Illusioned

With the advent of winter, our community prepares itself to live through the bone chilling winter of Kathmandu through various traditional methods. A month long celebration at the ‘Chobhar Temple‘ begins where the pilgrims walk through a hefty number of stairs to warm their body and relinquish their souls by taking a glance at the holy site. Some of us make a local and national delicacy called as ‘Yo:mari‘. Its simply a rice pudding with sesame and jaggery filling in a weird shape thats tapering at both ends. People go crazy over it; especially people of other community for whom its a grape they cannot jump to have.

Well, my story isn’t about how cold this winter is, or how good Yomaris are. My story here is about my family where we have an annual festival to pay your tribute to our clan deity. We, Newars, form small forms of clans based on our blood relations who worship to a same clan God also in our terms known as ‘Kul Dya‘, meaning Clan God. He is thought to the protector of our blood line and very powerful who resides in the sacred corner of the eldest member of our clan also called ‘Thakali‘ in our local terms.

Well, this story is not about my Kul Dya either. Its about something happened this morning with my Kul Dya that just triggered me into a deep thinking of how our human gullibility is so humiliating (or if you feel offended, let’s say baseless).

Right now is that time of the year where our family doesn’t eat Chicken, Chicken egg, Garlic, Onion or any food that brings shame to the table when we have to bow our heads to our clan God. We go in a week long parade when families come together to devour on food cooked over the same flame and share heat from the same pyre of wood to escape the winter. During this period, the God is brought out of his shell and traveled to a different house of each member every year for a very short duration of time as a significance as to bless each members house once in years rotation. Then the God travels back to its sacred corner, inside its clay shell and resides for an entire year, hibernating and protecting us. At least thats we are told.

So, what happened was, we woke up early morning, finished our daily routines to the bathroom and then it was time to pay homage to our God when our stomachs were empty, maybe to prove our devotion. Anyways, I woke up, half asleep. Splashed cold bullets of water through my face, rubbed my teeth with the blistering scrape and was ordered by my mother that I should first complete my meet with the God before I get any ounce of food. Didn’t bother me so I walked down my house, entered an ally right next to my uncles house, took the first right at the ‘chowk‘ and climbed three floors to enter an abandoned room where the the smell of incense had overpowered the dampness of the cold room and a comforting silence was ringing in the air. It was a small room made only for a single visitor to provide a one on one closeness with the God himself maybe. At the corner of the slightly raised pedestal was the egg shaped shell with a transverse horizontal cut where the lid protected the God from soughtful eyes of others. It was painted with years of vermilion of all colors and had a different aura to it. I felt calm and stagnant for a while as I sprinkled some grains of paddy and rubbed vermilion on its forehead. I then bend my head and asked for his protection and guidance thorough out my life. I gently placed a 20 rupee note where a few 5 rupee were scattered to make an impression that I was more generous and then I touched my head to his head and returned back. Trailing down the same way that led me to this room.

I met Mother right after I entered the main door and she asked me if I had met my aunt so that she would open me the door to the room where the God had resided. And I said the door was plain open.

She nodded. And blew a air of dissatisfaction that how careless people had grown.

My brother was on his way for his college and came jumped in front of us and said that the door was closed when we went and how he had to call for my sister in law for the door to open.

I shrugged and said maybe they didn’t lock the door again, hoping that the God would have a lot of visitors today. Maybe they were expecting me was my reason.

Adjusting the length of his bag strap he said maybe and searched for his shoe.

Then something plucked me, and I asked him why would he call Astha bhauju (Sister in Law) for the key.

And looked at me like a kid and said, its their house, who else is supposed to have the key.

I felt uneasy and replied the God was in the Uncle’s (Thakali, the eldest) house wasn’t it?

My mother blew machine gun gusts of air from her nose with her lips stretching and said that it was that time of the year when the God was supposed to travel to a members house for a certain time and this year was my brothers turn to invite the God at his place so the God was residing in a house two houses away from the house that I just paid my homage and had returned.

This left me awestruck of how I had fooled myself and never realized that the God was never there but I never felt as if the room lacked a divine presence. I prayed whole heartedly to a hollow clay utensil and handed my devotion to a lifeless unit. I felt humiliated and thought myself to betray my clan God.

I thought about this incident for the whole day and then came a thought to my mind where I was wondering if the fooled scenario that I experienced would leave me in an illusion of completeness if I had never became a victim of the truth. Only truth led me to my realization. If I had never ran into the truth or thought about why my sister in law would open the door of my uncles house, I would be lost in the depth of an illusion that I would firmly place my belief upon.

This leads me to my next statement, regarding what if we face these kind of scenarios everyday and are illusioned but we never come across truth and thus sincerely accept it as reality and root out our views and beliefs. What if we are so gullible that we don’t even think of a possible truth to bust our perception. What if the poem that I read this morning by an unheard poet wasn’t actually his but a simple typo mistake but I’d forever think that the name written at the bottom of the poem would be its rightful contributor. What if the vegan rice pudding I had, had actually eggs in it and they mistakenly printed the wrong description, I’d happily eat it with full satisfaction because I am gullible enough to not ask for in depth conformity.

What if the Gods we pray to and look up to have already left this world with no hopes of coming back and we still don’t know that they’re gone with our hands joined and heads down hope for their blessing when we are all praying in front of a hollow statue with hollow values that has hollow impact based on hollow belief.

What if this all is true.

What if we illusioned ourself.

What if?