those who go about with brief-cases and bifocals. Perhaps it helps to strike postures —a certain turn of speech, a gentle gaze, a fierce look, quick turning of the head, a gesture or a frown — all have a psychological effect on devotees.
“Among the ashramites are the sadhus who sing bhajans morning and evening. They move in a group, six saffron robed men who wake up the residents with the popular ‘Uth jag musafir bhor bhai’ (awake, oh traveller, for morning has come). In the evening the song is of a different kind with its emphasis on the introspection that comes when the day ends.
“But to see these men at the ashram is a different experience. Here they move about as individuals both old and young, the fierce looking and the gentle ones. The ones who sit at the gate look like the sentries of Shiva. These sanyasis do have an air of mystery. What secrets of life and death do they harbour?” David Sharpe of course doesn’t rattle the damru of Shiva in far-away Melbourne at Maha Shivratri or intone, “Arthi karo Shanker ki” but says he still relishes an evening at a Chandni Chowk shivalaya long ago while munching “rebaris” given as prasad.
