This Thursday, I saw a dozen-odd children (the oldest couldn’t have been over eight) bustling about outside the crèche near my house, holding cartons and sacks. Every couple of minutes one or the other would smite his forehead and exclaim at yet another forgotten item. As they cleared out a space and filled it with sawdust, I realised they were setting up a tableau depicting the birth of Krishna. It was Janmashtami.
Soon the scene of Krishna’s birth began to unfold, but through the eyes of the ragged little group. “Let’s make some mountains,” said one child. “Were there any in Mathura?” asked another. “It’ll be fun heaping wet mud into a hillock,” the first one argued, “we could stick little branches on it and it would look like a forest!” Soon a very creditable mountain came up. “What about a fort? He was born in jail, wasn’t he?” said the mountain-lover, clearly the group’s creative head. Another hour was spent, moulding more wet mud into a shapeless mound.
By this time, a rival tableau had already been set up nearby. It had large, almost life-size idols of Krishna and Radha and an expensive music system which, bravely oblivious of the impending rain, was blaring devotional songs. Passers-by were making hefty donations and offering sweets and fruit. Each time someone stopped there, the children would stare wistfully. But they were busy making a fence of chalk, and a rangoli with leftover colours from Holi that a parent had magnanimously donated.
A passer-by finally came to them. He said, “This is nice, but where’s the baby Krishna? And where’s his little swing?” The children looked aghast: “How could we forget about the baby Krishna when the whole idea was to make a scene depicting his birth? Now what do we do?” The passer-by gave Rs 20 and asked them to hurry to the shops to find a suitable clay figurine.
But it was already dark. The children, too young to go to the shops alone, stared at each other. “I know!” cried a girl, “Let’s use dolls!” Some dolls were brought. The smallest one, dressed in shiny pink, was swaddled in a white hanky and an inexpertly painted peacock feather adorned its forehead. A swing was rigged up with a shoebox, ribbon and a couple of sticks. “What about prasad?” cried one. The creative head produced a bag of toffees. “I’m sure Krishna would like them, and they won’t spoil if it rains!” he said. The other kids thought it was a mighty good idea. Then some incense was lit, and they were ready for business.
“Does theirs look better than ours?” the youngest asked wistfully when I went for a final inspection. The question had been on everyone’s minds but nobody had dared to ask. I looked at the tableau next door, with its beautiful idols, flowers and the music blaring from loudspeakers. “Of course not!” said I, “everything they have is store-bought, whereas you have made your entire tableau yourselves … there’s no comparison!”
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Darkness had set. Thunder, lightening and rain were keeping many people indoors. The rain had come and gone, leaving dark gashes of vermilion and white in the mud — their rangoli had been washed away and the chalk fence was soggy. But the children had lit candles now, and they were a decided improvement. “What fun this was,” said one when they finally left around midnight, “I hope Krishna liked it…”
Faith, I mused, comes in many guises. Some build temples of marble and place idols of silver and gold in them. Some shout their love of god from the rooftop. But on that stormy night of Janmashtmi, the innocent faith of those children seemed infinitely more moving to me.