There is a huge Banyan tree on the road leading to my place. There is nothing unusual about the tree in itself. I am lucky to be living in a particularly green neighbourhood and this tree happens to be just one of many huge trees there. However, what is special about it is a big round platform surrounding it. It is cluttered with the most fascinating display of old and broken pictures of gods, faded plastic garlands, earthen lamps, and what not. You have all the gods there- Shiva, Rama, Hanuman, Ganesha, Durga in various stages of decay and dilapidation. All the mythology of Hinduism at one place, bringing to one's mind this carnival of so many stories and characters mixed up and confused with each other. I wondered if the tree realizes what a huge burden it has to carry, how important its role is. All the remnants of their faith that people don't know what to do with, are quietly left at the altar of this tree which, incidentally, is also regarded as being "holy". This stamp of holiness makes it all right for people to clean out the mess of their small home shrines and decorate them with new and shiny gods and clothe them in fresh, red and gold dresses.
The other day I witnessed something unusual. A middle aged sweeper was scolding a man near the Banyan tree. It was interesting to see this man, well dressed and from a good family, being taken to task and meekly listening to the scoldings of this woman. This was something new, as it's generally the other way round, so I was naturally curious and quickened my steps. As it turned out, the man was caught red-handed leaving leftovers from some ritual ceremony near the tree. The sweeper's point was that she is the one who has to clean out all this mess.
This was a revelation for me. I had never considered the idea that all that clutter also had to be cleaned up. I used to think of the platform as this black hole gobbling everything up as it comes. This magical place that always has space for new old things. The woman's next words gave me something to think about. "Kya mera dharam nahi hai? Do I not have a faith?" So the burden of cleaning out and keeping new the old and broken faith of the people was not actually borne by the tree as I used to believe. It was this woman's doing. She was the one who had to sweep away all the one legged Krishnas and the earless Ganeshas and feel a pang of committing a sin every time she did this. She was the one who was taking over the blame of all the well dressed middle class humanity of our neighbourhood. And was probably going to hell for that, in her mind at least. I felt sorry for the woman.
Poor people don't really have the luxury of having a "dharma" I guess. That is for the likes of us, who can keep buying new gods.
