A Reflection at Samhain
Shrine to Gatothkach, Dhungi, Himachal Pradesh
Today is a Great Fire Festival for Pagans. Known most commonly as Samhain, it is the time when the veil between the worlds is thinnest. It is a time to remember our ancestors and to reflect on our own mortality. Our views on death vary both individually and culturally. Below is a short reflection I made in Northern India earlier in the year. I hope it captures something of the diversity of value we place on our own lives and our own deaths.
That was just what happened
Beyond Barshaini the road turns off the Parvati and becomes a meandering track to Tosh. It is too much for the bus so this is its last stop. On this day it performed an exquisite turn in three points before emptying its contents; people, cauliflowers, potatoes and beans. After the customary ten minutes of shouting and honking, the bus was again full and set off back down the valley towards Manikaran. Five minutes after starting, a lone sadhu called the bus from the side of the road and it stopped to let him on. The loose blankets around his body and dreadlocked head identified him as a man of faith and devotion. He walked to the front of the bus and sat on the gearbox. The conductor whilst collecting amounts from ten to seventy rupees neglected to ask the Baba. As the bus wound round the steep mountain side, several times it stopped to negotiate passes of opposing vehicles: each manoeuvre requiring perfect precision and clear communication to ensure neither vehicle slipped off the outside edge where the mountain fell several hundred feet to the thundering Parvati below.
Just before Raskat the bus came to a halt, stopped by a big yellow Japanese digger sideways across the road. Clearly there was no way ahead and the driver and half the passengers got out to investigate. Fifty metres on the other side of the digger, earth and boulders had detached themselves from the mountain and were rolling down the slope, across the road and onwards into the valley below. Boulders the size of small cars flipped like coins negotiating their irregular descent. The passengers, bus driver and the driver of the digger (all men) stood calmly watching the spectacle.
From within the group, the Baba walked forward. Slowly he continued until he stood in silence at the near extent of the rock fall. For ten minutes he watched the mountain tumbling down and the men watched him. The pace of rockfall eased and then paused, and the Baba, barefoot begun to pick a route through the debris. When he was nearly halfway through the rubble the rocks started moving again: his body made minuscule by the massive granite slabs now spinning around him. He paused in the middle of the chaos and the men waited for him to make a decision; to take some action. With a single flowing movement he put his body on the ground, lying down and allowing Lord Shiva to dictate if the mountain would pass over him, or take him into its embrace.
There was a quick and animated discussion between the men, in Hindi or in the prevalent village language, and an outcome agreed. One young man moved forward and covered the distance between the bus and the Baba in seconds. Not wasting time in looking or dodging, he got straight to the prone Sadhu, reached down and lifted him onto his shoulder. This was a man who’d earned a thousand rupees carrying seventy kilos for five hours to Kheerganga. He moved swiftly out of reach of the rocks and placed the Baba on a rock half way between the landslide and the bus. Both men were unscathed.
Everyone watched the rocks continue to fall for ten more minutes until they slowed and with the last one and two, stopped. Waiting only two or three minutes to confirm, the digger driver climbed into his cockpit and pushed the beast forward, the plough on its front shoving the tonnes of stone and earth off the side of the road to fall into the river far below. After two sweeps the road was clear enough to allow a vehicle through; the men got back on the bus and it drove forward. Stopping to collect the Baba: he entered and took his place on the gear box. The bus moved quickly through the cleared road and on its way towards Manikaran.
That was just what happened.