When I first saw Russet
Sparrow few years back –a sparrow washed in yellow breeding plume, I thought this to be Yellow-throated Sparrow (aka Chestnut-shouldered Petronia) that famously
initiated Salim Ali. Russet Sparrows (Passer
rutilans) are quite common along the Himalayan foothills towards NE hills
and East Asia, overlapping with Eurasian Tree Sparrow as we go east. The calls
are similar to House Sparrow but much sweeter. The male have russet colour
upperparts from crown through rump, hence the name. Sometimes they are also
referred to as Cinnamon Tree Sparrow.
Back
at Jejuri, literally and literarily
This is my third visit
to Jejuri, and every time I come here it gets bigger and crowded. It also gets
restricted and starts to lose the innocence with grander version of religion
starting to establish itself. It seems its learning with experience and
influences to standardize itself and thus reduce to a clone of brahminical
references. That though is unlikely to have greater control as the soul of god
here is too wild to be tied in sanitized version and therein lies the redemption
of Jejuri, and largely vibrant nature of religion. 
When I first read Arun
Kolatkar’s Jejuri (most likely in
1998-99), it was an O Theri moment
for me!! I was awestruck by the swift lines and the world it created. Within a month
I was in Jejuri. It was quite an incredible journey. Jejuri is a temple town about
50Km from Pune famous for deity Khandoba, who has liking for horses and dogs!! There
are regular buses and it takes about an hour and half, must add it used to take
more than two hours as the roads were once rickety, now though things are
smooth and pleasant.
Arun Kolatkar (1932-2004)
was bilingual, writing both in Marathi and English, famously reticent. This is
what Amit Chaudhuri writes (in 2006 on introduction to international version of
Jejuri) “I found Kolatkar there on the Thursday afternoon; three or four
meetings, another trip to Bombay, and long-distance telephone calls to a
neighbour's phone (he didn't own one himself) followed in my attempt to make
him sign the contract. I found him a mixture of the unassuming, reticence,
mischief and recalcitrance. His well-known prickliness about contracts came not
so much, I think, from a feeling of neglect, as from a sense of allegiance to a
sub-culture that had, by now, largely disappeared”
The collection of poem Jejuri came out in 1974 (this blogger
doesn’t recognize Commonwealth, so will avoid any reference to it) by a small
publishing group Clearing House, Bombay and since then by Pras Prakashan. It is
difficult to get the book except at The
International Book Service at Deccan, Pune (Ph. No. 25677405). It’s an old
bookstall that could close down one of these days; Kolatkar was a regular
visitor here, dropping in to have a look at his books!! The elderly man at the
sales told me he tried to strike up a conversation but wasn’t very successful.
I am posting few of the
poems here with pictures I took but if you need to truly understand Jejuri you must buy the book, it
certainly is a collector’s item.
A Low Temple
A low temple keeps its
gods in the dark.
You lend a matchbox to the priest.
One by one the gods come to light.
Amused bronze. Smiling stone.
Unsurprised.
For a moment the length of a
matchstick
gesture after gesture revives and
dies.
Stance after lost stance is found
and lost again.
Who was that, you ask.
The eight arm goddess, the priest
replies.
A septic match coughs.
You can count.
But she has eighteen, you protest.
All the same she is still an eight
arm goddess to the priest.
You come out in the sun and light a
charminar.
Children play on the back of the
eight foot tortoise.
Manohar
The door was open.
Manohar thought
it was one more temple.
He looked inside.
Wondering
which god he was going to find.
He quickly turned away
when a wide eyed calf
looked back at him.
It isn’t another temple,
he said,
it’s just a cowshed.
Chaitanya
sweet as grapes
are the stone of jejuri
said chaitanya
he popped a stone
in his mouth
and spat out gods
what is god
and what is stone
the dividing line
if it exists
is very thin
at jejuri
and every other stone
is god or his cousin
…
there is no crop
other than god
and god is harvested here
around the year
and round the clock
out of the bad earth
and the hard rock
…
scratch a rock
and a legend springs
Yeshwant
Rao
Are you looking for a god?
I know a good one.
His name is Yehswant Rao
and he’s one of the best.
Look him up
when you are in Jejuri next.
Of course he’s only a second class
god
and his place is just outside the
main temple.
Outside even of the outer wall.
As if he belonged
among the tradesmen and the lepers.
I’ve known gods
prettier faced
or straight laced.
Gods who soak you for your gold.
Gods who soak you for your soul.
Gods who make you walk
on a bed of burned coal.
Gods who put a child inside your
wife.
Or a knife inside your enemy.
Gods who tell you how to live your
life,
Double your money
Or triple your land holdings.
Gods who can barely suppress a
smile
as you crawl a mile for them.
Gods who will see you drown
if you don’t buy a new crown.
And although I am sure they’re all
to be praised,
they’re either too symmetrical
or too theatrical for my taste.
Yeshwant Rao,
mass of basalt,
bright a post box,
the shape of a protoplasm
or a king size lava pie
thrown against the wall,
without an arm, a leg
or even a single head.
Yeshwant Rao.
He’s the god you’ve got to meet.
If you’re short of limb,
Yeshwant Rao will lend you a hand
And get you back on your feet.
Yeshwant Rao
does nothing spectacular.
He doesn’t promise the earth
or book your seat on the next
rocket to heaven.
But if any bones are broken,
you know he will mend them.
He’ll make you whole in your body
and hope your spirit will look
after itself.
He is merely a kind of a bone
setter.
The only thing is,
as he himself has no heads, hands
and feet,
he happens to understand you a
little better.
Some
from my scribble pad with pictures
Pray
and smile
Two children sit inside
dark hole of a shrine
waiting for devotees
to trip in
and drop some coin.
No photos, it will make the god
angry
said the older of the two.
I was taking the picture of you
two, said I.
Ah in that case let’s pray
and you take our photo.
God
and Dog
God
is the word
And
I know it backwards
(from
the poem A Song for a Vaghya by Arun
Kolatkar)
The dog looks at the devotee
The devotee looks at the god
The god is a yellow sprayed rock
that doesn’t look
The dog decides to take a nap, head
on the god
and dream a godless god
