Guest guest Posted November 6, 2002 Report Share Posted November 6, 2002 arya [Author's note. Saw this long ago and things may have changed, for the better or for worse. I might include this in a book]. THE LONELY TEMPLES OF THATTA Now I write this to create a more academic, even artistic perspective on the two nations living side by side across the Sindhu which not so long ago were one country. If you travel up from Karachi along the Indian Ocean, towards the north, about 70 miles out you hit a sort of a low slung plateau to the east of the road which runs alongside for some 30 or so miles. Turn off the road onto any of the several unpaved ways and stop when you come to any small village. Ask if this is the right way to see Ram Raja in his Cave. Ignore the odd glances if you are talking to a latter day refugee who came over from India in 1947, or his brood. If you are talking to a born Sindhi, and know some dialect, you will be greeted with smiles, and will have adopted a guide for the time you remain there. The man will plant himself in your vehicle, which had better be an SUV or a Jeep or truck, and all will jaunt and tumble to a hilly crop some 2000 foot and a maybe a dozen miles in girth, which is entirely overgrown with small fir like evergreens about 12 foot, much like the ones on the foot hills. You arrive at the base of the place and decant and get some really good chai boiled in raw milk and sweetened with "gur", molasses, accompanied by fresh hot parathas Sindhi style and raw balls of butter which was drawn that morning and is sold by the Gypsies of the Banjaran caste, Shudras even in this land, greet you. Best feed well because there is little to eat o drink where you are going. Now you rise and place your life in the hands of Bhalu, who takes you, all smiles and wise eyes and wizened skin and a large turban, into the brush. After some few hundred feet the overgrowth closes the skyline and you are walking in the twilight zone, and beginning to have second thoughts about the whole expedition. Bhalu stops, undoes the turban and wipes his face, because it also does duty as a towel, You do the same with your kerchief, if you have one, which is soon soggy because there is great humidity here. Bhalu says we should all stick close and hold onto some part of the other in front, maybe a belt or something, "Because there are side passage built in the cave by the Pandavas of old who did not like unannounced visitors, and the place is maybe 2000 years old, and has been continuously built upon all these centuries, from the innermost sanctorum some 200 foot deep, to the entrance." You quietly divide the stats by 2 because everyone knows the hyperbole of rural Sindh, but you still end up with 1000 years and 100 foot in earth's marrow. Bhalu without further ado turns and you follow and on a moments notice you are in an ancient cave cut out of living rock centuries ago. What is remarkable is the height of the passageway, about 16 foot, and 12 wide. And also that the structure is hewn from a sort of ,marble like stone with streaks and strata, when everything else for hundreds of miles around is compacted shale. Bhalu trudges silently, you follow and see the light dim, and curse yourself for not having brought a torch. Phushhhhh! And a flush of light tells you Bhalu has ignited a linseed flare which must have been in place before. And you consider kissing Bhalu but don't because he might misunderstand. Now you begin a trek which lasts an incredible 20 minutes or so, in the very bowels of earth. The walls are painted over by frescos by hands long dead, and the moving light makes the men and women on the wall dance and accompany you, but silently, for there is no other sound except the fluff fluff of your feet in powderlike earth underfoot. It becomes cold and very quite and very remote, and the people of earth could be on another planet. Bhalu takes an abrupt turn to the right and every one follows and all are standing in a large square chamber about 40 foot across, with a domed ceiling rising to some 60 feet. In the center is Raja Ram, all of 6 foot of polished marble, though you could have sworn it was from molten gold alloyed with an as yet undiscovered metal, or that he is alive and will walk off the podium and say Hi. He is lifelike with cloth at shoulder and his bow standing by his side, with the other with a sling of arrows with actual metal tips. It strikes you that he is not corroded if indeed of some part metal, and you think of Asoka's pillar and hold your peace. It also strikes you that he is quite clean and presentable and maybe Bhalu gave him a ritual bath, and is really a Brahmin disguised as a Moslem Sindhi. At which point he explains that the place does not allow any rust or decay at this level under the earth, and he was shown the place by his grandfather, who must have come to discover it when the Hindus went away to India. You venture to pray or touch or marvel as the fancy strikes you. If so inclines you may raffle through the offerings of old at his feet and still find some coin with the mark of Akbar who had a mint in the city, or an earlier Hindu Raja who struck his own coins. The eyes are striking, and every aspect seems to have a color, or maybe it is the light of the flare, and he seems to watch your every move and turn as you turn. There is a dark door to the far side, and Bhalu says best not go there, there is danger there, and you don't like the way your heart jumps and you want to return but are afraid to say so. Time stands still, life stands still, only Raja Ram and Bhalu remain, the main players in this drama of the oddest sort. In time you find yourself settling down to the slow slow slow beat of the earth, and almost forget about the earth and all it's frantic cares above. Maybe that's how the priests got rid of invaders who wandered into the shrine, paced them out and shoved them through the dark door in the forbidden wall! Bhalu suddenly turns and walks to the alcove and out the chamber and you realize you will be the last to leave, O God let me not be left behind! and you grab onto the man in front who has done the same to the one ahead and as you are almost out of the place you turn for a last look and see Ram standing there, alone, unworshipped, with nothing like prasad to eat, no shower of lights, no incense, no sandal paste, no kum kum mark, no Siyaji, no Maruti, no vannars, no sena, alone alone alone, under tons of earth which may one day cave in on him burying him alive.. When you finally break into the sunlight above you are nearly blinded! When you settle down, you drive back, and reach the little shop for a meal and chai and the sweet dish of the land, fresh "malai" seeded with khas seed and embroidered with roasted caraway seed, and your head is in a swirl. You bid goodbye to Bhalu, who says don't stop till you reach the main city, bad characters come out in the dark onto the highway and loot and kidnap. You arrive back into Karachi and in due course fly out to wherever you came from, maybe to JFK. And the whole things seems a dream. Till someone writes of it on Nukkad. Arya. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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