Soft Power: The woman who sent me the moon

Culture, not politics, is our destiny. Beneath all the trappings of modernity, we still live by the old Hindu seasonal lunar calendar. This is what I realised when I landed in Indore last Thursday (10 November). I was surprised to see the whole city lit up and decorated. The driver from hotel said, “Today the Gods are returning to our world after a break. “Yuh samajhiye ke devata jag gaye hain.” As we drove through the city, several families were at their doors lighting lamps. There was an innocence and charm in their hopeful faces so missing in big cities.

I realised that the driver was referring to Prabodhini Ekadashi, a very auspicious day in the Vaishnav calendar. Also called Devotthan Ekadashi, this is the 11th day of the month of the lunar calendar, which this November, almost exactly coincided with the current Gregorian calendar. It is on this day when Chaturmas, the four-month period of stationary residence of monks and wanderers ends. Lord Visnhu is supposed to be resting from Shayani Ekadashi to Kartik Shukla Ekadashi or Kartiki.

With this the marriage season also starts. No wonder I had seen may lit pandals and festooned “function palaces”; hence the band, baja, and baarats. This is also the day of the marriage of Tulsi and Vishnu, when Tulsi vivah is also conducted. 

Facts, I soon realised, are actually not only stranger than fiction, but can outdo myths too. That’s because I got a jocular email “proposal” from an incorrigible non-believer in marriage. No surprise that I had never even met her in person or that in the same breath, she argued vehemently against marriage and all forms of bondage. When I didn’t respond, she sent pouty faces, spelled out because she found no suitable emoticons.

Soon after Ekadeshi, the 11th day of the bright fortnight, is Purnima, full moon day. Kartik Purnima, also called Tripuri and Tripurari Poornima, commemorates Shiva’s victory over Tripurasura. Shiva accomplished this impossible feat by shooting his pashupatastra as the straight, single arrow that destroyed the three asura forts the very moment when they were predestined to merge for just one moment. The story is about the destruction of the three-fold or three-body ego, who wishes to live forever. In the Tamil version, he slayed all the demonic forces with a mere smile. This day is sometimes called Deva-Diwali or Deva-Deepawali: the Gods were so exultant that they celebrated the victory with a festival of celestial lights.

As the auspicious weekend neared, I reached Bhopal for the huge “Lokmanthan” at the premises of the Mantralaya or legislative assembly. There were more lights, sounds, sights, and of course, speeches and discussion meant to showcase not just right-centre intellectual calibre, but native and tribal arts, crafts, and traditions. The gods were not only awake but on the move.

Just then, my prospective bride wrote: “So we are to be ‘married’ before we meet? I love it. This is like pre pre bride and groom not meeting each other before marriage. Like a mail order bride or something from Russia.” I was intrigued: why this declaration from one who claimed to be the champion of the unspoken pact? 

She sensed my pique. “I’ve annoyed you. So I’m promising you the moon. It should reach you shortly,” she said. I looked outside the balcony of my hotel room. The property was a real palace and overlooked the big lake from atop a hill. It was a lovely evening, but no moon. My correspondent asked, “Is she there? Do you look more forgiving by her light? In the dipping day, does my mess seem more kitten in ball of wool than damned headphones?

And are your fingers more amused by the endless disentangling that awaits them? Perhaps, submissive strings are better. Tie them up between fixed bridges—marriage, child birth, the 60th—and they play those fixed harmonies I never will.” Oh, she wrote so well and was so clever.

From Bhopal, I went to Varanashi, or Kashi, the city of light of atmabodha, as Adi Sankara put it. “How utterly symbolic,” she messaged, “that the ‘groom’ would run off to Kashi ... Do you want my dad to call you and stop you?”

“The groom only threatens to, but is prevailed upon to stay,” I replied. She texted: “Why doesn’t the woman just run away to Kashi with him? So much simpler.” I responded: “What! And deny the father of the punya of kanyadaan?” 

And then it was Kartik Purnima, also Guru Parav, celebrated as Guru Nanak’s birthday. In a slumbering India dominated by foreign invaders, the great Guru, like Vishnu the protector and sustainer, had woken up to save his disciplines. I was on a boat with a gaggle of college girls going downstream to see the famed Ganga aarti. Every home and every ghat on the river was lit up. The low-hanging full-moon was massive, almost blood-red. 

We jostled with many boats, some filled with, and specially kitted out for, white foreigners. Soon we were right beside the Dashaswamedh Ghat, where the beautifully choreographed aarati was to take place. I stood above the crowd on the prow and felt myself go into a difference space-time, removed from our mundane world. Only the immensity of the non-fragmented mind could apprehend the whole of reality without reacting to its contradictions.

I took a picture of Karthik full moon and sent it to her from my phone: “There I’ve returned your moon to you, only ampler and more auspicious.” She messaged back immediately, “Don’t take sannyas pls. no matter how much you love it there. At least for another few years…” 

We Indians are emotional people; that’s why the moon, not just the sun, rules our lives.

The author is a poet, and Professor of English, JNU.