A river and a pond

I8217;ve never been to the Sindhu Darshan festival, now in its sixth year, but I8217;ve seen the Indus. Nor have I ever benefited by a dip...

I8217;ve never been to the Sindhu Darshan festival, now in its sixth year, but I8217;ve seen the Indus. Nor have I ever benefited by a dip at Kurukshetra during a solar eclipse, but have certainly wandered around the place trying to connect with its mystique. What caught my eye now was that last Saturday, Kurukshetra celebrated its first solar eclipse festival of the millennium while the next day, Sindhu Darshan festival commenced in Ladakh.

Kurukshetra is not only the hallowed site of the Revelation of the Bhagvad Gita, it was one of the 16 Mahajanapadas or republics of 8216;Jambu dvipa8217; the subcontinent. Its lakes and lotus ponds were fabled in literature, its people praised as fearless and good in the Dvapara Yuga. Manu the lawgiver, Bana the playwright and Panini the grammarian speak of it. The Buddha came by and delivered pravachans there. All the Sikh Gurus came there, saving only Guru Angad Dev, the second Teacher. Akbar and Abul Fazl visited during the suryagrahan in 1567, and gossipy little Francois Bernier, the Frenchman wandering about in Shahjehan8217;s reign. So the holy dip during the solar eclipse at Brahma Sarovar and Sannehit Pond are famous since antiquity and show every sign of continuing to be so.

The attraction of the solar eclipse at Kurukshetra seems to originate in four Puranas: Matsya, Vamana, Bhagvat and Padma, though the first known reference to the solar eclipse there is in the Mahabharata in the Udyoga Parva. It8217;s a hair-raising section: peace talks fail, Krishna suggests Kurukshetra as the battlefield and Kunti reveals herself to Karna as his mother but the loyal hero refuses to change sides. Alas, for this honourable event, the mela administration has to behave like half-chowkidar, half-mamma. 8220;Don8217;t wash your clothes in the sacred tanks.8221; 8220;Don8217;t spread refuse.8221; 8220;Do not make water in the tanks.8221; 8220;Do not accept prasadam from strangers.8221; 8220;Do not look at the Sun with naked eyes during the eclipse.8221; So many years after Independence, our majority is still 8220;half-devil and half-child8221; as Kipling described us in the 19th century. Whither Hinduism indeed, O Sankara?

What8217;s interesting though is the seamless linkage between Kurukshetra8217;s very ancient festival and the modern new one by the Indus. Both involve praying by the water, offering flowers and lights and cultural programmes of song and dance. It8217;s a cheap, easy judgement to sneer at Sindhu Darshan just because it was instituted by a BJP Home Minister. Don8217;t certain words thrill us all with their very sound: Pir Panjal, Himadri, Rudraprayag, Shivalik, Narmada, Kaveri, Malabar, Coromandel? Our country takes her modern name from Sindhu. Why shouldn8217;t we build a Sindhu ghat, celebrate a festival of communal harmony? Beholding the Indus is surely a peculiarly intense thrill for every Indian. Wonder what 8216;phal8217; a modern Purana would assign it, though.