The annual chariot festival of Lord Rato (Red) Machhendranath, a.k.a. the Karunamaya (the Compassionate One), in Patan can be pretty rough some years and nice and easy in others. When it’s smooth, the chariot sails through the streets, following the crowds like an obedient daughter trailing after her mother. When it’s not, it throws quite a temper tantrum on the streets. [break]
Like a man who has had a glass too many of the potent Newar rice moonshine called “aila”, the chariot sways randomly over to one side. It refuses to budge and threatens to topple, right smack in the middle of the street. And that’s when people start to pray the most.
“Not my house, not my house!”
“Please, God, please, topple to the other side!”
“Not my house, not my house!”
“If you promise not to topple on my house, I’ll come and light a thousand buttered lamps in your temple!”
“Not my house, not on my house, I say!”
It’s always worrisome when the chariot behaves like that. More so when it leans towards your house! And it can be quite distressing. Since it’s the chariot of the god that is brushing against your house, you’re certainly at a loss.
Whom to pray to? One could wonder.
I should know this feeling quite well. Last year, the deity’s chariot and its decked-up pinnacle and steeple leaned a little too close for comfort and took souvenirs from my house. The chariot brushed off against the titled roof and swept off the bricks. The revelers on the streets ducked for cover as volleys of broken, shattered ornamental bricks rained on them. The street was dyed in red dust of the bricks that fell from our roof. No one was seriously injured – by the abundant blessings of the Most Merciful Avalokiteshvara, the God of Compassion? I don’t know – but it left my house looking like a hare-lipped child: wounded, dejected.
“Ohhhh!” the sea of people groaned.
“Can’t you guys be more careful?” They shouted in the general direction of the chariot pullers.
They cursed the Roads Department for the bad condition of the road, questioned the worth of the artisans who make the chariot, year after year. Some complained that the chariot’s building materials were compromised and tampered with. Some just enjoyed the show.
“Hey, watch it!” someone shouted as the chariot swayed randomly off course, brushing deeper against his house. A friend of mine wondered if it was the rain of the red bricks that gave the God its name.
“Had the bricks fallen a little slowly, it’d have looked like the Hollywood effects of Matrix, I swear!” he said when we got together later in the evening. We were out in the streets, assessing the amount of the damage.
Just around the corner, near the famously narrow street where Daubahal meets Mahapal, a man was standing in the middle of the street, doing the same. He had his hands on his hips and was looking at where his house’s roof once had been. He had an ever so slight of a smile on his lips. He chuckled sometimes, and moments later he shook his head, as in disbelief.
A hand patted him on the shoulders.
“Again this year, huh?”
“Yes,” he replied.
“I can’t understand how you manage to take this every year,” the man inquired.
“What’s in it to take? Every year the Deuta leans on my house,” he said.
I smiled when I heard that man’s words. His h ouse had taken more damages than mine, yet he looked so relaxed, content too.
“Every year the God leans on my house.”
Suddenly it made sense – just like that.
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