Indian festivals apart from being noisy and colourful succeed in stripping you off any extra cash you had stashed away under your pillow. The frequent visitors (not including family) make sure that you pay for everything from a clean road to an ironed shirt. I am referring to people who do their collection rounds on a Diwali weekend- from the sweeper lady, to the milk man to the watch man three streets away from your apartment. One such visitor was a young lad in his early twenties dressed as the Mighty Lord Hanuman himself.
It is not uncommon to see people dressed as Gods, singing hymns and asking for money. But it is uncommon to see an old lady telling off a God because he was getting the words of his hymn absolutely wrong. This old lady was my dear old Grandmother. While my Grandfather will have NONE of it when it comes to giving people money for their tuneless songs, my grandmother loves to collect Rs.2 coins just for such occasions. What happened that morning was quite amusing for everyone around except maybe for the Lord himself.
"Gurur Brahma, Gurur Vishnu.............."
A deep voice sung the Gurur Brahma hymn a couple of blocks away. As the voice grew louder and approached our ground-floor apartment, my grandmother's ears perked up as she collected her coin and made for the door. She called out to the the monkey-boy dressed in his finery (from my perch at the window, his costume looked quite impressive). She then asked him to repeat his slokas slowly several times (as if he was on detention) and then proceeded to let him know he had got most of it wrong. The poor lad's painted face turned a deeper shade of pink as he stammered something and ran for his life with his tail between his legs...
Having successfully hurt the Lord's feelings I wondered if he had climbed a tree to sulk for the rest of the afternoon?
Happy Deepavali!
It is not uncommon to see people dressed as Gods, singing hymns and asking for money. But it is uncommon to see an old lady telling off a God because he was getting the words of his hymn absolutely wrong. This old lady was my dear old Grandmother. While my Grandfather will have NONE of it when it comes to giving people money for their tuneless songs, my grandmother loves to collect Rs.2 coins just for such occasions. What happened that morning was quite amusing for everyone around except maybe for the Lord himself.
"Gurur Brahma, Gurur Vishnu.............."
A deep voice sung the Gurur Brahma hymn a couple of blocks away. As the voice grew louder and approached our ground-floor apartment, my grandmother's ears perked up as she collected her coin and made for the door. She called out to the the monkey-boy dressed in his finery (from my perch at the window, his costume looked quite impressive). She then asked him to repeat his slokas slowly several times (as if he was on detention) and then proceeded to let him know he had got most of it wrong. The poor lad's painted face turned a deeper shade of pink as he stammered something and ran for his life with his tail between his legs...
Having successfully hurt the Lord's feelings I wondered if he had climbed a tree to sulk for the rest of the afternoon?
Happy Deepavali!
2 comments:
lol. did he get the coin atleast?
interesting blog. It would be great if you can provide more details about it. Thanks you
Travels in Adyar
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