Expressions unleashed..: When Dreams Come True...

The date was 22nd Jan 2024. The entire nation was immersed in the festive celebrations of Shri Ram Mandir Pran-Pratishtha (consecration) that was being conducted at the newly reconstructed Ram Mandir in the city of Ayodhya. To the Hindus of India, the city of Ayodhya is believed to be the birthplace of Shri Ram. The Pran-Pratishtha meant that the divine energy which they identified as "Ram Lalla" was being established within the idol that was placed in the Garbhagriha (inner sanctum) of the temple.

For most of us Indians, this was just another buzzing event that picked up the public craze as it neared its planned date of execution. Feelings, sentiments, and emotions of our people were diverse. Intellectual opinions and commentaries were complex, and thus confused their subscribers. In this post, I want to talk about my experience of this event in my social and inner domains.

My current social domain consists of active professionals, senior citizens, and my apartment kids with whom I often relive parts of my childhood by playing some simple outdoor games. Most of the active professionals work in IT services and dependent industries. They have a very strong belief that they belong to the modern, open-minded, well-informed culture of today's world. A common cliché that can be often heard in our discussions is - "I am more spiritual than religious". My regular conversations with them are mostly confined to very limited perspectives on mundane social and political developments that happen in the world surrounding us, a world which is more virtual than real. Interestingly, both the news and the perspectives in these conversations are adopted from the same source - social media. Any deviations from the status quo, or deeper dives into the topics, generally lead to the mood turning sour or boring. We also talk about our achievements at work, with the added flavours of politics and work ethics. These achievements hold no relevance in the real worlds, in fact they hold little relevance even at our workplaces. Interestingly, we all aware of this fact, but still we tend to talk about these mainly because we don't have any other marketable mettle to make any impact in the real world around us.

The senior citizens group, on the contrary, is a diverse group with a vast domain of knowledge and interesting life experiences. Many senior citizens are retired from govt. institutions like nationalized banks and public departments, some are retired after serving in armed forces and related institutions, and some are retired from public-facing private institutions like private banks and schools. Some seniors worked at big manufacturing companies like TATAs that led the industrial revolution in our country. One of them worked at and still continues to hold honorary responsibilities in the IT mammoth IBM that led the IT revolution across the world. One of the seniors digitalised Indian Banking System, while another implemented Advance Reporting System in Indian Aviation Sector which transformed the entire industry. One of the revered seniors retired as the Director of Aeronautical Development Agency, after having been honoured by the Missile Man of India Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, while another retired from Senior Administrative post in Indian Railways having designed an important flyover over a railway track near my current apartment. These seniors have lived and experienced the journey of our country. They have contributed to our country's shift from a recently-freed-of-slavery, socially backward, under-developed, an unnoticeable third-world economy to being the fastest growing economy and one of the most impactful countries of the current world. My every interaction with these seniors enlightens me with more knowledge of how our great country and its culture has survived the tests of time. It survived via the rich and deep characters that our previous generations used to nourish and pass on to their next ones. I also realize that my generation is fast losing its inherited wealth of character and becoming a flock of dumb, confused, and remote-controlled sheep that can be pushed in any direction by a silent whip from some never-to-be-known social media shepherds.

In general, many of us active professionals have demanding work commitments at the start of every calendar year. This is because our employers are majorly based out of US and UK, and they return to work from their long Christmas and New Year breaks. They have a huge backlog of planned deliverables to be released in the first quarter of the calendar year. I was leading a project that was planned to be released on 23rd Jan 2024. I was trying very hard to release it a week before, to buy a little more than the nominal contingency that I had in the project from its inception. While many professionals were busy like me, many were indifferent to the 22nd Jan Shri Ram Pran Pratishtha event owing to their self-acclaimed futuristic modern-world viewpoints. Also, many were confused as to whether they should be religiously happy or scholastically secular by calling the event a politically-driven extravaganza which overshadowed the faith of the supposed-to-be-secular and ever-ready-to-be-oppressed Hindus. I guess many of us may still be confused. But now we don't need to think about it, as the event and the associated buzz have become a thing of the past.

In my social circle of senior citizens, there is one man who has been closely related to the history of this Ram Mandir in Ayodhya. I am lucky that I could get from him the following account of the long history of this temple and the associated faith & emotions of the Hindu Samaj. The story of the temple and this senior citizen's part in it go as follows.

Foreign-ruled and oppressed Hindu Samaj was waiting for the arrival of Lord Shri Ram in Ram Mandir for more than 500 years. In 1949, Shri Ram gave his first Darshan (signs of presence) at a site that was inside a dome-shaped building constructed by the people belonging to a minority religion in India. This site was then believed to be the Garbhagriha of a historical Ram Mandir. Shri Ram's first Darshan marked the beginning of one of the longest Hindu Samaj campaigns. The campaign was to acknowledge that, historically, the site belonged to a Ram Mandir. To respect the faith of the people belonging to the oldest existing culture of the world, there was a call to reconstruct and restore the Mandir at that very site. There was a request to raze other structures that were constructed by razing the historical Ram Mandir, at that site. One of the biggest Indian architect of that time, Chandrakant Sompura, made the architectural design for restoring the temple. The present Ram Mandir at Ayodhya, constructed in 2023-24, is built on the foundations of the same design that was created in the 1949.

This senior citizen was born in 1958. He was the youngest in a big family of six very closely-knit brothers and his parents. As he grew up, he developed this rare sense of serving his country by serving the people around him. Maybe he inherited this sense of service from his parents. Even with a monthly income of INR100 and 6 children to bring up, his parents opted to take care of the schooling and upbringing of his two cousins. This in addition to the time that his father would spend in preparing writing-slates and then also teaching his cousins on them, almost every day after his regular work hours. His father would buy both jaggery and refined sugar, his mother would smartly put jaggery in the tea for the family members and sugar in the tea for the guests. His mother had not completed any formal education and did not hold any degrees, but she was "empowered" enough to own and manage the 100 rupees of the monthly household income to bring up a family of ten. One of the elder brothers of this man developed a revolutionary thought process. This was very unconventional to the business community to which the family belonged. Maybe with some influence from his elder brother, he got aligned with Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) in his active youth. He rebelled against the unfortunate Emergency that was applied in our country in 1975, by then Prime Minister Mrs. Indira Gandhi. Taking a leaf out of Gandhiji's book of non-violent methods to revolt against anti-people authorities, RSS staged a "Jain Bharo Andolan" in which its protesting Karyakartas (workers) voluntarily let themselves be arrested, to fill the jails of the authority. So, at the age of 17, while he was still in school, he committed himself to the cause that he'd chosen to stand for, without bothering about its practical impact and repercussions of the same on his education, career, and thus on the rest of his life. He remained imprisoned in a Jail in Rohtak (a small city in the state of Haryana) for more than three months. Only his revolutionary elder brother made a few occasional visits to him, as they did not want their family to be identified publicly and be at the receiving end of the authorities. Also they wanted to avoid the ire of the popular self-oriented thinking of society over their family.

In 1983-84, while filling the entrance form to apply for a Govt. job, he was strongly advised to hide the fact that he had been jailed for a considerable amount of time. But his principles did not allow him to do that. His job application was rejected. But then the destiny led to a reorganization of the Govt. department. The scheme of things rewarded his strongly-held principles and led to his appointment to a new sub-department which hired the candidates who had the scholastic merit but were still rejected for the main Govt. department.

In Sept 1990, crores of Hindus of our country donated 1 rupee each, to conduct the Shila Pujan of the Ram Mandir. In Hindu faith, Shila Pujan is a religious ceremony conducted to purify the land as well as the souls of the men who're supposed to do the construction. This senior citizen was 32 years old then and had a job of 6 years at a national bank. He had a very simple salary. His parents and elder brothers had just come out of the burden of long held family debts. Not all his brothers were as educated and stably employed as him, some were struggling to make their ends meet. The family understood and respected the importance of every rupee earned. However, he remained committed to his chosen cause and donated the 1 rupee towards his resolve.

Members of RSS are popularly known as Karsevaks or Swayamsevaks. In terms of its literal meaning, Karsevak means the volunteer who offers his services to a cause for free. Swayamsevak means the selfless worker who does not expect to get anything for himself in return for whatever he does for his cause or the organization. A Swayamsevak fully owns the responsibility of managing the practical challenges of his personal life, without looking towards the organization for any help. RSS bears all its organizational and operational expenses by the contributions from its Karsevaks. One of their key annual events is Gurudakshina. This event is celebrated to remember the great Hindu practice of offering something personally dear to our Gurus. The event starts by getting together and recognizing our revered Gurus. They discuss the interesting and enlightening life lessons from the lives of Gurus like Dronacharya, Chanakya, and many others who built the great character of our nation. This is followed by remembering and practicing some of our ages-old Shikshas (lessons) like Dand Yuddha (the act of fighting with a simple wooden stick, majorly for self defence) and Niyuddha (an Indian traditional martial arts of fighting without any weapons, again majorly for self defence). Then a lot of traditional games like Kabaddi, Kho-Kho etc. are played. The energy and the light-hearted commentaries of players binds everyone in a great spirit of sports and togetherness. Finally, the end is marked by distributing a very delicious Kheer (a traditional Indian delicacy made with rich milk and rice). There is no limit to the number of servings one wants to have. This event is celebrated at all Sangh Karyalayas (offices) across the country. All RSS events are open for everyone. All local people, even those who are not a part of the organization, are invited to these events. There is no entry or participation fee. Everything is sponsored by the contributions of the Swayamsevaks, with no bindings for the members to mandatorily contribute. More than the money, the Swayamsevaks offer their Seva (service) in bringing everyone together to celebrate our culture's deep roots and its great existence.

The donation of 1 rupee might've seemed minimal even at that time. But this was an example of the fact that if everyone decides to make even slightest of a contribution, with a good intent, then the collective power of the group (Sangh) is big enough to attain big goals and make huge impacts. The matter of the Ram Mandir was so dear to the Hindu Samaj that, along with donating 1 rupee, each Karsevak took an oath with his/her blood that the Mandir will be built at that very site in Ayodhya where Shri Ram had given his Darshan in 1949. This senior citizen also took the oath with his blood.

By Oct 1990, this man was one of the most active Swayamsevaks in the Chandigarh (Haryana) sub-zone of RSS's organizational structure. Owing to the prolonged indifference of the administration towards Hindu Samaj's sentiments, a very widespread and strong agitation started. There was a call to gather at Ayodhya and demand the demolition of the dome-shaped structure, to make way for reconstructing the Ram Mandir. He boarded the train full of Rambhakts (devotees of Shri Ram) that headed towards Ayodhya. Fate of the agitation was unknown and it held promise of many unpleasant outcomes. The state administration was alert. They stopped the train in Agra (Uttar Pradesh), 500 kms before Ayodhya, and arrested all Rambhakts. So, on 26 Oct 1990, a day before the fifth birthday of his daughter, this man again went to jail.

Over next few days, the agitation grew even more stronger. Rambhakts overpowered all blockades to reach the dome-shaped structure and started demolishing it with whatever makeshift tools they could find around. On 30 Oct 1990, the administration opened fire on the Rambhakts in Ayodhya. Many lost their lives, including Kothari Brothers who were popular for the exceptional works that they'd done for the Hindu Samaj. They'd come all the way from Kolkata to participate in the agitation. Their contributions to the Hindu Samaj and our nation were so great that Shri Narendra Modi, the Prime Minister of India, specially invited them to be a part of the Pran Pratishtha ceremony in Ayodhya, 34 years after their unfortunate demise. When the news of the firing in Ayodhya spread, there was a spurt of anger in the jailed Rambhakts. The jailed men included members of RSS, Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), Bajrang Dal and many other Hindu organizations of our country. Many jailed men gathered at the big iron gate at the front of the jail. They were extremely angry and emotional. The jailed RSS Karsevaks tried to persuade the fellow men to get back from the gate and not do anything that might lead to situation going out of control. However, the mob became uncontrollable and the big iron gate fell. Administration was stunned by the bloody turn of events. Soon it announced that it would release all the captives, in small batches. Now this man took over the responsibility of ensuring that all his fellow RSS Karsevaks reached their homes safely.

With the spate of unpleasant events during the agitation, this man realized the difference between the organized ideology of RSS versus the unorganized, disillusioned driving forces of other Hindu organizations of the country. Not all senior members of RSS could resist the extremely strong forces of the politics of power and vested interests. This soon started showing with the unwelcome changes in the policy making in the organization. At this juncture, this man pulled himself back from continuing to be a part of the organization. However, he resolved to continue to be a Swayamsevak and pursue his service to the society in his small personal domain, with strong and unwavering core values of RSS.

In Sep 2018, this man turned 60 and retired gracefully from a very senior post in the national bank that he'd joined in 1984. The retirement celebration was attended by more than 40 of his colleagues, along with his immediate family which also included his then 2 year old grandson. Anecdotes and farewell speeches by his colleagues spoke aloud of the selfless and spotless character with which he had served his organization and, through it, his nation.

So this Swayamsevak completed his active service to the nation and his organization with utmost sincerity and honesty, without expecting any rewards or compensations in return for the sacrifices that he'd made in his line of duty. He always believed that being able to do good Karma is a blessing in itself, and bad Karma is settled very painfully within the very life in which you did it. However, God seemed to have kept a good account of his good Karma. To his and his family's great surprise, in 2018, Haryana Govt. announced a scheme named Haryana Shubhra Jyotsna Pension Scheme with the aim of providing a monthly pension of INR 10000 to the residents of Haryana who participated actively against the 1975 emergency and faced imprisonment. He's been gracefully receiving this pension for 6 years now. Starting July 2024, the pension amount is now doubled to INR 20000 per month. This was not it, his oath was yet to be completed.

Sometime in 2023, the Supreme Court of India settled the very long pending case to clear all constitutional hurdles for the construction of the Bhavya (Grand) Ram Mandir at the very site which was identified in 1949. After more than 33 years of his participation in the last major agitation and subsequent jail term, the Mandir was built and consecrated by placing the idol of Shri Ram Lalla at the very site for which he'd taken the oath with his blood. None of the people around him, and he himself, could sense the level of happiness and satisfaction that his inner soul was experiencing.

He was equanimous in his external projection, like he had been known to be throughout his life. More than celebrations, he wanted the current active world of professionals to understand the importance of the event. But like I said before, most of the active professional "intellectuals" were either indifferent or confused, ironically because of their "ignorance" on the matter :). He understood now that he could make a very limited impact in his social circle as he was now retired from active life and held little relevance to the modern day intellectuals.

Over the last three years, I have organized a good number of social, cultural, and national events in my society. However, I was holding back this time because many reasons. My project release deadline was fast approaching, I had to prepare and conduct (as the President of my apartment association) the 26th Jan Republic Day celebrations in my apartment, and I had very little hope of understanding of the spirit of Hindus and importance of the Ram Mandir in my society. However, just four days before the event, one of the modern day RSS "member" approached me with the proposal to collect funds for the event from our society members, the RSS way of funding events. I call this person a "member" and not "Karsevak" for the reasons which I want to keep out of the context of this post. I got confused at this RSS member's proposal. My heart wanted to make an attempt to create awareness and celebrate the spirit with which our fellow senior citizen community member campaigned for the Mandir throughout his active life, alongside thousands of others from the Hindu Samaj. But my brain advised me to not take this additional and demanding voluntary responsibility of trying to infuse life into dead characters, at the cost of the very limited personal time and energy that I had at that moment.

Like always, my heart won over my brain. Considering that I only had 3 days to organize the whole event, I quickly activated my network of resources to make various arrangements like catering, lighting, tent, and other associated arrangements. Based on my experience with catering price negotiations, and knowing that the intellectual members of my society would wait for an assurance of sufficient participation to enrol for the event at the last moment, I fixed a contribution of INR 300 per person to fund the whole event. This included the big expense items of lunch, tea and accompaniments. It was implicit that this contribution was towards the collective celebratory spirit of the event and not just for the food. To the misery of our current social situation and an insult to the spirit of millions of Hindu Rambhakts, people started analysing the proposed menu for the event and argued that we used to have a wider spread for INR 200 in previous celebrations. Ironically, if these people were told that in 1990 thousands of people donated 1 rupee, they'd have all argued on the relevance of the size of the contribution. They won't realize that those who contributed in 1990, including our fellow senior citizen community member, were not even close to the economic prosperity that we enjoy in today's world. Most of these people are owners of at least one flat which is worth 1.25 crore rupees, and they have handsome household incomes.

When told about the kind of response to the requested contribution, the senior citizen was deeply appalled. From the character and culture that he carries, he hoped that people would consider this contribution too less and would even want to offer more than the ask, to make the event even more grand than what was being planned. The modern-day RSS member had a different reaction. He approached me to request the apartment association to contribute for shortfalls, if any. I could not entertain this request, for the practical bindings of my conduct as the President of the association. However, in my capacity as a fellow resident, I did request my society people for a little better understanding of the intent and the importance of the event. But, in parallel, the modern day RSS member published some messages about the contributions that further confused the people. Very hurt by the developments, this senior citizen advised me to cancel the event. But, soon after, he recollected himself and his core RSS values came to the fore. Still holding on to the little hope of bringing some awakening towards good intent and character in the current world, he advised me to make the contributions voluntary. He assured that even if nobody contributed, he and a few like-minded people within the society, will bear the complete expenses. Also, the event will be open for all to attend, celebrate, and eat, without any binding for making a contribution, the traditional RSS way.

At the age of 65, he achieved yet another feet of conducting the grandest event in our society, funded by only and only voluntary contributions. 35 out of 101 flats voluntarily contributed close to 60000 rupees. Considering the earlier apprehensions of many members for the meagre contribution of 300, nobody imagined this big a collection. So, once again, the destiny rewarded the little hope and the pure intent of this man.

So all the arrangements were in place on 21st Jan. I was extremely tired at the end of the day. I had a big responsibility at my workplace, to provide hyper-care for the project which I managed to release a week before the planned release date of 23rd Jan. In addition to this, I had to coordinate with multiple vendors, stakeholders, and people in my society to prepare for the grand event. I slept early, by maybe around 10pm. Suddenly, maybe out of anxiety, I woke up at 2am with an active non-sleepy brain. As soon as I woke up, the thought came to my mind that how big a day it would be today (22nd Jan) for that Senior Citizen. I got carried away in the line of thoughts and lost my sleep completely. That's when I penned the initial draft of this post. After a long time, I picked up a pen and my diary, and physically wrote my thoughts, instead of typing them over a laptop. At the least I was sane enough to avoid screen-time at 2am in the night :). Eventually I fell asleep again at around 4:30am and finally woke up at my usual time of 5:30am.

Early in the morning, I felt some divine purity of thoughts inside my inner self. I decided to preserve the purity by fasting till the Pran Pratishtha rituals were completed at the Ram Mandir in Ayodhya. 12:20 PM was the auspicious time set for the start of the rituals. Nationwide live telecast was planned via YouTube, so we also arranged for screening the same in our apartment's celebration area. Prior to watching the live telecast together, the community decided to do setup a Ram Darbar in the celebration area, recite Aartis and Bhajans, and conduct a little Puja (prayers) to seek blessings of the almighty for our community. To everyone's surprise, few mothers dressed small kids as Shri Ram, Lakshman, and Sita and choreographed a short little scene of them returning from their exile, after spending 14 years in the forests. In those few minutes, everyone seemed to have imagined themselves to be in the Ram Yuga (era), lost in the pleasant delight and spirit of welcoming Shri Ram to their city of Ayodhya. The senior citizen's grandson portrayed Shri Ram, beautifully reciting some of Shri Ram's dialogues from the famous Indian TV adaptation of Ramayana.

Finally the moment arrived. 50 odd people from our apartment sat together to watch the live telecast of the Pran Pratishtha ceremony. This also meant the first Darshan of the idol that was being consecrated as Shri Ram Lalla, at the Garbhagriha of the Bhavya Ram Mandir at Ayodhya. I do not have any words to describe the whole vibe of the celebration area when the idol was unveiled. A moment before the moment, I searched for the senior citizen in the gathering. As usual, he was sitting at the farthest corner of the last row, away from his deserved spotlight. His eyes were glued to the screen. He seemed indifferent to what was happening around him in that moment. As the moment struck, I looked at the eyes of Shri Ram Lalla's idol and my eyes filled. I felt weightless and empty from inside. Since I was in the spotlight, I was trying hard to stop the tears from flowing down my eyes. I put my back towards the gathering and faced the screen while trying to control my emotion. I failed. I took a small backdoor exit from the celebration area and wiped my tears. I went back in to preside over the gathering, but again got overwhelmed and again had to take the escape route to let my emotions flow.

The Pran Pratishtha rituals lasted for around 15 mins. That also marked the end of our celebrations. As a general practice, gratitude was expressed towards everyone, especially to our team of organizers. When my turn came to address the gathering, I mentioned very small parts of this senior citizen's life story associated with the occasion and, with a choked throat, very proudly introduced Shri Parmod Kumar Goyal, my father, to everyone. While he further narrated parts of his long story, with my tearful eyes, I could see the respect that some of the most revered members of our community had in their eyes, for my father.

While into such deep emotions, I generally allow the emotion to play inside me - unchecked and uncontrolled. As the emotion settles down a bit, and as the analytical faculties of my mind revive, I tend to revisit what happened inside me in that moment. Looking back at it, I feel blessed to have had this experience. Most of us are aware of human emotions when we see our children or grandchildren achieve their dreams, in education, sports, professions, arts and many other domains of life. I feel that very few of us are blessed to experience our parents' very-long-held personal dreams come true, right in front of us. I still can't express in words my exact emotions in that moment, but this long account of it has helped me preserve it for the rest of my life :)...