SHANKH-NAAD

The scholars of Earth Sciences have been telling us about the cause of the Saturday's earth shake. Sunday news-papers were full of all the scientific details. I do not understand their jargon or technical explanations well. It seems that the epicenter of the earthquake lay in an active seismic zone and resulted from the collision of the Indian and Eurasian tectonic plates.

 All that I experienced was the shaking of my bed, swinging of the ceiling fan as I lay watching the TV and tingling of bells outside that Kiran, my wife has hung in our sitting room. As I ran out of my room I stared at the objects in the sitting room. Everything which was not fastened to the floor or walls was swaying.

There is a small carved wooden table in the corner of the room on which stood a black wooden statue of a man with his arms collected to his side. My eyes were riveted to this figure as it swayed from side to side like someone practicing voodoo or tantra in a frenzy. Suddenly I heard someone outside blowing a shankha. I am not particularly religious or an atheist either.  But the blowing of the shankha and that swaying statue created a very eerie feeling and gave me goose-bumps. Added to it was the dark sky above threatening to open up. I ran to the window overlooking the road beneath. A large number of people had gathered on the road. I looked in the direction from where the sound of shankha was coming.

Shankha is one of the most auspicious objects that emerged from the sea during the Samudra Manthan. It plays a major part in our prayers and is sounded to get rid of negative energy and evil spirits. The shankha-mudra is also used during various tantric rituals and meditation. God Vishnu, the God of Preservation, is shown with a shankha called Panchjanya in one hand and a chakra in the other. In the Mahabharata war, the conch shell held a significant place. Arjuna's shankha was called Devdutta , Bhima's Paundra, Yudhisthira's Anantavijaya, Nakula's Sughosa and Sahadeva's was known as Manipushpaka. 

If you hold a shankha near your ear, the sound of a gently humming ocean can be heard. This is actually the natural vibration or cosmic energy of the Earth which gets magnified on entering the conch shell. It is also believed that the blowing of a shankha enhances positive vibrations.

My apartment is at the tri-junction of the main artery which has two perpendicular roads branching out. At the triangle there is a fairly broad divider. I have observed over a last couple of months that someone has paved a fairly large portion of this divider and has setup a small temple there. I have also seen some puja being performed in the morning as well as in the evening. To my understanding this is a clear encroachment of the municipal land. Besides, at other hours often unknown people sit in the paved space in front of this makeshift temple under the thick shade of the trees, in the greatest traditions of adda and idle away their time. To me the scenario is quite alarming. In my past experience, a lot of sinister plans to commit offences are hatched by such idle groups of people. I have been  contemplating to write to the Commissioner of Police drawing his attention to this unauthorized occupation of government space and the adda of people who could be a threat to safety and security of the vicinity.

As the blowing of shankha continued for some time I strangely felt it will ward off all the possible disastrous consequences of the quake. As long as the earth continued to shake and my little statuette continued to sway in a rhythmic fashion, the shankha-naad from across the road continued to pierce the area overriding the panic driven shouts of the assembled people below. Then as the shaking of the earth stopped and my statuette stopped swaying, the sound of the shankha also faded.

I believe I am not superstitious.  But I think I will not complain to the Commissioner of Police about this unauthorized occupation of the road divider from where the Shankha-dhwani reverberated.