Life is all about series of ordinary incidents. And these ordinary incidents happen on any and every ordinary days with us. These are so ordinary that sometimes gives us a very extra-ordinary feeling. A platonic feeling. The importance of these incidents increases when it occurs during the time of your mental occupancies with other stuff.
After finishing my work, I headed to my house a little early when the sky just had started blushing to welcome the evening like a newly wed Indian wife waiting at the door and blush when sees her husband coming after work. The part of sky was having some of the higher clouds running very fast to the blushing horizon to give her the veil from the evening. I was riding back almost engrossed with these sceneries appearing even in the concrete jungle. All my imagery horses came to a halt when the worldly stuff undertook all my platonic imaginations. I had to purchase some vegetables as all thoughts need food too. But more unexpected things were yet to come.
I stopped my bike at one of the vegetable markets on the way home. At one corner of the vegetable market, there is a temple of lord Shiva. Some bhajan was going on outside the temple. I hardly had taken any look there and was busy purchasing some vegetables. I think this had not been accepted by the nature and out of nowhere it started raining heavily. To take a shelter, I ran towards the temple. Oh boy, there was some special bhajan going on there. Then I realized that today is Shri Krishna Janmastami, the celebration of birth of Lord Krishna, one of the most cherished God after Ganesha.
There was a group of Bahurupiya performing at the tent built near the temple. They were narrating and singing with very indigenous kind of musical instruments and there were some bahurupiya dressed in various mythological characters performing. This is a very special form of folk song called “Pandwani”. This is one of the most popular folk song forms of Chattisgarh popular not only in India but in world even. Pandwani is a form of musical narrative. This mostly deals with mythological stories of Mahabharata. This is being sung mostly by the tribes of Chattisgarh. I had heard Pandwani during the Doordarshan Days of my life when one of the famous singers of this form of music, Teejan Bai was a regular in the Krishi Darshan and likes program. The Government of India had awarded her prestigious “Padmashree” award to her for her contributions to this traditional art form.
It was raining like hell. Water had started flowing on the roads and so is the Pandwani. The experience was so soothing to me that it had relieved all my nerves. I couldn’t realize when rain had stopped. I was just flowing in the singing of those local folk artists. The entire performance was so much grand that I was feeling proud being associated with a culture called Chattisgarh. I don’t know the name of the group of these artists neither do I know the name of any of the artists performing there. But what I know was that they were the agent of Lord Krishna to let me realize that how grand our culture is and we need to spare some time to enjoy these ancestral art forms whose soothing effects is really so rejuvenating and vitalizing.
Thank You So Much for making my evening.
