Decades on, no trace of Baba Harivallabh’s relics
Aparna Banerji
Tribune News Service
Jalandhar, December 21
Once conserved at the samadhi of Baba Harivallabh, the tanpura and kharaun (footwear) of the saint have remained untraced for the past three decades.
While for years, it was believed that the belongings of the saint, who heralded the Harivallabh Sangeet Sammelan, were misplaced by the North Zone Cultural Centre (NZCC), centre members claim they could also possibly have been misplaced by the committee members themselves. The three-day 142nd Harivallabh Sangeet Sammelan will start tomorrow.
Until 1989 the tanpura and the kharaun or charan paduka (footwear) of Baba Harivallabh were placed at the saint’s samadhi, from where they were regularly taken out during the Harivallabh hawan conducted to usher in the festival – a tradition that still continues at the Baba Harivallabh samadhi on the Devi Talab Mandir premises. However, after that year, they went missing.
Treasurer of the Harivallabh Sangeet Mahasabha Rakesh Dada, who is also conserving the Harivallabh recording archives and other literature and paraphernalia acquired from collectors over the years, said, “The last reference of Baba’s treasured tanpura and kharaun date back to the hawan conducted in 1989. After that no one saw them. I had visited SK Ahluwalia, the then director of the NZCC in 1996 and enquired from him about the belongings of Baba Harivallabh. Many archival photographs of the Harivallabh festival were also preserved. He told me that much of the archives and photographs with the NZCC had been destroyed in the floods. And it was possible that the Baba’s belongings were also among the material. The belongings damaged also include some recordings and films made at the Harivallabh festival by the NZCC.”
Dada also said the official queries on the issue had also been made by former Jalandhar Divisional Commissioner VK Shrivastav to NZCCs former director Geetika Kalha on the issue, but yielded no results. Tourism and Cultural Affairs Minister Navjot Singh Sidhu has allocated Rs 25 lakh to the sammelan, promising total Rs 50 lakh, including money from his own fund. Ravinder Sharma, Programme Officer, NZCC, said, “The saint’s belongings are not with us.”
