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| Milky way | | by Renu Bhardwaj | |
Way back in 1995, when Ganesha obliged his devotees by drinking the milk offered to Him, I happened to be in Indonesia. “Didi, Lord Ganesha is drinking milk here in India. See if He favours you,” informed my younger sister Shobhna on phone from India.
Amazed, I walked to my small home temple with a spoon and a cup of milk. As I held the spoon to his tusk, lo and behold, the milk disappeared. Delirious, I offered another spoon, and another till the Lord had emptied the cup.
My Indonesian maid, Ibu Ade, saw mesmerised and ran out calling her friends, most of them Muslims, working in the houses of Indians nearby.
While I frantically phoned my friends one after another, a big crowd had gathered in my house. Everyone, including the Indonesians, kept offering milk to the Lord, who gleefully gulped it down.
The word caught up with the locals fast. In Indonesia, the Hindu idols like Ganesha and Rama are very popular with people and are found decorated outside their houses. Names like Sita, Rama, Suryaputra and Priya are very common among the predominantly Muslim population. The stories of Ramayana and Mahabharata are a household word.
Keen to have a date with Bappa Moriya, people thronged the shops selling fresh milk. Usually, Indonesians drink “teh aair” (tea decoction). One won’t find fresh milk in anyone’s house. But this day as the demand for milk arose, the vendors had a heyday.
The prices shot up and by evening milk became scarce. Everywhere one could see small groups encircling the Ganesha idol. While one of them held the spoon to His mouth others clapped and yelled. The daylong celebration in a foreign land made me forget that I was thousands of miles away from my homeland.
While man has drawn boundaries among nations, people and sects, the love of the unknown and the quest for a miracle to realise the tangible presence of the supernatural, holds the humanity in a strong bond. I realised this when my Muslim Indonesian servant asked me innocently next day: “When will Ganesha come again, Nyonya (Madam)? Yesterday my estranged husband came back home when my kids were offering milk to the Lord. Next time I will offer the special sweetened milk to Him,” she said with conviction. |
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