Harikathe
I listen to a modern Harikathe, in cassette form, perhaps 25 years old. It brings back so many memories.
Harikathe has been fascinating for me from a young age. I attended the first one when we came to Bangalore in 1958. We were in Chamarajpet which was full of ardent fans of Harikathe. Brahmins , generally salaried employees, traders, working class, and ‘ ಇತರೆ ಜಾತಿ ‘ were fond of Harikathe. There were old people, adults, teenagers and children.
My friends like Kittanna, Ramesha were instrumental in kindling my interest. Kittanna's elder brother Kuppuswamy was too sophisticated for Harikathe and his younger brother Venkatesha was a sort of self declared intellectual and he would pick and choose. We had no such illusions about ourselves. Kittanna would come home and announce that Gururajulu Naidu would conduct a Harikathe that day. It could be ನಲ್ಲ ತಂಗಾಲ್ , ಮಾರುತಿ ವಿಜಯ . ಮಾಯ ಬಜ಼ಾರ್ , ಬೇಡರ ಕಣ್ಣಪ್ಪ , ಭಕ್ತ ಕುಂಬಾರ , ರೇಣುಕದೇವಿ ಮಹಾತ್ಮೆ Generally it was in Dasa tradition but tales about Shiva were also popular.
Gururajalu Naidu - ಗುರುರಾಜುಲು ನಾಯಿಡು - was one of the most popular Harikathe Dasas. But there were others like ಅಚ್ಯುತ ದಾಸರು , ಕೇಶವ ದಾಸರು , ವೆಂಕೋಭ ದಾಸರು ,ವೇಣುಗೋಪಾಲ ದಾಸರು , ವೆಂಕಟೇಶ ದಾಸರು --- Keshava Dasaru, Achyuta Dasaru, Venkobha Dasaru, Venugopala Dasaru, Venkatesha Dasaru …
' Pure ' Madhwa Brahmin, ವೇಣುಗೋಪಾಲ ದಾಸರು , untouched by humour always ‘ preached ‘ only at Madhwa Sangha and hence not popular. His audience were old women, often widows and very traditional elderly Madhwas.
But general audience for Harikathe were - ಬತ್ತಿ ಹೊಸೆಯುವ ಮಡಿ ಹೆಂಗಸರು, ವಿಧವೆಯರು , ಹೂವು ಪೋಣಿಸುತ್ತಿರುವ ಮುತೈದೆಯರು enquiring about juicy domestic happenings, mourning about bad times, misbehavior of daughters – in- law , today's dinner, coming ekadasi , ಕೆಟ್ಟಿರುವ ಕಲಿಕಾಲ , men discussing politics, younger adults talking about movies and romanticizing and teenagers giggling...
It would start around 8 pm. Generally people would finish their dinner and come. There would be traders and more so shopkeepers who would listen for an hour or so and then leave for home for dinner.
Temple, Rama Mandir or any open ground were the places where Harikathe would happen. We would sit outside, sometimes on the road, on footpaths, on culverts, on branches of trees, on covered water drainages.. there was no dust, no hard surface, no discomforts in our world … everything was ok. No complaints.
If you are sitting / standing a little away, not in the line of sight of Dasaru , you could have the luxury of eating ಕಡಳೆ ಕಾಯಿ.
Sometimes someone unimpressed by Harikatha would get into the temple for a darshan of God and return home satisfied after ringing the bell loudly a couple of times disturbing everyone.
Harikathe would be a concoction, delicious and ever changing, of story, music, jokes.
Some wanted the story to proceed without break.
Some would enjoy the singing.
Younger ones would wait for jokes.
It was a free and flexible format. One could add any song , any joke, any meandering, homilies, anecdotes real and imaginary and ( very rarely ) sermons.
Time would merge. Effortlessly we moved on from Dwapara yuga to kaliyuga ; Vedas to Gandhi ; palace to forest to crowded streets ; Harichandra to Rama to Meera to Purandara dasa ; if Tirupati gets earlier pride of place than Kurukshetra so be it. A joke about a politician, current problems, price rise, miseries of kali yuga , why even the corner store ( 'I have to pay a debt of 4 annas to Mitra Stores – Bakery ' , Dasaru would exclaim ), songs of various types – could be a ranga geethe, movie style song, may be from Kumaravyasa or Jaimini Bharata , some Sanskrit sloka to show the erudite skills – all seamlessly would merge with Balarama, Krishna, Parvati , Narada, Indra...
Language, Kannada, would be old classic, modern one, colloquial , sometimes from Bangalore, Dharwad or Udupi and sometimes embellished by Telugu, Tamil.
Tone would be irreverent in general although now and then ‘ ಶ್ರೀ ರಮಾ ರಮಣ ಗೋವಿಂದ , ಗೋವಿಂದ ' , ' ಹರ ಹರ ಮಹಾದೇವ ', ' ಶಂಭೋ ಶಂಕರ ', ' ವಿಠ್ಠಲ ವಿಠ್ಠಲ ಪಾಂಡುರಂಗ ' ( when the sponsor was a Marathi person) would energize not only the singer but also wake up everyone. Would bring back the focus. He could add any dialogue and make the character speak that. At their best , Dasas were exuberant and innovative . They might have been poor and uninformed but on the stage they had to look authoritative, wise and at least slightly larger than life figures. I recall them with sympathy and fondness.
They ( Dasaru ) were not liberals nor advocated any social causes. They were traditionalists, conservatives within bounds of caste , religion and gender rules. Gururajalu Naidu is fine on the dias but no self respecting Brahmin would invite him for dinner at home. People of other religions or dalits did not exist in their ecosystem.
They tried to be as inclusive as was possible. Brahminism was not promoted. But general moral, cultural aspects like ‘ hadibadaya dharma’ ‘ Pativratha dharma’ ‘ honesty ‘ ‘ faith in God ‘ , ‘ Duty towards parents ‘ were touched upon ( ಪತಿವ್ರತೆಯ ಧರ್ಮ , ಹದಿಬದೆಯ ಧರ್ಮ, ಹಿರಿಯರಲ್ಲಿ ಗೌರವ , ತಂದೆ ತಾಯಿಯರಲ್ಲಿ ಭಕ್ತಿ, ದೇವರಲ್ಲಿ ಭಕ್ತಿ ).
Social duties like cleanliness, helping neighbours, giving financial help etc were not the topics for them or for the audience.
There was another side to them. They were poor, kind, polite people without malice towards anyone. They never advocated any revenge, hatred or disrespect towards any one. Not even annoyance could be seen if people were tight fisted.
They worked hard during the ' season ' because come monsoon there would be no business whatsoever.
ಮಂಗಳಾರತಿ time was a small break for the Dasaru but more importantly to get some collection. We might have heard ದಾನ ಶೂರ ಕರ್ಣ just then but most would hardly contribute anything substantial, 4 annas would be the limit.They would reverently accept the ಮಂಗಳಾರತಿ though.
I recall
ಎಲ್ಲಾರು ಮಾಡುವುದು ಹೊಟ್ಟೆಗಾಗಿ
ಗೇಣು ಬಟ್ಟೆಗಾಗಿ
ತುತ್ತು ಹಿಟ್ಟಿಗಾಗಿ
... ನಾನಾ ವೇಷಗಳೆಲ್ಲ ಹೊಟ್ಟೆಗಾಗಿ ....
Most importantly :
ದೇವ ಬಂದಾ ನಮ್ಮ ಸ್ವಾಮಿ ಬಂದಾನೋ
Who said , We have to rise to the level of Gods.
No, Gods came to us. We did not have to go to them.
God would descend to us, sit with us after juggling for space, listen to jokes about Him, songs in praise, and even tolerate abuse ‘ ನಿಂದೆ ‘.
This is a fascinating aspect about Hinduism if left undisturbed by modern devotees. In our world there is no global God, no global maximum or minimum. Always local maximum and minimum. There are multiplicities of Gods and in fact they get added or erased over time. They speak our language, our dialect and look like us. They are moody, cranky and difficult to please sometimes but become quickly mollified, They are friends, bosses, lords, lovers ( only if you are a woman ! ) . Harikathe would reflect these values and concepts. We as people could tolerate many idiosyncrasies in our Gods but not amongst us. Often we were stupid, callous, uninformed but tolerant folks.
