The annual pilgrimage to Pandharpur, a wonder known as 'wari', reached Pune this evening. As is my wont, every year, I follow the footsteps of the warkari's for a little distance. Literally a sea of ochre undulating on waves of devotion seems to flood the streets.
Sorry to have to mention this. Yet it has to be said. This small, little walk (that I take out of my deep respect for the wondrous concept called "wari" wherein, uninvited, lakhs and lakhs of people, the real common man, walk, wonder of wonders, a distance of some two hundred and fifty odd kilometers out of dedicated devotion) depresses me every year.
Let me explain why. Well, actually it is my dream to one day complete the wari from Alandi to Pandharpur. Unless I get to join the I/T employees' 'dindi' or I can be a part of the officially designated 'dindi' of the Alandi 'devsthan', this dream of mine will not be realised.
The only reason is that there is undescribable mismanagement. There is total chaos. People are pushing and shoving and falling over each other. This year, a dindi ran along, screaming the way young people do after winning a match. Well, the wari is devotion, not demonstration of over enthusiasm.
Yes, the police do try, and true, it is difficult to control such a huge surge. Yet there has to emerge a pattern if the original purpose and purport of the wari are to remain intact. Let me give you a concrete example. Except for the officially designated dindi's, other warkari's belong to the extremely poor citizenry. In fact, there are people who cynically maintain that most such foot soldiers follow the path to escape hunger and want at least for a month.
Is it then right to distribute food items, biscuit packets, rajgira sweets and bananas to show off? This time, a truck full of devotees were catching/dropping the food packets thrown at them! It was amusement for many! Well, the poor, not so lucky as to board a truck, literally attack the donor in a frenzy, and ugly scenes ensue!
Many old warkari's slip over the sticky banana peels (not to mention the slippery puddles) strewn everywhere. Instead why not give such gifts to the 'winekari' of each 'dindi' who can distribute the goodies to each person? Otherwise, the city largess gets reduced to a cruel mockery of the rural poor!
Cannot there be better time management? Like the Ganesh immersion procession, the palakhi procession, too, is getting delayed more and more year by year. Forget anything else, do not the tired devotees deserve some rest on time?
In brief, the discipline observed at the time of the "ringan" must be followed at every stage/step. Oh, yes, the poor horse! Everybody touches anywhere that hyper sensitive animal! Ah, yes, can not there be a designated number of people on board the palkhi chariot, solid heavy in itself, and, moreover, stuffed to capacity, and overflowing, with the "mankari"s? One really pities the bullocks harnessed to the chariot!
Sure, many dindi's do sing abhang to the beat of the castanets and the 'mridung', perform folk forms such as the human pyramid, the different types of 'fugadi' and 'zimma', the traditional games. Yet such scenes are rare, are mere exceptions, are not the rule as they actually should be. The real rituals matter the most, right?
If such woes, growing gruesome by the year, are not nipped right away, the real meaning of the 'wari' would be lessened, and a devotional ritual would get reduced to a huge procession without much prayerful precision!
Pratima@ A pilgrimage is a 'way' (in all senses of the term) to connect with the divine while being part of a community. The distance to be covered is a mode of enriching the devotee both physically and psychologically, right?
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