Eastern Purity

It all triggered with the morning visit to Mother Dairy today. I saw a gentle man putting a white hanky on his head as he approached a small gurudwara. A very small gurudwara which might as well resemble a house. He closed his eyes and stood there at the gate for few moments. The faith that I saw he had in god, and the faith in that minute he spent there was overwhelming. I have waited many times outside temples for my friends offering prayer inside, or waiting in queue [temples around Jama Masjid attract huge crowd] for their turn to offer prayer. Generally this happens on Tuesdays. I don’t have any issue getting inside an have a word with almighty, but I enjoy more waiting outside, I get the delight to watch! Last Tuesday, I saw Prateek standing quietly with closed eyes and folded hands, as I waited outside. The innocence on his face and the faith that the situation exhibited was enough for me get that rare standard emotion, “I wanna die here.” That’s how I felt when I saw Darjeeling for the first time or when I saw river Ganga in Rishikesh. These feelings are inexplicable by a word but I would like to coin a phrase, “eastern purity”. This is what I find most appealing about Asia and more so about India. The mandir, the masjid, the ganga, the flute, the Hindustani classical music, the morning, the sitar, the feminism – all these go into formation of ‘eastern purity’. Everyday, I see some lacunae around me to crib about India. But whenever this sense of ‘eastern purity’ prevails over my head, all cribbing fade away.