jai baba bhootnath ki!!

"lali mere laal ki, jith dekhun tith laal,
laali dekhan main gayi, main bhi ho gayi laal"
------Indian sufi poet Kabir
I keep bitching about the absolute absence of temples(physical ones made up of stones etc.) at Salt Lake (the part of Kolkata that I live in). So when I heard that there is a shrine of Lord Shiva in North Kolkata near Launch Ghat, called Baba Bhootnathji Ka Mandir and I had no other plans or shall I say excuses, I was exited about the prospect and started at 11 AM on a Sunday morning.
"Can we have a proper darshan Sir?" asked P, at 12.30 PM, and some distance away from the temple. "I think we can", my voice had less conviction though. We were not aware of the timings of customary resting hours for the dieties called 'Pahada' (in Oriya). The autorickshaw in which we were travelling passed through one of the oldest parts of this City of Joy - Shovabazar, Shayam Bazar etc. Thin lanes full of all modes of communication - Taxis, Buses, Trams, Autorickshaws, Rickshaws, Cycles, Mopeds, Two-wheelers and even those that are pulled by human hands, wholesale shops with racks and racks of ganni bags and one young lad transferring them to one of the man-led trolleys, old men in lungi's sipping tea from an earthen pot, tubewells
swarming with people, either waiting to fill water or taking bath, beggars lying on verandas looking up at the sun, kids gathering up their teams for the morning match, ubiquitous horns and thankfully no humidity. The rare cool wind of Frebruary ensured that we both were not irritated. (it is very easy to be so in a city- just get caught in the traffic, miss the lane you should have taken because of someone else's fault, wait for someone at an uninteresting place, you could expand the list by being just being contemplative). Finally we saw the ghats, people coming out of the water shivering, wrapped in wet clothes with water dripping from them on to the ground and saying some prayers mumbled with their attempts to breathe.
One does stop complaining about something very very wrong if it has been happening for sometime. That is the conclusion I could draw about the people living near those Ghats. I mean the huts or PVC sheets wrapped around big nails on adjacent walls, they were living in, were at best my chest-high,the children ate, defecated, played and even slept within that space of few square meters. No complaints on those faces but, or may be they hide it or even that we cant see it anymore.
We reached the temple, the arhictecture of temples of Bengal is not really impressive except say Dakhineswar's main temple building, so I saw what I was expecting-an unpretentious temple. A few red flags and bells suddenly announced the presence. I took off my shoes and went inside. There was the snake and a really big 'trishul' that you associate with Shiva temples all around, then I saw the 'linga', unlike most of them it was brick red in colour. What i could gather from the activities of the preists was that they were starting the 'abhisheka'or 'shringar' the dressing up of the deity. I sat there cross-legged and said a few hyms and then waited for the shringar to start. I was reminded of the satement "the devotion of the devotees could put life into even stones or for that matter anything". There were the most beautiful of flowers, choicest incense sticks and the floors swept by rosewater, they all filled the main hall in an intoxicating aroma. The head priest maintained his silence, he was instructing his helpers with sign language using his hands and raised eyebrows. Then with all things ready in their respective places, he started the 'shringar' and beautifully decorated the dieties with flowers, grass(duba) garlands, sandalwood(chandan), vermillion(sindoor) and then finally he sprinkled all of it in bhabhooti(the holy ash).
A line here about Shiva and his association with ash. Shiva though the most beloved and adorable among Hindu deities is actually very fearsome and ghastly in his appearance and conduct. He roams around in creamatory with the ash of the place smeared all around his body. Though crematory, ash, snakes, demons, garland of skulls are not conventionally considered asthetic due to their association with Shiva these things become very dear and pious to his devotees.
There was a sadhu with matted hair(jata) and he distributed the holy bhabuti to all of us, unsure of what to do with it, i got a cue from the baba himself, he smeared it all over his body and forehead. I opened the button of my shirt and smeared it all over my chest and then with three fingers slightly separated, ran them through my forehead. There was no mirror to see how I looked like but all that was so spontaneous and instinctive that I had no other thoughts to to think otherwise. Then, the head priest started his daily ablutions and slowly with the aroma of the 'bhabhuti' and incence sticks, the purifying glow of campor, the loud sound of cymbals the holy water being sprinkled all over us the atmosphere had a mystic transformation. From a mere piece of red stone the linga became the object of worship of the entire mass present there. Everyone knelt down to pay obeisance to the Lord and then taking the holy 'Bel leaf' and delicious prasad of 'puri and kheer' took leave. That was the 'dhuup' we were told later. I went back my body smeared in the holy ash.
O Lord, please smear the same over my mind, intellect and soul.