A DIFFERENT DAY AT PURI, IN MY MEMOIR ANNYATHA MULLYAHEENA. ଅନ୍ୟଥା ମୂଲ୍ୟହୀନ

A different day at Puri, in my memoir Annyatha Mullyaheena. ଅନ୍ୟଥା ମୂଲ୍ୟହୀନ

     Many a time it happens in everyone's life, some unplanned unusual unthinkable events unfold without any rational reasons. Where from the inspiration comes, is there any symbolic special meaning or one follows a predestined event one cannot tell with authority. It just happens, looks as if one wanted to do it but actually he was forced so even if there was no specific compulsion. He could not avoid it, he knew it only after it happened. He exclaims how! May be it happens to everybody.

      I spent my childhood in a village, with freedom more than usual given by my parents, I feel lucky. I do repeat an incident in brief before presenting my special day at Puri the place of the Lord of the universe, Jagannathswami.

      A boy of eight or nine followed a group of three, not related to him. They collected the left over partially burnt fire woods from the village cremation ground near Kakudi gadia (pond of cucumbers), for their own kitchen, tied together with a rope of animal skin. Not Yamaduts (messenger of God of death) they were. They moved on, reached the cow's Caracas thrown at the usual place named Tumunia, surrounded by now extinct royal vultures, kites and country dogs. Those moved away honoring human arrival. Team of three peeled off the skin with clinical precision of plastic surgeons. Collected some flesh as well. They were not Aghorisadhakas. They were the drum beaters of the village, uninhibited to cook dead flesh. They would tan the skin to cover their drums.

This incident happened forty years back, the boy was me not inhibited by my parents to move with them. I salute my parents for whom I have seen all aspects of a village living. This was otherwise worthless (ଅନ୍ୟଥା ମୂଲ୍ୟହୀନ) till date, but suddenly this gained meaning. I feel this shaped my subtle sensitivity in a powerful way.

     No one can assign any reason of a boy's this unusual inspiration. Down the memory lane many such events are coming as flashbacks with varied new meanings. This is not a boy's behavior only, it happens in all ages, with different intensity, may be as weak as my journey to Puri the topic here or as strong as prince Goutam`s quest.

     Searching an old bag I got a copy of 1986, written on 15th and 16th November    in Puri. It was the previous day of Kartikpurnami, the full moon night of month Kartik and a surprising coincidence I am unintentionally writing it on the same day in the lunar cycle of this year 2014.

     I was a student of Bsc Agriculture in OUAT Bhubaneswar but was just selected in the MBBS entrance examination to study in SCB medical college Cuttack. It was a strange situation; I got the proof of my selfishness as I could not stop me being happy even if my best and very close friend was not in the list. The important she of my life was selected for a different medical college. I was angry on me why should I not stop my feel well. He behaved as usual happy with my result, I felt very small in his presence. I was not in a position to express my manic depressive state, both existing at one. Whom to express? I was unable to discuss it neither with him nor with the she friend. I was not trained to express me with anyone else other than these two.

 I should not bluff the condition as it never can be recreated. One is happy and one is angry on himself because he is happy.

     I cannot assign the reason that guided me to take a decision to visit Puri alone not telling them, not taking any money and with strange attires, though with trouser and shirt I moved with a mat, a blanket, a lota. Money usually was kept with my friend, the more careful one. I could not beg him as to keep my work secret. I spent the night in his hostel at old town near Kedargouri pond. At pre dawn I prepared my above stated luggage, slipped out in secret to move to Puri, the road was near. In my pocket was a very little amount which was enough but not more to support anything other than the bus fare. I had no intention to leave my daily life forever, it was an experimental tour. In those days I was not aware that Odias believe no one remains hungry at Puri, rather I was ready to fast for one and half days. I had some experience earlier.

This much is from memory; rest of this story is from the diary I maintained then and there at Puri. I had written some portion in Odia and some in English would try to do the exact translation as far as I feel is possible.

 The English portion is not edited whatever its standard may be.

From my note…dt.15.11.1986.. I left Bhubaneswar at 5.30 am, reached at Puri at 7.30 am. 200 meters away from Srimandir I met Bhramarabara Behera a leper, 35 yrs old and interviewed. He got the patches fifteen years back and was treated in one Shyamababu hospital Puri for four years. He felt the disease worsened with treatment and he knew the cure now is possible unlike at the time he got the disease. He was a fisherman by caste and his native place was Bhushandapur, Nirakarpur, Puri. He now was settled at a kustharogipada near Lokanath temple. He came from a poor family but was sure as the society hates the diseased person people of well to do family also left home and staying in the pada. Inquired his income; he told Lord Jagannath is the family head and He keeps the family run smoothly. He was adopted by Bhagimausi and stayed in her hut. He got no government benefit as it was for people above the age sixty. He said there was no pain; he is a young man but AKARMANYA (disabled) not too much physically but socially. He is a beggar. I begged excuse to kill their time and paid athaana (50 paise)… EXACT TRANSLATION.

 8 am of dt 15.11.1986. Now I am sitting on an open place and gathering knowledge. I am listening the talks of devotees of different places. I have no program to visit Lord Jagannath today. I shall go to Lokanath temple in the afternoon. I am getting peace from the interview with leprosy patients. I have promised on this badadanda (grand road) to work for the suffering, peace is only possible from work. At 8.05 am a dead body was taken in front of me towards swargadwara (now I think the dead body may be that of a local and cannot say my exact placement).

10.45 am of dt 15.11.1986.. Now I do lay down on a mat under the shades of a tamarind groove on left and front side of Srilokanath temple. In the front road on both side of it leprosy patients may be 300 in numbers are begging alms. Tomarrow is the full moon day of Kartik , they are getting good income. They are quarreling among themselves, scolding each other. These people are equally violent to each other! Some of the ladies are with Sankha sindura (bangles and vermilion) identity of a Sovagyabati (owner of good fortune)! Infants were suckling when some nourishing mothers were begging alms.

     Near the Badadeula a few hours back two male beggars were walking with an old lady. The remark one male used towards a beautiful young lady beggar, that no civilized person would like to listen.

     There is a leprosy hospital nearby. Some rehabilitation work like fishery, rope manufacturing etc is being promoted. They did not allow me to enter that area, but I feel some people are working. The patients are merry making, talking in loud voices; it is felt they are not sensing any pain.

     The society has kept them in low esteem, it now a days is not the badaroga (the biggest disease). It is not as infective as cholera or now nonexistent small pox. Knowing all these things is not helping the society not to discriminate. They have no options other than coming to Srikshetra to get their own society and get income. I prefer loneliness here, do not want to ask anyone anything, only observing. They are using different addictives; including ganja may be opium etc. Let me ask that Bhramara who promised to come at 3 pm to know in detail. A kid of eight to ten year old did collect something from a lady and ate. She may be his mother. What about these children? What the government is doing for them.

      I got an 8^th class boy Sri Ganesh Chandra Mahakud, talked with him. Taken to confidence the son of a lady leper told me so many things that made my journey to their life affairs possible.

     He has two brothers and a sister. His father is not a disabled man and work worthy. His eldest brother did not do the High School form fill up to appear the final examination instead liked to ill spend that money. The next one is his sister who studies in 12^th class arts in the local women`s college. His one more elder brother studies in class 9^th. He is the youngest. He told there is a missionary who gives them work @ 240 rupees a month. (OUAT messing charge per month was about two hundred rupees). His father and elder brother work under the missionary. He when asked told there are two persons in his colony who are into the trade of Marijuana (ganja) and one in opium. He also told one recently was caught by police. He openly defends the addiction of people as an escape from the strenuous job of begging! He is not addicted to anything.

     Ganesh says there is no government help, all help comes from the Christian father, he helps Ganesh`s study. I asked him a straight question. Are you interested to be a Christian? It made him serious and the answer was a question. WE are Hindus why should we convert to Christianity?

Time 3.50 pm: The lepers were crying Maa Maa, De Maa (Oh mother give me) have mercy on me. One gives a currency note and warns to distribute among you. One devotee says how to give so many beggars at a time so better to refrain. One throws a coin that rebounds from the beggar`s pan. An old lady with tender affection donated something and dedicated it to Kalia the black lord of the land who she told takes care of all.

      I fell asleep under the shade of the tamarind groove that spread the branches on the top of which monkeys are busy enjoying the sour fruits.

     Many devotees are coming; many cars come and go, so many enter the temple and leave. I have not entered any temple till now. I needed no further talk with any one, why should I waste any one`s time. On my left a group of children play their special cricket with wooden flanks as bat. They are all children of these beggars. Toddler girls are at a little distance playing girls` play.

     It seems all lady patients have children, may be one to five in number, they are busy procuring children like the main stream population. What I feel they must be included in family planning bracket. What Ganesh Mahakud stated may be wrong, number of children may be more than his figures of sixty to seventy in their colony.

    I am fasting. I do not see much option to have some food, I do not feel hungry. The cricketers are discussing about their leave, it means all the children of lepers are studying. Some country devotees are about to start cooking. I desire to beg them to have an experience.

 I interacted with Trinatha Dash, Aparti Barala and Gandhi Bhuyan and gained the following knowledge.

-       Here they think exist plenty of ghosts.

-       Father stays here for last 12 to 13 years, his main mission is to provide rehabilitation to all. Here at Puri no leper is converted to Christianity after all it is Jagannath Dham.

-       The youth are very open in their views; they stated how the general people do take ill interest on grown up girls of their village.

-       Brahmins here quarrel too often they told. ( I was astonished as Brahmins in our village Tulati never drag themselves to any conflict even if my village is prone to it.)

-       They feel I have left home in anger.

-       I desire to spend the night in there sahi.

-       Most of them drink the intoxicated drink of Puri Bhanga bata.

-       These youth are with good general ideas, well behaved, cultured. They are aware of their parent`s struggle to bring them up, they are not good students but are not Badmas-es (wicked). They try to make me fearful to ghosts abundant there.

-       These children and youth are not in a sorrowful state, they have rapport with the leprosy colonies of Bhubaneswar and other towns. The nuptial knots are decided between these distant colonies.

 (A separate secular casteless caste, they are rejected, the rejection brought them together, the restructured their family, procured children, made them educated, allowed them to leave home to start their own family stigma less. I am so fortunate to realize this by my direct experience.)

-       Father's income source is his garden and foreign aid. When someone is too incapable he feeds him or her.

-       He has provided a TV for their entertainment.

-       Almost all lepers have addiction.

-       The children know this is not a familial or too infective disease. They usually do not get the disease, they provide the reason that whenever it requires they take preventive doses.

-       If they are not good students it is because of lack of care and guidance.

-       I was pleasantly surprised to know that there are students who studied staying at Jajpur Balashram, hopefully someone may be a direct friend of mine in Jajpur High School.(my school).

-       Once they are grown up they do not remain dependant on parents.

     

(un edited English)..6PM, now I am at their Astaprahari mandapa (inside the colony). Here the students read. Here and there people are regulating their political activities. (Cannot say what I meant with the above sentence.)

7PM- I am here, Aparti and Ramesh are reading. I have explained some problem. There are coming the tones of patients. They are busy with bhajanas etc. I am on the apex of peace. Oh God make me a man. Really they are giving me very good cooperation. I shared a coconut with them. I am very happy. I have told them about my family. Each and everyone here love Father. Father has a great poultry far.

Sudarshan!

8.45 PM- I enjoyed playing cards with them. Really they are very simple. They told that they have arrangement for TV. The TV is consuming their time. No one cares for their studies. They also go for films, they know cricket. They have no care that their share (my note says I did cut the word parents and wrote share, why?) are leprosy patients. They are very happy. There is a poultry farm having 3000 strength. There is a shop managed by a son of a patient. They are almost happy. They liked me and I felt very homely. We ended our game at 10.30 PM. No one was below 80(in a card game of bray, the calculation is still on my note it speaks Rabi 88, Gobinda 97, Vikari 83, Sudarshan 91, probably Gobinda lost in the next game which is not totaled thereafter. In bray lower score is better.) I talked with Sudarshan Behera about Jajpur High School where he was a student from 1976 to 1980. (I studied there from 1979 to 1983, so we both were together for a year, he stayed in Balashrama, I stayed in school hostel so we had no prior introduction, In those days even if IT was poor still I felt world was so small and circular.) He has remembered all about Jajpur high school. He praised my courage. I shared a coconut with some students of class 9. Now it is late night to sleep.

16^th November 1986-Late at night I slept. It was a very pleasant rest. Oh God peace there with love and affection. (The sentence is written like this.) I took their address, and I have to continue friendship with them. I have given them word to work for them after my MBBS carrier. They were interested listening to my aim. (Did I keep my promise, no but yes I worked somewhere for some other needy people.)

5AM- I left the bed and called Sudarshan. He tried to help me. I finished my daily works. He helped me arranging his cycle. I left Lokanath area. I have left my blanket etc there. I have not visited any temple since yesterday. I know my brother (Late Ashok Kumar Senapati an army man, at that time in 120 battalion Bhubaneswara, in the path of Sanyasa, who was my financer for study.) will come to Puri today. If I meet him and if he takes interest I shall visit temples. I was hungry because yesterday I fasted. Today!?

     Nothing is written there after it is in my memor.

     Did I do any heroic; did I face any major problem? No not at all. Did I enjoy the happenings so far? Yes emotionally and pleasantly so. Did this experience help me? I cannot say may not be materially but sure it shaped my sensitivity. My sensitive emotions are always my guiding factors, many a time I thought this is too weak a trait in me, but I also feel it is my strength and God blessed quality.

      I have no intention to praise the Christian father whom I did not meet out of shyness but I stated the facts as it was noted down at that time. I did not accept him as such I asked critical questions about his presence like the issue of conversion, his source of earning, the amount of wages he paid, what work he extracted, was he linked with their business of Ganja and Opium etc.

     I am very happy that a teen aged man in me was a traveler, a reporter, a social thinker, a man just entering to medical profession was so emotional about serving. Now a days I always feel that my son`s generation is sharper, brilliant and more talented which I do not think is wrong but maybe we were more connected to the common people although there was no social media to load our activities for public viewing. May be I am wrong and my gifted children generation the future of my nation are not properly estimated by the outdated older people like me. This gap never fills up in any age and I think both side need not be worried.

   

I have sufficient reason to feel happy to raise this article otherwise worthless (ଅନ୍ୟଥା ମୂଲ୍ୟହୀନ).

A different day at Puri, in my memoir Annyatha Mullyaheena.ଅନ୍ୟଥା ମୂଲ୍ୟହୀନ

                            

 Second day…

     To recollect the first part in 1986 on 15th and 16th of November I went to Puri with no money except bus fare, finished a day without entering any temple, mostly observed the socioeconomic milieu of the lepers, stayed the night with the youth of their colony, enjoyed coconut as food, played cards, surprisingly met a local youth Sudarshan Behera who was my own school student three years senior to me. He stayed in Jajpur Balashram during his high school days. I had written the day's event instant, preserved till date.

 I left their colony keeping my belongings ,a mat, a blanket and a lota there. Sudarshan lent me his bicycle to move in the town. I knew my brother Sri Ashok Kumar Senapati, an army man who was progressing to Sanyasa had planned to visit Srimandir on that day but was not sure about his exact program in those days of no mobile phones. Unlike the first part I have no note about the second day`s event that here I write from memory. So therefore I can never claim it does not suffer from some deletion and some imaginary fill ups. I shall try to minimize the fallacy.

     On the day of Kartik Purnima it was rush at the grand trunk road of Puri where I reached by paddling the cycle very early in the morning. On the Badadanda there were several shops not opened yet, and there was enough arrangement to sit down and write. I was delaying my entry to the temple with a remote sense of longing for my brother who did not know my visit to Puri.

     On a wide long bench I sat cross legged and wrote down few lines, with the standing bicycle as my only friend.

     Suddenly a strong claw I felt on my shoulder from the back side. It was not a monkey but a  man with demon like ferocious look who demanded my note book. I felt discomfort as who shares his diary with a stranger. I feared to refuse and it had no chance. He read all the contents from the copy with a faint green cover.

    The man was pleased and breathed as a normal man that was not there a few moments earlier. He begged excuse for his trespass to my privacy and put forward his valid reason which was a story anyone can remember lifelong.

     In my last short story in Odiya I have used his version in a character as it suited there.

     ‘He was an antisocial in the town befitting his physical stature. He was an accused in two different murder cases which he on that day confessed. He was a terror. Once he was on a platform of a railway station, unmindful in his own world of crime, a lean and thin teen was writing something on a note which he saw but did not look into. The train he was waiting was a little late as a goods train was about to pass, the siren of which was in its positive crescendo  as it neared. He and other passengers were annoyed that a goods train is given preference over a passenger train. The boy calmly left his seat and notebook there, within a moment was at the edge of the platform and jumped to the front of the train giving little chance to anybody including the terror to save him. He was the first person to read the suicide note of the teen. The boy was disgusted for his inability to give up his addiction and the resulting problems thereof. The man could not believe his eyes, how he had a chance to read and react to the situation in a favorable manner, he lost the chance. He could feel how tender life can be, how important it was to take interest on others beyond being selfish and self centered. He got the kick of the life, may be criminals like him were responsible for the boy's death as it was drug related. He could discover the Valmiki in his Ratnakar's body. He left crime; he confessed his role in a murder case. He was not worried whether the judge punished him with life imprisonment or ordered a death sentence. The man seemed to be the bravest man I ever knew. He had no fear at all. He thought I was writing a similar note so he interfered for a good reason.’  

     That day how I reacted I cannot recreate here, he told truth and he was not under the influence of any intoxicant. What an event to remember lifelong! I was sorry that a changed man was not sure what happened to him in the coming days. I always loved the Ratnakar Valmiki teaching thereafter as I experienced one in real life. I loved the man whose name and address I should have asked for but could not at the heat of the moment. I regret.

     After an hour or so I was at the lion gate and it was difficult to keep the cycle somewhere, I could manage. To my surprise I found my brother at the entry who was more surprised to see me. We both had a bigger surprise as my best friend somehow guessed my visit might be to Puri and so came searching who was standing with a smile. I was a more rationalist at that time so I accepted it as a chance not a chamatkar.

     We entered the temple lead by my brother and did our offerings whatever little I had forgotten. I was not very interested at that time with the formal worship so also was my friend, but we followed the way the army man guided us. On the Anada Bazar(market of happiness) we had to take some Prasadam . Both of them did not know how hungry I was but the food items there appeared unhygienic, I did not know those were the honey bees on the sweets there. I thought these to be common house flies those do sit on human excreta. It was a struggle between my hunger, my aversion to the food in sight, my brother's strong religious sentiment and my fear to Lord whatever there was in me. I was never disallowed to put forward my opinion in my family at any point in my childhood and I ventilated it to my brother. He knew how to manage the situation and without being angry he did it. He was developing the attitude of a devotional man in a soldier in him by profession.

 I feel his presence while writing this line although I know I participated in his funeral at his ashram three years back.

     Taking the plea that I had to return the bicycle to a friend I left them and told that in this rush we may not meet again so it would be better if we left Puri as per our own conveniences.

     I reached at the colony and lost all motivation to stay further or write further. I had gone to Puri alone and returned back alone with the experience of a life time that a moneyless man always had his own share, own dignity and own privacy. A criminal and a noble man is just at a line apart from each other, that world is too small and we were not destined to be lost in crowd, we had our own space and own identity and own people to reach and recreate with us. Life was pleasant even to the so called discarded people and there was light not darkness. We were more on the side of Amrit (nectar) and there was Lord Lokanath to tackle all Halahalas(poison).

    I did not share my experience to the fuller length to my she friend or my best friend, I probably did not like to give the impression to my she friend that the young man in me was aberrant nor I did share all with Santosh with the fear that he was very angry on me as I went somewhere without his knowledge.

     The first part of my Puri visit and the second part is dedicated to my brother Late Sri Ashok Kumar Senapati @ Charushilasharan. Kimadhikam…..