A Sampradaya of Bhakti and self-realization

I manage to wriggle out of the chaotic traffic jam around Mithakhali Circle thanks to my small Maruti and some crafty moves that let me survive on the Ahmedabad roads. I find a spot surprisingly close to the Lion’s Hall entrance, park my car and make my way in, leaving the commotion on the roads behind; the tumult in my head persisting. It feels as if I’m entering little Chennai—the foyer is bustling with maylapore mamis, babies in arms, and old men feasting on pongal and sambhar. The crowd is mostly over 50, with the women dressed in beautiful kanchivaram silks and the men in dull clerical shirts and pants. Inside the hall sits a group of musicians, bare-chested, dressed in gold-bordered mundus, immersed deep in devotion. At the centre is a dignified looking man, with a warm husky voice, exuding a sense of calm.

Udayalur Sri Kalayanaraman Bhagvathar is one of the stalwarts in the South-Indian bhajana tradition. The combination of his reputation and an evening of devotional songs has managed to draw the Tamil population in Ahmedabad away from their prime-time soap operas; or maybe, as Kalyanaraman jokes, they’re only there because it’s Saturday!

A sampradaya is essentially a tradition, a lineage of knowledge passed on from one generation to another, not through inheritance, but through rigorous practice and commitment. The sampradaya of the Nama Sankeertanams (essentially: singing the god’s name) partially owes itself to the Bhagwata Purana, one of the several sacred texts in Hinduism formally written down in its existent form somewhere in 1000 CE. It states in the bhagvatam that in the present age of Kaliyuga, the only way to self attainment in the midst of vice and destruction is through bhakti yoga, most easily achieved through the singing of devotional songs. The bhajana sampradaya in South-India typifies a particular style of singing that presents deep philosophical truths drawn from the sacred texts through simple devotional songs and hymns that often leave the listener in a trance.

As I try to forget that I’m sticking out of the crowd like a sore thumb, I allow myself to give in to swaying to the catchy rhythms. The mrudangist with his mastery plays with the time cycle teasingly, almost falling out yet always hitting the end beat on the mark. Kalyanaraman has a smile on his face, it’s a challenge keeping up with the drummer’s tricks. The songs are mostly in Tamil, but the years of my Bharatanatyam training have taught me enough to get the gist of what’s being sung. These are a varying descriptions of the numerous incarnations and appearances of the gods and their somewhat soap-operatic tales. It is dizzying to try and understand the multitude of stories, let alone the family trees of these gods and the contexts in which their worlds were written about. I stop trying to search Wikipedia on my blackberry for the Vishnu Avatars and origin and significance of what I’m hearing, and let myself give in to the hypnotic music, beyond its meaning, beyond understanding its historicity, and purely allowing the tumult in my head to evaporate.