Wari

On June 17th Pune, India becomes a channel for an annual river of pilgrims from the Warkari tradition. They were accompanied by palanquins which carried the sandals of two Maharastran saints, Jnaneshwar Maharaj and Tukaram Maharaj. Their sandals (living embodiments of each sage) are carried from their home, the sacral places where each saint left their body (mahasamadhi shrines), to the living statue of Lord Vishnu in Pandharpur, India: Vithoba. The night before the festival I met a reporter, Devidas Deshpande, from the local newspaper, The Pune Mirror. Devidas warmly engaged me about my background and home country and after we were clearly hitting it off I suggested he feature a piece about our American contingent studying Sanskrit in Pune over the summer. In order to spice it up, I let him know that the first ever Hip Hop song in Sanskrit was in the process of being composed, and the article could also announce the upcoming debut of its local performance (a small cultural show at the end of the semester). This article, of course, would be a precursor to a new movement in Indian contemporary music led by a troop of local and foreign artists that blend Indian philosophy, Bolliwood beats, and Sanskrit alliteration in a fresh, vitalizing form of Hip Hop; truly newsworthy, even in the early stages of development. Devidas shrugged off the suggestion, but told me to meet him in front of the newsroom during the procession. The next day he found me in the masses that surged down the main road of Pune and summoned me to the newsroom of the Pune Mirror where I was treated to chai and then asked to write a short piece on my experience of the procession. Devidas, I found out, shared a love for the Indian thinker Shri Aurobindo, and moved by his genuine interest to see the pilgrimage through my own eyes, I agreed wholeheartedly and speed typed a small exposition which was featured on the front page with a huge photo they took of me superimposed on a background image of the festival. Here is the piece with a photo I gleaned from the Pune Mirror photographer of the pilgrimage outside the city:




Ben Williams, a student of Deccan College, Pune has done his Masters in Sanskrit from the USA, and has been in town for the last two months [this was an error based on miscommunication]. Being an avid fan of Saint Tukaram [this is true] and reader of Dnyaneshwari [Jnaneshwar's magnum opus], he couldn't miss out on the sights and sounds of the Palkhi procession. While the dindi flowed through Fergusson College Road, Ben recounted his experience for Pune Mirror

Visiting Pune for the first time on a summer Sanskrit program, I was immediately swept into the vibrancy and power of the Warkari procession. The first thing that struck me was the joy of the pilgrims on their yatra. Their smiles, the generousness of their spirit, were both contagious. As the procession overflowed the streets I became overwhelmed by the sea of color, chanting, and dancing. Because I have studied the poetry of Tukaram Maharaj and the Dyaneshwari in English as a masters student of Hindu studies in America, I could appreciate the significance of the songs that everyone chanted with all their heart. The most miraculous moment so far (as I am about to rejoin the throngs) has been seeing a Warkari group dancing in unison with their cymbals. They were moving back and forth in total synchronicity, the energy building steadily, until they collapsed together on the ground. Lying on each other, they continued chanting and clashing their bells, kicking their legs, laughing. I realized with a sense of wonder, that this procession was just a snapshot of a 300 km non-stop celebration. Reading the Dnyaneshwari several years ago, and studying it recently in my program in the USA, I am continually surprised that more people in West are not aware of Jnaneshwar's religious genius and poetic brilliance. My own appreciation of Jnaneshwar's philosophical and literary insights has now been magnified by this glimpse of the living tradition that has continued in an unbroken fashion for 700 years. My familiarity with many of the stories surrounding Jnaneshwar and Tukaram's lives and the centrality of Pandharpur in their own religious universe has been deepened by seeing the love reflected in the thousands of Warkaris on their way to that auspicious abode and I wonder if Tukaram and Jnaneshwar would have known that they would be visiting their beloved Lord for centuries after their mahasamadhi.