The sun is blazing away in this part of the country forcing people to stay indoors for the better part of the day. Maybe to give them ample time to gorge on mangoes, watermelons, litchis and all the fruity wonders that nature has to offer at this time of the year. Maybe also to plan ahead for the festival season which is scheduled to begin shortly with the magnificent Jagannath Rath Yatra. The preparations have already started: the Lord has been taken around boating in ponds in different parts of this district as a part of the time honoured customary rituals which precede Rath Yatra. Speaking of which reminds me of another Rath Yatra many summers ago in a totally different setting. I was a few months old in my first posting in South Odisha when I got to know of a Christian festival dedicated to Mother Mary which was to be celebrated in a remote part of the district sub-division where I was in charge. Having studied in a conservative Catholic missionary school and having gone through numerous catechism classes, I took pride in having a fair knowledge of Christian beliefs, rituals et al. But a Christian festival after Good Friday was news to me.
The festival was to take place in a cluster of villages located at the foot of the hills with jungles bordering them. We reached there around dusk and the festival of Mother Mary was to begin late evening. I guess I was as enthusiastic as the simple tribals about the festival….simply because I had never heard of anything like this before. Imagine my amazement when I found out that it was basically a Rath Yatra of Mother Mary to be taken out in a candlelight procession by the villagers! When the time arrived, the meager electricity supply to the hamlets was cut off. And then, the figure of Virgin Mary dressed in a white sari with bangles on her wrists was installed in what appeared to be a prototype of a rath-chariot decorated in gaily colours and pennants. Only a discerning eye would make out that it was Mother Mary and not the Hindu goddess Saraswati. The head bishop sat on the chariot replicating a charioteer and the chariot was to be dragged around the villages by the devotees led by a candlelight procession. What was even more amazing was that the devotees and patrons of the local church were merrily singing carols to the tune of some popular Hindu hymns. Even the words were more or less the same, just tweaked here and there to honour the sentiments of Christianity. Once the procession started, I felt there was not much difference between this Rath Yatra and that of Lord Jagannath save the dress of the priests and the numerous candles. The enthusiasm, the fervor, the rituals were all the same.
Being a student of Social Sciences, I had read numerous research papers on the process of Sanskritization in the Hindu caste system whereby, simply put, a caste group adopts the way of life of another, more favoured caste, and by doing so, over years and centuries, gains more acceptability in the society. However, what I was witnessing was the process of Sanskritization of a religion to gain more acceptability amongst its new found followers. I spoke at length to a few women there; they or their forefathers had converted to Christianity. They were named Isabel or Maria or Elizabeth and called their children Jeremiah or Joseph or Francis. But they prominently sported vermillion on their foreheads and red bangles on their wrists- distinguishing marks of married Hindu women. Upon querying them further, I realized that they observed all Hindu festivals along with the Christian ones and didn’t see much of a difference between Vishnu and Jesus. Just that the place of worship had changed and being part of the new order, they attended sermons every Sunday and their children had access to good schools.
This made me think that we might follow any religion, change our religions but what is most important and what makes the world go around is having faith. Faith in the world order, faith in sterling social principles and faith in an omnipresent and omniscient power that we call God. In times of religious strife and intolerance, it is a wonder to see a religion actively adapting itself to local practices to suit the emotional palates of people. For all religions bow before the shining faith in the minds and hearts of the masses. And that is why a great thinker of our times believed that having faith would lead to a world order based on the principle of Vasudhaiva Kutambakam.
Meanwhile, let us keep our faith and bring in the mangoes...