My Journey   Part 2 of 4 parts

So, it was only natural that we packed the ashes from the Ganesha homam, a prayer ritual where pieces of coconuts with the shell on, various fruits and flowers, and ghee, clarified butter, were offered in a wood burning fire in front of Lord Ganesha.  While the blazing fire consumed the various offerings, we chanted special prayers to Lord Ganesha to propitiate him. He was the deity who removed all obstacles when one set out on a trip, took an exam or started a new endeavour.  Of course I needed his blessings for my new life in the States.

One week before I set out for Chicago, in January 1964, I did another prayer ritual of Ponkala, to please Goddess Lekshmi, the goddess of health, wealth and happiness.  This, I did at my Maami’s house.  I called my mother-in-law Maami, meaning Aunt in Malayalam, my native tongue.  After my marriage, my Maami’s house was also my home.  I had stayed on with her even after my husband had left for Chicago.

For the Ponkala prayer, I cooked rice in milk and water, in our front-yard, on a makeshift fireplace made up of three piles of bricks.  The distance between the three piles, each about five bricks high, was determined by the size of the glazed ceramic pot that I was using.  A fire was made in the center with dry coconut-palm-leaves and some firewood.  While the rice cooked, I chanted prayers to Goddess Lekshmi.  The blazing fire consumed any bad vibes or spirits that hovered over me.  In time, the wood-burning fire got doused by the milk and rice boiling over from the cooking pot.  Symbolically, even as my wishes boiled over, this was also a gesture of food offering to the Bhoomi Devi, Goddess Earth.  The bonus was that I collected double blessings from the Goddesses, Lekshmi Devi and Bhoomi Devi, to carry with me over the oceans that I had to cross on my trip to Chicago.

We Hindus know that there is but one God, but each time the Lord appears on earth to help the ‘good’ triumph over ‘evil,’ the form in which the Lord appeared is revered, temples are built in his or her name, and each deity blesses us to make different facets of a person strong.

Then came the goodbyes.  In the last week that I was home, I bid farewell to many uncles and aunts, cousins and second cousins of my parents, all with vested interest in my success in America.  I was the first one from our extended family to travel so far from home, especially to the new world.  I bent down and touched the feet of each family elder.  The act of touching the feet of an elder signifies a show of respect for the age, maturity and divinity in them, and at the same time it was to seek their blessing for my upcoming trip, but more so for my journey into a new life.  When you touch the feet of an elder person and then place the fingers in blessing to your own forehead, you are paying reverence to the God-power within that being, and evoking that power for your own benefit.  Each of them in turn placed both palms on my shoulders to confer their blessings on me.  Some smiled, and some cried, and one great-aunt, Thankamoni Maami, sobbed so hard, she could not complete her act of blessing me.

To voluntarily pay homage to another is to empower that God-power in both parties.  To be compelled to do so, if you were one of those who questioned this practice, would be ineffective, and unthinkable.

Part 3 to follow

Shakuntala Rajagopal

My journey

My journey of ten-thousand miles began with ten-thousand blessings.

In October 1963, I went on a pilgrimage with my mother and father to the temples they had frequented, throughout our state of Kerala in South India.  I was to gather the blessings of deities they believed in, before I set out on my journey nine weeks later, to join my new husband, in far away Chicago.

When you are 23 years old and the farthest you have gone alone in your life is a bus trip to the tennis club two and a half miles away, ten thousand miles from home is an awfully long way to go.

I could not go any farther from my home, anywhere on this earth, if I wanted to.  My hometown Trivandrum, India, and Chicago, Illinois are on the opposite sides of the earth.  If I bored a tunnel straight through from Trivandrum, I would land less than a half inch to the west and barely three inches due south of Chicago, according to my world globe.

Packing for my trip to Chicago, the very first items that my mother and I placed at the bottom of my suitcase were sachets of prasadams, blessed offerings of dried sandalwood paste, from the temple at Guruvayoor, dedicated to Lord Krishna.  This was one of the twelve temples we visited as part of my pilgrimage.  When my father, mother and I, along with my sister and her baby boy arrived at Guruvayoor, about three or four hundred devotees were already pushing and shoving to get a glimpse of the idol of Lord Krishna.  Waiting in line for over an hour, we finally made it to the sanctum sanctorum.  I chanted my Krishna prayers as I watched the priest decorate the idol of Lord Krishna for the pooja services at noon.  He covered the idol from head to toe in a thick layer of sandalwood paste.  To make the paste, sticks of sandalwood were laboriously, unhurriedly ground on the surface of a stone mortar, andcollected into bowls with reverence by the priest’s helpers.  I saw that it was a true labor of love and devotion.

Then, floral garlands made from white jasmines, bright red hibiscus petals, green Tulsi leaves and orange-red ixora blossoms were reverently hung over his chest.  Vibrant gold ornaments were added to adorn him from the crown on his head, large studs on his ears, four or five long chains hanging from his neck, bangles on both forearms, an arinjanam or waist links, complete with gold anklets on both legs.  The adornments stayed on Lord Krishna until after the evening pooja services.

The flickering flames of over a hundred oil lamps cast a surreal aura in the sanctum.  The aroma of incense sticks, the chanting of the thousand names of Lord Krishna by the priests, and the ringing of about a dozen brass bells, transported me to a place where I felt the blessings emanate from the idol of Lord Krishna, thus dissipating any timorousness in my leaving home for the first time.

After the evening services, the sandalwood paste was removed and distributed to devotees as blessed offerings called prasadams. Mom, Dad, and I received our shares.  We brought the sandalwood paste home and dried it in the sun into a light golden-yellow powder, for long-term preservation.  This was then packed into small sachets to travel with me to the United States.  Later, when I wished to invoke the blessings of Lord Krishna of Guruvayoor, all I would have to do is reconstitute a pinch of the sandalwood powder, using a drop of water, and then wear the paste on my forehead as a symbol of the Lord’s blessing.

In our Hindu household the religious fervor ranged from an occasional temple visit by my grandmother, to daily offerings of flowers to the nearest Devi Temple by my mother who said a prayer with every breath she took.  My father’s practice had an air of great sophistication as a devout follower of a Guru who guided him and us in the path towards the Knowledge of God.  I leaned more towards the ritualistic practice of my religion; the structured life suited me well.  I took comfort in my prayers yielding results, and yet when what I prayed for did not come true, the Gods were my comfort in handling my disappointment.

Part 2 to follow

 Shakuntala Rajagopal