Soul-shattering cacophony

Though now enjoying the sunset phase of my life with books, Bacchus and my better half, there are some existential puzzles that I have not been able to unravel. Am I a devout man, an agnostic, an atheist? Perhaps I am all of these. I do seek divine intervention when I’m suddenly face to face with some serious worldly trouble. My parental sanskars begin to nudge me to fold my hands in prayer, begging for relief and rescue. Otherwise, when all is hunky-dory, I stop being a bhakt and practise my own version of meditation.

It’s a pre-dawn celestial hour. I am out for a walk. Hushed silence reigns all around. I am soon at my favourite spot by the roadside. Looking east, my gaze rivets on the silhouette of my chosen Dhauladhar peak: a perfect triangle as if chiselled by divine hands. Stately, sentinel-like deodars in the foreground add to the grandeur. Several tall trees are swaying merrily in celebration of the spell cast by nature. The sun is still behind the peak, readying for its rendezvous with the earth. I hear the gurgle of a brook, and the chitter-chatter of my dainty little avian friends around. Transfixed, I stand for a few minutes of bliss… until some irksome human noise breaks the spell.

It is the jagrata — a common summertime ritual — that I want to speak about, having woken up today with a burn in my sleepless eyes and the buzz of nocturnal noise in my head. In May, when I heard a JCB’s heavy drone barely 500 metres away from our dwelling, I got apprehensive, gripped by a sense of déjà vu. A few years back, I had to call up the police to stop the ear-splitting noise when my requests to the chief organiser had gone in vain. Though I half-expected, the police responded with alacrity. The cacophony stopped but a neighbourhood grudge against me abides till today.

Now fearful of bulldozers for obvious reasons, I changed my tactics. I rang up the man in charge: ‘Some new construction project, I presume?’ ‘No, no. The usual jagrata… on a grander scale this time,’ he replied.

Politely and sweetly, mouthing standard reasons, including the law, I urged him to let the loudspeakers not be so loud after 10 pm or so. But he was defiant.

I booked a room for that night at a homestay in a nearby, lovely little village. Sipping my beer in the lobby, cooled by the Dhauladhar breeze, under the sensuous full moon, I reflected: Jagratas are a part of our folk tradition I so value. But this soul-shattering cacophony all through the night is surely not my idea of India and her traditions.