Prayer
They came for the music last Tuesday evening. I remember the song playing on my sound dock – Soul Asylum’s Runaway Train. I set down the embroidery and went to answer the door. A group of men stood outside. The building security guard hovered behind them, looking nervous. I stood there uncomprehending while the music segued into Running Free in the background.
They were friendly, polite, just short of subservient, these four muscle- bound, moustachioed young men. They were going door to door, they said, collecting funds for the glorious new temple in that far away town. The first irrational thought that came to my mind was: they needed more money? It seems as if religious shrines everywhere are awash in funds these days…
I said, dismissively, as I would to any uninvited salesman: I’m sorry, I don’t want to contribute.
The leader tried to cajole me. But madam, he said, this is for our nation’s glory, you will earn blessings of our Lord if you help us. I wondered if he knew he was talking to a cynical atheist and therefore, which Lord would bless me and with what?
I repeated: please go away, I don’t wish to donate to this cause.
He changed in front of my eyes, in a split second. His eyes went blank, his body stiffened. He cleared his throat, made as if to spit at my feet and said, Stop this noise. I had no idea what he was referring to at first. My eyebrow arched instinctively, that upper class indicator of scorn. He adjusted the garish scarf draped around his shoulders and raised his voice. Didn’t you hear me? Turn off that corrupting music. (Running Free had reached its noisy crescendo.) I ignored him, asked the guard: who are these people? He said: madam, they are from the temple across the road. I waited for a further explanation but the shift in the visitors’ attitude subdued him. The leader said: Yes, we are doing our Tuesday aarti and your noise is hurting our deity’s ears. The other men nodded. I was never more thankful for the sturdy locked grill between me and these…I wasn’t sure what they were. Devotees? Rabble rousers? Jobless youth?
I finally said, It’s not any business of yours what music I listen to inside my house. I thought, your music hurts my brain but I’m not complaining, am I? Though even I knew better than to articulate this to these men.
The tension tipped over. Hey, madam, he shouted, we are playing bhajans, not dirty music like yours! Turn it off right now! (Dio Running With The Devil back in my bedroom).
He must have been thirty years old. The sudden thought that this song was almost twice his age threatened to bring on hysterical laughter. Were these guys serious?
I knew the temple across the road. In my thirty years living here, it had gone from a tiny nook in an old peepal tree sheltering a squirrel or two to a wooden structure housing a small idol (of which God, I had never discovered) to a respectable little stone temple with its own platform squeezing out the pavement. In all likelihood, this appropriation of public space was completely illegal but since no-one had taken any action, the brash temple had taken on legitimacy from squatters’ rights. Now, of course, in this strange new age of Kali – Kalki – Kafka, it was very much a part of our ecosystem, its loudspeakers distorting the hoarsely chanted bhajans into something slightly threatening, the ground around it littered with dead flowers and cheap bunting.
Every tuesday evening, the fanfare reached a weeky climax, with much ringing of bells, slogans raised in praise of the entire pantheon of gods watching from on high, and even a burst of fire crackers on especially holy days of their calendar. The noise levels had steadily crept upwards, but again, no-one objected and it went on.The cacophony of sound that embodies devotion these days must surely deafen the very gods that it praises. Noise equates prayer, and it doesn’t matter which God you are talking to.
So these guys were devotees of that temple. My music couldn’t have reached them across the busy road. My little sound dock wasn’t powerful enough to blast them with Running Free, even if I’d have dearly loved to introduce them to some old style heavy metal. Had someone in my building invited them to my doorstep? I wondered who? The restaurant waiters downstairs who smoked acrid beedis and watched home made porn on their phones during their lunch break? The hair dressers who gossiped under my kitchen window with much dramatic shrieking and laughter? The fat cat neighbour who disagreed with my politics and my attitude?
My paranoid self processed and discarded all these thoughts in the blink of an eye. It couldn’t be. They hadn’t got any money out of me and had simply changed tactics. Some new instinct warned me not to say anything more, not to escalate the confrontation. I began to say, okay, I’ll turn down the music but he got the last word in: I’ll call the police if you don’t stop listening to this rubbish, he said. Why can’t you be a traditional woman? Shameless. What is your religion?
The security guard murmured that we belonged to an eccentric minority community. This seemed to incense the devotee further. Oh, you (pejorative) acting all Western, eating non veg and all…listen, madam, these days, be more respectful, what? Eat good vegetarian food, listen to our kind of music, do puja.
I stared steadily at him until he dropped his eyes, though my mouth was dry with rage and fear. As he and his companions turned away, he repeated, turn off that filth…no respect for our religion…
I finally found my voice. I wanted to say: I don’t believe, not in your Gods or mine, but couldn’t find the words in any language he would understand. So instead I said Jai Hind. He really did spit this time. They clattered away down the stairs.
I entered my room, a few minutes later, an eternity later, in time to hear Chris De Burgh Sailing Away, but even his beautiful mellow voice couldn’t stop the trembling. I turned down the volume on poor Chris. It seemed that all that was once sacred had been profaned. My music, the only thing I still believed in, suddenly sounded tinny and cheap to my ears, the fake prayer of an unbeliever to a false god.
In the sudden sick silence, the wind carried the faint cries of victory from the temple across the road.