On the 8th of August, there was an Amavasya puja at the Kali temple in Electronic City. It is actually quite close to where I stay but the roads are tough and it gets dark and deserted fairly quickly. The first time I had gone there, it was around 6 p.m. But there is a stretch in the road that feels like outer space. The land gets barren and dusty with red earth. There is construction going on in places but I never really saw anyone in the building. It felt like this empty futuristic world where buildings are just making themselves.
But then you come across this thicket and tangle of large bushes, large trees and small dirt roads. The temple is inside one of these lanes but it's hard to tell which one.
The temple itself is in a pink building that looks like the pink of a mithai-box. There's warli painting as you enter and there's a cool, narrow corridor. Then there are these small alcoves inside which you have different deities. Kali herself is very fierce-looking. The face is different from what I have seen in Ram Krishna Mission - where her face is rounded and almost smiling with her tongue stuck out. Here, her face is more gaunt and her eyes more strict. I don't remember very clearly but I think she is very similar to the Kali I had seen in a temple in Cuttack.
I love Kali temples because not many people go there. You can sit and even read a book there in peace. You aren't rushed or asked to explain herself. The priest, however, was surprised to see me the first time I'd gone there. He told me about the pooja on the 8th.
It was really late when I started from home - nearly 9:30. I haven't really gone out of Electronic City that late at night. I go running at 11 p.m. but I go inside the complex where I stay. Or I go to a cafe or the grocery store nearby. So, heading out that late made me a little nervous. Also, it had rained a lot that day There were huge potholes filled with water, roads were almost broken, and as I neared the temple, the paths were really muddy. The cabby asked me if he could stop outside on the main-ish road (there is no main road close to the temple). I got out and it was cold, marshy, and this sounds strange but the darkness was sort of blazing. I can't explain - it was not the kind of darkness that you can't see in. It was the darkness that could blind you. I could hear frogs, night insects, and the low growl of an angry dog nearby. There was a strong wind. The building of the temple seemed dark. It seemed to be closed. The cabbie was so sweet - he offered to wait in the lane with his headlights on so I could go up to the building and check.
I went to the gate and a man peered out. He told me that I had come to the wrong building - the temple was in the next lane. (I had made the same mistake the first time I'd come. GPS is pretty faulty in that neighbourhood, I feel.) The idea of trudging up and down the lane with the marshy ground and leaping frogs and growling dogs seemed a bit too much. But the cabbie was really nice and he dropped me to the next building.
And the next building seemed to have erupted wih colours, music, people, food and light. It was a beautiful puja - quite different from what I've seen in Bombay. There was the priest and his son. There were lots of days it and there was this huge brass plate with a hundred black wicks. Lots of hibiscus and rose garlands for Kali and lots of roses and rajnigandha for Durga and lots of marigold and leaves for the Shiva. There were quite a few kids running around and beating the drums. It was so hard to imagine that this place was so noisy but you wouldn't know it all from even a lae away - until you came real close to the temple.
I think you really need to enter the darkness fully to get a sense of the joy that it holds.
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