It’s season again for the magnanimous carnival of the Big Lord, the ultimate power – Lord Jagannath. The occasion always brings childhood memories to me. As a 10-year-old kid, I used to cycle round half the Balasore town, in his Tobu bike, partially naive of the significance of ghosha yatra but being a junkie glutton more transfixed to the street food and the hoopla attached to this festival.
“Meetings” for this cycling session used to begin literally from the day of the Debasnana Purnima, so that we do not miss on any corner of the uproar. Everything was just so grandly electrifying – the Lord’s ill health, getting bed ridden, anasara, getting well, getting ready, all decked up for the travel and His daily change of attire, just as we human beings do and act — that was the thing which captivated me the most. I faintly dredge up myself rationalising: “It would have been so good, if I too could have an attire transmuted daily without a repeat, that bountiful, that decked up and that condescending.” Vaguely did my infant mind know that I was in competition with the sovereign power of the universe.
Cycling down the barricades of the yatra route I would be charmed with the fine colourful art all through the chariot and the appliqué chaanduaas, managing enough to stir up my ingeniously silly mind (bumping often into small road mishaps) only to make a plagiarised miniature at home out of waste match boxes and paint them colourful during my vacations. Growing up in a small town and modern yet devout Brahmin family, further parented my roots and my rath yatra wisdom, as late in the evening we drove down for darshan at the Mausi Maa Baadi to offer worship. I would compete with my gang of friends to reach first after which we would lift both our arms high in the air, imitating veteran devotees but not exactly knowing the significance.
My career, struggle and melee time somehow kept me quite detached from the captivating rituals of rath yatra but eventually got me closer to the connotation of Jagannath and the clout of the nonpareil, by the clemency of whom we enact our lives, we fall down, topple to stand but gradually run, we dream every night and wakeup to live those dreams. My yearly darshan at the Bada Danda, Puri has been intact since years.
At this phase of life, Lord Jagannath is my confidant and I feel I understand the core meaning of this divine journey more closely and not just the attractive hoopla. I cherish the 2003 bahuda yatra — until when I was jostling and striving to warrant a livelihood, after college with a couple of ill-paid jobs and a hard-to-foster life in the fashion industry, barely knowing my imminence to my dream. The bahuda yatra day, marked the first whooping milestone of my career, being confirmed an apprenticeship under the legendary late Alexandre McQuin. Mahaprabhu and His leela is there for everyone, everywhere and at every phase of life. He doesn’t show his existence but leaves not a chance to prove it.
In 2007, my research and development work with the Isckon for a resort collection inspired by Lord Krishna and his acts (leela) got me more close to the transcendent base of this yatra and the existence of the Lord of the Universe, where in I was open to the rath yatras not only in various parts of India but also in Europe. My rath yatra experience in the UK, has been the most nostalgic and doubtlessly the most treasured moments I will ever live in my life ahead, as on a request I was allowed to help the white bald sevayats clad in saffron drapes to costume up, Lord Jagannath and to touch Him and carry Him till the chariot. Though not as big as the one I had been seeing ever since aware of my senses, in the live telecast from Puri on television, but nevertheless marvellous for that most revered experience of holding the lord, dressing Him up and being a part of thousands pulling their Master’s luxury brougham under the cloudy drizzly European sky. A facsimile in miniature of the Puri rath, this London yatra had thousands of devotees both Indians and non-Indians, white men and women clad in sarees and dhotis with chittas and rudrakshya adornments, armed with dhola, ginni, khanjini and mrudanga, hymning and dancing their hearts out to the exaltation of divine “Jai Jagannath”, probably a petite Orissa wherein people didn’t verbalise Oriya but felt Oriya from somewhere deep within. Being an Oriya I still find myself slightly unfortunate, having never been a part of the Puri ghosha yatra, but in years to come I believe that would no more be a dream for me with the Lord’s divine grace.
