jay jagannath!



the wind calls me closer as i stand against the roaring wind, watching the fishermen get ready for a turbulent onset into the ocean. those same fishermen once pulled an unlikely cargo from the depths--a golden body emerged, not realising His surroundings, having already drowned in krishna prema.













I arrived in puri 2 days after Ratha Yatra, not knowing what to expect, as the Rath was already over. I came on an adventure, on a journey--literally yatra in bengali and sanskrit. Even though I knew I would not be here for the ulta rath, where Jagannath&co. go back to Their temple, this journey has been worth it.


The day that I arrived, after swimming very briefly in the violent sea, getting drenched in the downpoar, and taking a third bath in the hotel, I ventured to the Gundica mandir for my chance to see the Lords. Although Gundica Mandir also does not like foreigners inside the temple, Jagannath had not yet entered!



Standing in front of Jagan Nath,
looking at everyone coming to see
He Who has come to see them
at the end of his path.


Why is His name Jagan Nath?
Lord of the Universe, yet hidden
in a fishing town in Orrisa.


His form is ecstasy, drowning in love of Radha.
Krishna outside. Radha inside.




Why did Caitanya come to this village?
Crown Jewel of avatars, yet hidden
in a fishing town in Orrisa.


His form is ecstasy, drowning in love of Krishna.
Radha outside. Krishna inside.



The Lord of the Universe
The Crown Jewel of avatars
Embracing the whole world
Swimming in intimate emotions
from a village by the ocean.




I remember a time when Radhanath Swami came to Alachua and told a story where he and Gauranga Kishor got a chance to embrace the form of Jagannath. Shivers went through my body. I got the chance to bury my head at the feet of Jagannath this time. For once I am happy for bribable pandas, for I mounted the foreigner-forbidden cart and dive to the feet of the Lord of the Universe. Subhadra Maharani allowed me onto Her cart also, and although I did not embrace Her, I saw her very close. I did not get a chance onto Lord Balaram's Cart, but I did get nice darshan of Him:

One fine sunny Sunday, as the sun gently retreats into the late afternoon, I sit at my desk examining my vocab list. I look up from my desk, it is only 4:30 but something tells me I am done with sedentary studying. I decide to go on a follow-the-breeze venture, out of my room, out of the gates to the property, out down the road down a little alleyway, a left down a littler alleyway, a right on a small street where boys play tag. “Are dustu chele” I call out to the little giggling four-year-old boys as they run after each other. They stop and stare a couple of seconds as they compute the fact that a white girl has called them naughty boys in Bengali. I run after them and giggle along as they strategically defeat me by running in different directions. I am already glad that I left the house. Something is right in the air.
I turn around a bend and see a group of women sitting together. Mehendi? I wonder and glance over at their late-afternoon activity, which ends up to be sorting rice (chaal baachaano) I stroll a little longer and peek inside a small store stacked with newspapers. Two women are sitting inside, and lo, one is applying mehendi on the other. Something in the air drew me in this direction. “Looks great,” I comment to them, “Some day you want to do some on my hands?” “Sure,” she says “sit here” Wow. That was easy. She beckons my left hand forward and smears it with a sweet smelling oil—I still don’t know what it was. While she was applying mehendi, I got to know that the two women are sisters and that the sister having her hand decorated (shown in the below photo) was having an anna prasan the next day-the festival every child has commemorating their first solid food. Her expression in this photo is token to her enthusiastic sense of humor by which we became friends withing minutes. When I congratulated her on her good fortune of having a son, she says,"Boys? Who would want boys? All men do is eat, sleep and chew paan, it's we women who do all the work." Later she confirmed that luckily her husband was a good man who worked hard. Nonetheless, her jokes led to an ongoing friendship, indeed I am leaving the computer soon to see her family

Dear Friends, Family, and Fans;
I hereby present you with a personal newsletter of my journey in the land of mystical rivers that sometimes appear to fall from the sky. Calcutta, the city that has sheltered me for the last three weeks, has had torrents of rain for the past four days. A large portion of the city was floating in sometimes more than waist-high water--though not so mystical when mixed with city sludge.

Enough of the rivers from the sky; I must explain to you the name of my Blog. It was the first thing I thought of, and it brings together three themes. Firstly, this blog is a way for you all to venture on this journey along with me, just like fans sing a song along with the singer. It is there for a sing-a-long, but since it's a log, it's a sing-a-log. That fact is pretty obvious. Secondly, the theme of singing is not random; one of my future topics of research will be Bengali devotional singing, and for this reason I am in Calcutta refining my Bengali. Thirdly, sing-a is a sort of English pronunciation of Simha, which means lion in Sanskrit, and is the theme of the latter part of this journey, on Nrsimhadev.
So, singing and logging, I present to you my journey.
Nila.