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Mayapur, Day 1

  posted by Daniel on January 13th, 2011

Suddenly, the lights go out. It is pitch black, 5AM, and I am doing yoga on a sheet on the cold concrete floor. It's quiet still - the birds aren't chirping yet - and outside in the distance I hear a man's unrestrained voice singing a heartfelt Hare Krishna melody while he pumps water into a bucket for a brisk early-morning bath. The lights go on and off a few more times. Nobody drops a beat or even mentions it - this is India, and power-outages are just part of the daily rhythm.

So too, here in Mayapur, is chanting the holy names. The 4AM clanging of kartal cymbals through the halls of my guest house, which prompted me to squeeze two neon orange earplugs (which I'd set next to my pillow for the occasion) in and roll back to sleep, had in fact roused most of the pilgrims here, to gather in the main temple for a 4:30AM service (arati).

Each service throughout the day is unique, with different bhajans (hymns) and inevitably a climatic Hare Krishna kirtan. My favorite, and the one I'll be going to daily, is the 6-8pm service. This is the 'big kirtan' - congregational chanting led by a rotating team of Bengali mridanga, kartala and gong players and a lead singer. A crew of dancers move left and right in joyful unison in the front of the hall, singing Hare Krishna with arms raised in offering to the radiant deities on stage. The drumming, dancing, and singing gradually builds over the course of the service, until it explodes into wild, passionate, focused abandon... cymbals clanging, drums thumping, dancing bodies packed together leaping up and down, arms raised in offering to, and beseeching of, the divine.

It was during this evening service last year, that I reflected to myself that many of the highest times of my life would be in this hall. Tonight will be my first time back in nearly eleven months, and I am very excited.

And now- off to Pankaj's music shop, to get a mridanga to practice on while I'm here. Rickshaw!!!

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