Three Thousand Stitches Read online

  I sat back and my mind wandered over the journey of Bollywood from black and white to colour movies, from Prithviraj Kapoor to Ranbir Kapoor, and from the touring talkies that operated for only three months a year to the movie-on-demand access that we have today.

  Bollywood has graduated from being a part of the movie industry to becoming a vital partner when it comes to business generation. All in all, it is a great ambassador for our unique country.

  9

  Rasleela and the Swimming Pool

  Harikatha is a traditional art form from the state of Karnataka wherein a narrator or dasa, along with a small troupe, goes from village to village and shares stories from the Hindu scriptures and epics. When they visited my village, Shiggaon, the audience eagerly assembled in the temple for an all-night performance. Multiple stories were depicted through dance and to the tunes of tamburas. The enactment was dependent solely on the expertise of the narrator and the dance.

  One such evening, I accompanied my cousins to the Harikatha of Gopika Vastra Harana. The Harikatha dasa of this troupe was a well-known promoter named Gopinath who was known to portray stories from the Bhagavata Purana and deeply involve the audience. The stories would usually contain descriptions of Krishna’s mischief, his mother’s love and the cowherd girls’ (or gopikas’) adoration.

  That day, Gopinath began, ‘Everybody, please close your eyes. Today is a warm day in the wondrous city of Vrindavan. Come, walk with me to the banks of the river Yamuna. The water is cold, the lotuses are blooming and the river flows lazily. Once we are there, just look around you. You will see beautiful gopikas sauntering along. What is the colour of their clothes?’

  ‘Red and green!’ a young girl said out loud.

  ‘Yellow and orange,’ said another.

  ‘Now look at that big beautiful green tree near the river,’ said Gopinath. ‘The gopikas have changed into their bathing robes and left their dry clothes on the branches of the same tree. It is time for their bath and they get into the water and begin splashing each other. Now let’s search for Krishna. Where do you think he is?’

  ‘He’s behind the kadamba tree,’ someone shouted from the audience.

  ‘He’s next to Yashoda!’ said another voice.

  Gopinath continued, ‘Let’s approach Krishna. There he is—sitting on the high branch of a tree nearby and wasting his time.’

  ‘Oh, he is such a prankster,’ said a young girl from the troupe—one of the gopikas. ‘But I like him. He brings a smile to my lips. My mother, however, gets upset because he takes away all the butter from our home.’

  Then the troupe took over and the Harikatha continued.

  A woman added, ‘My mother-in-law has instructed me not to speak to Krishna because he drank all the milk in our house after entering through the back door.’

  A voice complained, ‘Whenever I take my pot to fetch water, he throws stones at it and breaks it. My husband is quite upset.’

  ‘We must teach him a lesson,’ insisted another from the troupe.

  ‘Krishna overheard all of this,’ interjected Gopinath, ‘and stealthily hid their clothes. Once the gopikas had finished their bath in the river, they walked over to the tree but alas! Their clothes were nowhere to be found! How would they go back home in minimal and wet clothing? Who had stolen their clothes? Just then, they heard melodious tunes that seemed to originate from above them. When they looked up, they saw Krishna holding their clothes in one hand and playing the flute with the other, with his eyes closed. Of course! He must have heard them complaining and decided to take revenge. He wasn’t going to return the clothes easily. So they began to plead with him. What did the women say?’

  A girl from the audience yelled, ‘O Krishna, please give back my sari.’

  ‘And mine too!’ shouted another. ‘It’s my favourite!’

  The women began giving descriptions, with their eyes still shut.

  ‘And that black sari with the red border is mine!’

  ‘Oh, please, give me that green and mango-coloured sari!’

  Gopinath was happy. ‘Ah yes, all of you have seen Krishna now,’ he said.

  The conversations between Krishna and the gopikas and the audience continued until they raised their hands and surrendered, ‘O Krishna! You are a kind-hearted boy and you understand our hearts. Please give us the saris. Otherwise we are left with no choice but to walk home in our wet robes. We are completely dependent on you.’

  ‘Krishna smiled and started throwing down the clothes,’ said Gopinath. ‘The gopikas wore their saris and after they were well-clothed, Krishna descended from the top and the dancing began.’

  The sounds of music and dance filled the air and the night ended on a joyful note. The Harikatha dasa told us to open our eyes. That’s when we found out that two and a half hours had passed.

  As a young girl, I had a vivid imagination. It was easy to visualize the flow of the river Yamuna, the pink lotuses, the bright and colourful gopikas, Lord Krishna and his naughty but compassionate face, and the music floating from his flute. I was enchanted!

  Years later, I went to Vrindavan. To my utter disappointment, the Yamuna was dirty and more of a rivulet than a full-bodied river. The place was now commercialized.

  Almost all the priests I observed were directing the devotees to a tree with pieces of cloth tied to it. ‘Lord Krishna sat on this tree and threw the clothes down to the gopikas,’ they said.

  Devotees bowed to the tree and tied a small piece of cloth to it.

  The image was not what I had associated with the story. So I closed my eyes and turned away. ‘I don’t want to see this and ruin my childhood images,’ I thought.

  I also realized in my adulthood that a story such as this might be considered harassment in the modern world. But the truth is that such a concept did not exist in the olden days. God is considered to be an omnipotent friend—someone who is approachable and whom we can speak to at any time and anyhow we choose. These tales are meant to bring out the human side of the Lord, while retaining the devotion towards him. So he is depicted as a naughty young lad, no more than eight years old, who enjoys spending time with his devotees and teasing them with love and innocence. This is why the women also play along until they completely surrender to the Lord—a gesture of faith after which he gives them whatever they need.

  Decades later, I became a grandmother to two little girls—Krishna and Anoushka. When they grew from toddlers to young children, I decided to share some of my childhood stories with them. I thought that they would visualize the scenes just like I had.

  One day, when I was playing with them in their residence in London, they asked me for a story. I told them the same tale of Lord Krishna and the gopikas. Since I had their attention, I added the story of Akshaya Patra too.

  ‘Draupadi was very hospitable and entertained many guests when she was living in Indraprastha. Unfortunately, due to a turn of events, she had to accompany her husbands on a long exile and felt sad that she could no longer take care of the guests like she used to.

  ‘Her husband, Yudhishthira, prayed to the sun god, Surya, and explained their difficulty in taking care of the guests. So Surya blessed them and handed them a vessel. “This is a special vessel known as Akshaya Patra,” he said. “You can use this to feed as many people as you want. But on one condition . . .”

  ‘“What’s that?” asked Yudhishthira.

  ‘“You can’t cook any food after the lady of the house has eaten. The vessel can be used again only after the next sunrise.”

  ‘Yudhishthira nodded.

  ‘Happily, Draupadi began feeding her visitors with different varieties of food.

  ‘Soon, the news of her pleasing hospitality reached Duryodhana’s ears, who felt jealous despite the fact that his cousins were in exile and led a much humbler life than they were used to. A few days later, the short-tempered sage Durvasa arrived at Duryodhana’s palace and was treated as an esteemed guest and given all that could be offered.