Where God Comes As Witness

I was elated when I was transferred to Satyabadi as Sub Treasury Officer in 1992.

Satyabadi that is Sakhigopal is a historically famous and religiously important place. It is believed that pilgrimage to Puri, the abode of Lord Jagannath is not complete without a visit to Sakhigopal. The name Sakhigopal is derived from a legend in which it is told Lord Gopal has come to be a sakhi (witness) for a poor Brahmin. The story runs like this:

Two Brahmins went on a pilgrimage. At Brundaban the old Brahmin fell seriously ill. The young Brahmin nursed him. The Brahmin recovered, and pleased with the service of the young Brahmin, promised to give his daughter in marriage with him on their return to village. After their return, the old Brahmin changed his mind as the young man was of a lower caste Brahmin. He denied to have made any promise. The young Brahmin went to Lord Gopal who obliged him and came from Brundaban to be a witness.

At Satyabadi, Utkalmani Gopabandhu had started his famous school in 1909. When the house of the school was burnt, the classes were run in the nearby grove of chhuriana and bakul. That is why the school was known as Satyabadi Bana Vidyalaya (Satyabadi Garden School). The school was set up with a noble intention of inculcating national spirit and humanitarianism in the students. The school was justifiably called a ‘man manufacturing factory’. The teachers of the school included Neelkanth Dash, MA in Philosophy, Krupasindhu Misra, MA in History and Godavarish Misra, M A in Economics. They had forsaken allurement of government or any kind of high salaried jobs for an ascetic life of teachers. All the teachers were dedicated and learned. Neelakanth along with Acharya Harihar, another teacher of the School had taken a vow with Gopabandhu on the bank of river Bhargavi that they would work to see a better world at the time of their death than what they had seen at the time of their birth. They were not only great teachers, but also social reformers, litterateurs and freedom fighters.

My euphoria gave way to disappointment soon after I joined.

I had a notion that the place would be nice; the people would be sophisticated and progressive in outlook. But contrary to my belief, I found the place just like any other place, nothing special or different, the people rather proud, orthodox, and caste conscious. On the first day in the office, three-four persons who came to give me curtsey call asked my caste. Disgusted, I replied to one, “How does my caste relate to my official functions?”

In the hotels you had to wash your own dishes if you took tiffin or meals. I could not find a hospitable house to take on rent to stay with my family. All of my predecessors were either commuting from Bhubaneswar or Puri or from Cuttack. (My successors till today, what I learn also do the same). But I decided to stay there. I managed to get a house; it was of mud wall and asbestos roofed. There was no piped water supply. We had to drag water from a well that was inside a small courtyard of the house I lived in. One had to be careful against mosquitoes and snakes. One day, within first week of my stay there, I found a snake, a king cobra, in the office under my table; another day my wife discovered a snake in the kitchen. The climate was humid, and added to it, there were frequent power cuts.

A Brahmin used to meet me in the office. He was normally clad in dhoti. He did not wear a shirt; he used a dhoti chadar to cover the upper part of the body. He would bless me by reciting a Sanskrit sloka, and take one rupee that I offered in return.
One day I was in the office just gossiping with my staff after our day’s work was over. The Brahmin came, blessed me and also took the one rupee I was in the habit of giving. One staff member said, “Why are you offering him money? I was about to tell …he is a retired Sanskrit teacher, taking pension.”
This information surprised me. I had mistaken him to be a poor temple priest, begging by way of reciting slokas. I said, “How could he accept? I was mistaken, but he should have declined, and told me his true identity.”
Another staff member who happened to be incidentally a Brahmin said, “Sir, if a jajaman offers something, a Brahmin cannot decline. If he declines, it would be harmful for the jajaman.”
I did not know about this sort of Brahmin-Jajaman relation. But next time when the Brahmin came and blessed me by reciting a sloka I did not offer him the one rupee. He waited for some moments, but did not ask for the rupee, which he never did, and went away. But after that day he had not come to bless me.

I wanted a transfer, but could not as I was, and still am shy of approaching anyone for anything personal. But as days passed by I got used to the conditions, the mosquitoes and snakes, the people and the place. And after some days I found I had started liking the place. I liked to sit on the veranda of the house where I lived and watched bullock carts carrying loads of coconut to the market. I waited for anla nabami, the day people thronged to have a darshan of Goddess Radha’s feet in the temple. I loved to watch the queue of the devotees snaking in front of my house for the darshan of the feet. I fell in love with the special dishes of dalema, besar or mohura, the way these dishes were prepared in the locality. The pandas (temple priests) loved me and my children. They never forgot to give us special prasad offered to the God on special occasions. I stayed in Sakhigopal for more than four years till August 1996. When I was transferred I was given a teary farewell by the pensioner-friends, and I left the place with a heavy heart.

I lovingly treasure the memory of Sakhigopal and watch avidly even today any news concerning Sakhigopal including Silpa Shetty getting kissed by a priest in the temple precincts.
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