Kuber Rush

It was a really cold winter morning, one of those mornings when you wake up, stay awake for half an hour or so, and then drop back into bed and doze off. Half asleep, the dreams are vivid, maybe because it is 10 am and the diffused light in the room makes the scenery vivid! Also, for some unknown reason, you have control over the events in your dreams. There I was at some Himalayan foothill, planning my arduous climb to the summit, pondering how to navigate the heights unassisted, without ropes or any safety equipment (à la Point Break!). Sadly, that morning I had forgotten to put my phone on silent, and that tring tring broke my adventurous ardour.

In my partial state of enlightenment, in a very lazy manner and with an equally lazy tone, I picked up the call and said, “Hello.”

On a scale of excitement from one to a hundred, I was at minus 10, and the caller at the other end was at plus 110. That hyper-excited dude, in an exuberant tone, said, “Did you read today’s newspaper?”

His loud tone jolted me a bit. I opened my eyes to check who was calling: it was ‘P.cat’. (This is not the time to ponder why my contact list is full of nicknames instead of full names.) I put the call on speaker and, trying to muster some enthusiasm to match my caller’s, said, “Yes…” I actually wanted to elaborate, but saying “yes” in a rather high tone (scale reading: plus 10) had sapped most of my lazy energy, and that one word was all I could utter.

At the other end was the polar opposite. He doubled down on his tone and, in a rather accusatory manner, hurled his question at me: “Then why did you not tell me?”

Now, obviously the grammar of his question is wrong; however, since my grammar is also not that great, it was not worth chastising him over it. But he was being unreasonable. A typical newspaper has an average of 14 pages, each page with 5 main articles, 5 short articles and roughly 4 advertisements. Oh yes, count the astro column, the cartoon, the TV and movie schedules, the Page 3 pics, etc. Now what exactly, from this vast trove of letters and images, was I supposed to read, digest, relate, and then think, this might be of interest to A, B or C, so I must call A, B and C and tell them?

In my slumber state, I had no energy to rant at him, so I dropped back to my minus-10 tone and said, “What.”

His enthusiasm was rising like the mercury in a thermometer dipped in boiling water, and, quite unnecessarily, he got louder. I heard him as loud as my phone’s speaker could manage: “In today’s paper it says today is Grand Kuber Muhurat!”

Muhurats in India are like the “days” in the West: Valentine’s, Father’s, Mother’s, Friendship, Women’s, etc. They do have a cultural or astrological significance, and some history attached to them, but like their western counterparts they are now mostly used for their commercial value, to boost sales in the economy.

Ignoring the two “todays”, I just wanted to ask him: who, what, when, why, how! However, in India, whenever a muhurat is attached to anything, an emotional connect is implicitly attached to it, and these emotions are basically easily offendable sensitivities. Even in that half-awake, half-asleep mode, I was conscious of such sentiments (ingrained cultural training!), and in a very polite tone I replied, “I did not read the paper properly, so I must have missed it.”

The hyper-excited chap then proceeded to explain the significance of the Grand Kuber Muhurat. He had received a text (from whom, is not known), and the text said that today’s paper (which paper, is not known) mentions that whosoever offers their prayers at the Kuber temple before 8:30 pm will be showered with immense wealth and riches, as today is (yes, you guessed it right) the Grand Kuber Muhurat.

The chap had forwarded the same text to at least a dozen people; however, for some reason, I had the privilege of a direct phone call. The reason was not that he wanted to share the wealth with me, but that his endeavour had got stuck at a very important hurdle, which he now posed to me: “Where is the nearest Kuber temple?”

At that moment my brain was buzzing with several questions; however, my ingrained cultural training prevented me from asking them. Maintaining a calm demeanour, I replied, “No, I don’t know.”

To which he replied, “Then ask someone around.”

I woke up and looked around. I was alone in my room. I walked out of my room and found I was alone in the house: it was 10:30 am, and everyone had left for work. I walked out of the house, only to find my neighbour’s door locked! Was I alone in the building, I wondered? So I took to the stairs, and lo, I saw an anthropoid walking up them, one I knew well enough to pose to him the purpose of my travels (travelling in shorts, a phenomenally old T-shirt, no footwear, hair pointing in random directions). I asked the man, “Do you know the location of a Kuber temple nearby?”

Now, hu-man is a thinking animal, and this one thought. He asked why I needed this information, so I relayed the entire story. Mine began with “I got a call”, and the chap on the speakerphone corrected my version whenever I strayed from the original plot line. Having consumed the entire information, the man now had the means and the context to answer my query. He replied, “No, I don’t know where the nearest temple is,” and before leaving the stage he added, “If you come to know of one, inform me. I will also come with you.”

He went up the stairs typing on his phone. I am pretty sure another chain of texts began right there.

I told P.cat I would get ready, have a bath, and then we would figure it out.

I went back to my bed and, after a few more minutes of lying there, reluctantly pushed myself to get ready. The reason was simple: P.cat lived nearby, and I knew his patience level. Sooner or later, he would be at my doorstep.

Getting ready took me about an hour and a half. It was noon by the time I sat down for breakfast. Glancing at my phone, I saw that I had already received 5 messages from 5 different people about the muhurat. While I was having breakfast, another 5 called with the same information. The whole thing had taken over Pune, it seemed, and was growing by the minute.

As anticipated, the hyper-excited chap ended up hyperventilating at my doorstep. His first question as I opened the door was, “Did you find where the temple is?”

The Temple Hunt had begun!

Normally such a thing would have faded out, but this one had all the ingredients of an excellent marketing campaign:

Today, we would call it going viral.

That dude, without bothering for my consent, made me an accomplice in his endeavour, and off we went on his bike in search of the elusive treasure. From one acquaintance to another, he rode his 11.3 BHP engine like a man on a mission. Each iteration began with a mild enquiry about the temple, followed by a detailed description of the muhurat. Some places offered us tea; some were kind enough to offer snacks, chakli, etc. However, every interaction ended with the same outcome: “Don’t know where the temple is!”

Though I was happy getting a regular food recharge every now and then, I still wondered why we were wasting so much fuel traversing the dunes of Pune, navigating potholes and crossing dug-up drainage lines, when we could have got the same information with a phone call! However, my Sarathi (charioteer; here, the rider) was beyond all logic, determined to unearth the treasure. I mean, the address of the temple.

Each trip took roughly half an hour, travel and food included. By 5 pm we had probably touched every nook and corner of the city. The riding dude was feeling the heat now and was losing hope. And when all hope is lost, what do we do? We go to S.P.’s Canteen and have a nice samosa pav with kokam or lime juice.

Now, S.P.’s Canteen is not the official canteen of S.P. College, Pune. The college’s official canteen is within the premises, has a name plate saying “College Canteen”, and does not have the letters S and P on it. S.P.’s Canteen (the one with the letters S and P on the name plate) is actually outside the premises, a good 100 m from the entrance, and yet it has more college students snacking than the College Canteen. The reason for pointing this out is simple: I am diagressing here. Plus, if you have samosa and juice at the College Canteen, it is not as good as the one at S.P.’s.

Back to our treasure hunt. We reached the last point of solace and got off the bike. At that moment I was preoccupied with a very important question: should I go for samosa pav and kokam, or should I opt for lime juice? A friend of ours was at the counter, ordering, well, kokam. On seeing him, my first question was, “What are you doing here!”

The exclamation mark is because this new chap in the story lived miles away, in a faraway place called Aundh. If you are not from Pune: Aundh is that part of Pune which is beyond Pune. It is beyond Pune University, basically beyond University Chowk. That chowk is one massive chowk, and if you got stuck at it, it took a minimum of 15 minutes to get across. Now they have put a flyover there to add to the chaos; back then it was merely chaotic. Hence, you crossed the chowk only if you had to, only if your life depended on it. (If you are not aware of what a chowk is: in other cities of the world it is called an intersection, usually with traffic lights to control the flow of things: vehicles, people, occasionally dogs.)

Hence my surprise at seeing the guy from beyond the realms standing there at the counter.

He replied, “Kuber Muhurat.”

Oh! We were not alone; we had company. However, there was one major point of divergence between us and our new companion: despite arriving from beyond Pune, he knew where the temple was!! He continued, “Before going to the temple, I thought I’d have something to eat.”

My chap now left me alone and took over the conversation, to extract the information from him with some sweet talk and, if need be, some sweet lime juice.

The temple was on top of a mountain. Well, it does not look like a mountain any more, as the cement vegetation around it has almost subsumed it, but technically it is still a mountain. The mountain-top temple he was referring to was the mountain-top temple of Pune, popularly known as Parvati.

An outsider had beaten us in the quest. It was highly embarrassing; the Punekar in me felt ashamed. How could he know such a fact about my city when I didn’t? In my shame, I decided to stay away from the samosa, as a self-disciplinary punishment.

He went on to describe the route. Apparently, among the multitude of deities worshipped side by side at Parvati, Lord Kuber has a dedicated platform and a small temple. You cross the main temple, and at the rear exit a small staircase drops to the platform.

Indian temples are never standalone temples. A temple may carry the name of a particular deity, yet it is pretty inclusive. The main hall itself will have at least a dozen pictures and murals of other deities, and around the temple are another couple of dozen smaller temples, platforms and statues, revering a host of other gods. The idea is perhaps the convenience of offering prayers to all the deities in one place, and it is also somewhat spiritual, if you see it as an amalgamation of ideas and ideals. Parvati, in the same tradition, has several temples around it.

As I listened to the golden route, the picture brought back some fond memories. Years earlier I had been part of a football club, Phoenix FC (tagline: if you see an opportunity to score, just goal it!). The club’s ground was the Shahu College ground, known in the footballdom of Pune as the ligament-injury ground (a whole separate story; maybe later). The ground was next to Parvati, and our coach’s favourite routine was to send the boys running up the hill to touch the temple wall and come back: a 2 km sprint, every Tuesday and Thursday. It was an extremely tiring climb, legs used to give up, and the run resulted in a very lacklustre performance in the game that followed.

So a few smart ones (me included) used to reach the temple by the main entrance and hide in the premises, biding our time. Soon the huffing and puffing footballers would come running, touch the wall and head back. We would wait for the last boy to touch and turn, and then jump in and join the group. This saved us energy and effort, and on those days we usually overpowered and out-manoeuvred the others in the team. Eventually a string of such distinguished performances even led to a selection for the district team!

Back to our muhurat story: the platform described by the man from beyond the city was the very one we used to hide on. The moment I realised this, the fondness in my memories came to a screeching halt, and now both kokam and lime juice were off the table. In all wisdom, I kept quiet; otherwise my chap would surely have sacrificed me then and there.

A few years down the line, we will have to scan the Fortune 500 list, and then we can safely conclude that those on it made it on time, and also went into the right cave.

For the rest… well, wait for the NEXT MUHURAT.