The Trip - Part 3

...cont from 'The Trip - Part 2'

The Dargah, which was located atop a small hill was just a couple of minutes away from the main temple was a boon in disguise as I couldn’t have been able to control my breathing any longer. We went inside the Dargah to find a peaceful place surrounded by trees with the birds chirping merrily while flying around, thankful to be in an environment which was pollution free. The sight was one we could rarely get to see in a city like Mumbai and the probability of hearing these sounds in Mumbai was a big ‘ZERO’. I climbed the platform which was out of limits for the females to enter the Dargah along with my uncle and cousin. We found a baba inside who stood up from his praying stance on seeing us. The baba was approximately five feet three inches tall, about 70 years of age with an average built. He motioned me to kneel down in front of the Kabr located in the centre of the small structure. Unaware of the method in which the baba gave his blessings, I obeyed.

As soon as I was on my knees and bent down in front of the Kabr, I felt a hand slamming me right on my spinal cord. In an instant, my position had transformed from the ‘Kneel down’ method of the Muslims to the ‘Sashtang Namaskar’ style of the Hindus as I lay flat on my stomach unable to balance myself after the ‘blessing slam’. It took a few moments for my spinal cord to stop vibrating from the impact of the slam and send signals to my brain to get up. Embarrassed at being brought down by a five 5 feet 3 inches tall 70 year old man in a single blow, I got up and turned around to see the amused expressions on the faces of my uncle and cousin. Forcing a smile, I went past them and straight out of the Dargah. To my horror, I realized that the females had watched the whole incident from below the platform and the realization of how much little sisters like their elder brothers to be humiliated left me even more terrified imagining the leg pulling session that awaited me.

I got down from the platform and tried my level best to stay as far away from my little sister as possible. But being a sister, she wasn’t ready to let go of the golden opportunity. She came beside me and with a huge grin on her face and asked “how is your back now?” “I was taken by surprise!” was all I could say. She burst out laughing and after a good 5 minutes went away to join the other ladies who were having their Q & A session with the baba who was standing on the platform and suddenly looked like ‘The Great Khali’ to me. After listening to the questions of the ladies patiently, the baba signaled the ladies to follow him to the other Kabr which was located beside the platform where the ladies were supposed to pray. Once all the ladies had gathered around the baba, he started chanting his version of the mantras’, I went near the group and tried to understand the mantras, but as the trend was, I wasn’t able to understand a single word. Disappointed, I turned to leave.

Suddenly I heard a thud and turned around instantly to find my aunt lying on the ground. I tried to run towards her but was stopped midway by the signal of the baba who had raised his hand still chanting the mantras. Not in any mood to confront the person who had taken me down in a single blow, I stopped. My aunt had fallen on the ground in a position drastically similar to that of ‘The Vitruvian Man’ (A famous painting by Leonardo Da Vinci). The positioning of the arms and legs were spot on. The only difference was that instead of the male in his birthday suit, here lay a female in her Punjabi suit. The baba, impressed with himself on taking down two adults in a space of 15 minutes went to the tap nearby and took some water in his palm and sprinkled it on the face of my aunt. Straight out a scene in some irritating Hindi movie, she opened her eyes and slowly got up. On getting up, she looked energetic enough to take on any athlete in the world and comfortably beat her. I looked back at the tap and couldn’t help but wonder if the water coming out of the tap was one of the ingredients used in the manufacturing of ‘Red Bull’. The rest of the visit to the Dargah went smoothly without any more incidents and we moved out towards the rickshaws that were parked downhill.