Nicola Barker - The Cauliflower

I love Uncle dearly. And Mathur Baba’s judgment in such matters is extremely sound. But it is sometimes difficult — even for one as close to Uncle as I am — to fully comprehend which things Uncle will embrace and which he will reject. I am not accusing Uncle of inconsistency. It’s just that my worldly mind cannot entirely fathom the choices Uncle makes with regard to Mathur Baba’s spending. Uncle is very specific about the gorgeous Varanasi sari s or the exquisite gold jewels that he wishes to dress the image of the Devi in, for example. No expense will be spared over those. And he will encourage Mathur Baba to spend endless amounts of money on drawing visiting pandits and sadhu s to Dakshineswar. Which other temple offers so many wonderful gifts and incentives for its holy visitors? In fact, Uncle encourages Mathur Baba to hold many spectacular concerts and performances and festivals, and of course Uncle will always be found sitting, clapping joyously, at the center of all these. If Uncle takes a shine to a particular actor or musician or dancer then Mathur Baba will — according to the level of ecstasy or spiritual fervor they transport Uncle into — gift them most lavishly. But Uncle is a spiritual child, he will not just try one sweet but many sweets, and having encouraged Mathur Baba to give to one performer, he will then promptly fall in love with another, and then another, until even Mathur Baba’s endlessly deep coffers (and his great patience) seem in danger of running dry! But what does Uncle care about such matters? When Mathur Baba’s store of gifts runs out Uncle will simply take off his own clothes and present these to the actor! Uncle is a child. Just a child.

This attitude of the child has always been Uncle’s natural and habitual spiritual mood. Why else is Uncle so drawn to the Brahmini , who treats him like a mother would and lets him sit on her lap and strokes his hair and sings him songs and feeds him with chunks of creamy butter as he perches there? Although following Uncle’s undertaking of the sixty-four Tantric disciplines — and his great success in all of them — Uncle and the Brahmini hadn’t rested on their laurels. They then set about exploring more fully the many spiritual moods of bhakti yoga , which celebrates the different forms of devotional love for a personal God. The mood of child and parent Uncle had already explored, and so too that of the devoted servant to his master (in the form of the monkey chief, Hanuman), and so next Uncle took it upon himself to worship God as a lover.

It was during this time that Mathur Baba hosted the grand Annameru , with Uncle’s happy encouragement. Never in my life had I seen such a colorful and extravagant religious event! Mathur Baba stinted on nothing. At the heart of this festival is the customary mountain of food. Mathur Baba gave to the pandits and visitors over a thousand maund s of rice and the same in sesame. He handed out gold and silver and silks and every other kind of luxurious object one could possibly imagine. He hired the best and most famous singers and performers. The event lasted for many days and caused much excitement. And as I watched Uncle sitting joyfully at the heart of it all, falling constantly in and out of ecstasy, I couldn’t help thinking back to when the Dakshineswar Kali Temple first opened, and how the mounds of food prepared then were just left to rot or thrown into the holy Ganga.

My, how things had changed! And who might we say was at the very root of this transformation? Was it not Uncle? Perhaps by encouraging Mathur Baba to spend so selflessly and extravagantly on others, Uncle himself (who is given pride of place by Mathur Baba at every wonderful celebration) was unwittingly gaining the credit and the attention and the admiration of all of those who attended? Was not Uncle the true host of this magnificent event? And all without having spent a single rupee himself!

Oh, Uncle is not nearly so foolish and innocent as he might at first appear! Uncle is truly a genius! And where is the harm in it? Because if the people learn to love Uncle, and Uncle loves the Goddess, then surely only God himself is the ultimate victor?

Of course, not everything connected to the Annameru was unstintingly positive. It was at this time that Uncle’s mother, Chandradevi, decided to visit the temple in person to see her son, and then resolved to stay on. She was now determined to live out her last days close to the holy Ganga. And Uncle was most delighted to have her staying with him because he loves his mother dearly. I was not quite so happy because I am the person who cares for Uncle, and now, I suppose, I am also the person who must care for his ancient mother.

I think it only fair to say that Chandradevi and I have never been especially close. There has never been any serious animus between the two of us. It is simply what they like to call “a clash of personalities.” For some reason Chandradevi has never trusted Hridayram. He can see it in her eyes. Or perhaps it is only that he serves her son so well that she is sometimes at pains to find ways to serve him herself, and thus her pride is wounded. Who knows?

Whatever the reason, Chandradevi quickly established herself in the tiny storeroom at the foot of the nahabat close to the Bakultala Ghat. It is an inhospitable space, but she seems perfectly content with it. And Mathur Baba is very happy to have her there because they can talk endlessly about Uncle together. Chandradevi loves to reminisce about Uncle’s childhood. But she is a simple soul and much given to curious flights of fancy. I once heard her telling Mathur Baba about the circumstances of Uncle’s conception — of how her husband, Kshudiram, was on pilgrimage in Gaya, to absolve the sins of his ancestors, and on his final day made an offering in the temple of Vishnu. He was filled with a great sense of lightness and joy on this occasion, and that night, while he slept, he had a strange dream in which he entered the temple again and saw all of his ancestors lined up before him. He was so happy to see them! He fell down in tears and took the dust off their feet in gratitude. And as he lay there a glorious light filled the entire temple, emanating from a divine being (was it not Vishnu himself?), who spoke to him, saying that he was so delighted with Kshudiram’s service that he would be born to him as a child so that Kshudiram might continue to serve him. Kshudiram appealed to the being not to follow this plan because his circumstances were so humble, but the divine being would not be dissuaded.

When Kshudiram returned home from his pilgrimage (Chandradevi continued), he made no mention of his dream to his wife, but she, without any prompting, asked if it were possible for a divine being to sleep in a human bed, because one night, while her husband was absent, such a being had appeared in the bed beside her. A few days later, on entering a temple of our Lord Shiva, she had noticed waves of divine light emanating from the image and moving toward her, and before she could tell her friends about it, the waves had engulfed her and her surprise was so great that she had promptly swooned.

A short while later — greatly advanced in years as she was — she discovered that she was pregnant.

Such are the stories that Chandradevi tells to Mathur. In truth, I cannot remember if I have heard these stories before. I must confess that they seem somehow familiar. And — like Uncle — Chandradevi is incapable of calculation. She is very innocent. She is naive and silly. Although I would never go so far as to call her an imbecile. She is my aunt, after all.

I know that Chandradevi is happy to be here, and her needs are few. In this regard she is just like Uncle. She does not miss her village home because the rumors about Uncle had been a kind of torture to her simple soul. The villagers had accused Uncle of all kinds of craziness in his pursuit of God — many of which accusations were of course perfectly true. And now Chandradevi is to be here in Dakshineswar, close to her beloved son, to witness some of these crazy behaviors for herself! Perhaps, in time, she will even start to feel that remaining close to Uncle is not such an undiluted blessing after all.