Birth of a God

I know that three months is too long of a break from anything. You could call it my writers block or bloggers block, if I may. In my defense blogging was not just the only thing that got blocked. I haven’t cycled, jogged, worked out or even gone for a bullet trip in the last 3-4 months. A depressing period my dear reader, but not everything is down. I am sure the blood pressure and glucose levels are pretty high and the numbers on the weighing scale evidently is.  

A lot of things have happened in the last three month that warrants a monologue from my part, including the curious incident of a Swami, a girl and a knife in the nighttime; metro and the art of gatecrashing; of beef, fishes and men; when cricket hurts and heals; the soap opera of middle east and so on. The collective weight of breaking news over the channels threatens the picturetube of my ancient TV set while it gives me ample fodder to ramble in my blog. Among all these events the one I need to talk about today is the birth of a God.

Yes of course, even a God need to be born at some point or the other. It could be in a sheep pen, a palace or a desert based on various canonical evidences yet I choose to believe Sir Terry Pratchett’s theory on the birth of Gods which he explains in his book Small Gods. Let me explain his theory in my words.

"Lo! I am born."

Just like that.

Everything in existence has the potential in them/it to be a god. All you need is someone to believe and worship. The tree in the corner of the field where a kid found his lost toy can give birth to a god if the kid thanks the tree in gratitude. The god grows in strength as the kid’s devotion to the tree increases. One fine day en-route to his school with his three friends the kid stops by the tree and prays for the absence of one particular teacher. For this good cause his friends join and by some miracle  chance luck for the kids and the tree god and ill luck for the teacher, she came down with a stomach bug and had to take the day off. 

An Old tree, just for a feel

Our tree God now has four devotees which soon extrapolated to the entire class, the school, some parents and eventually the village. The small god of the tree is now a major player of the villages’ spiritual club. The tiny wisp that was born out of the kid’s gratitude and active imagination now sports a body that is benevolent to the students, source of wisdom to the teachers, intimidating to the guilty and presiding to the whole village.

A few weeks back someone told me that the Mother & Child statue at SAT hospital in Trivandrum is the new diety on the block. SAT hospital is a premier gynecology, neo-natology, children’s hospital in Kerala under the government where most of us including myself and my son took our first breath and wailed our first cry. My earliest memory of this statue must be when my parents took me or my sister for our vaccination and whenever I see an image of this statue I form a mental picture of beaming mothers and screaming children. But there was no divine intervention or presence back in the day. It was just a work of art like the mermaid at Shankummukam beach or the Celestial nymph (Yakshi) at Malampuzha dam, just rocks and concrete with zero holy flesh.

Mother & Child at SAT Hospital campus, Trivandrum

How did this art work by Mr Aryanad Rajendran who sculptured it to spread the message of mothers love, the need of breast feeding transform itself to a small god? It is a sculpture that shows a mother breast feeding her baby; with her kind face tilted down in peace. She is neither doing the traditional blessing gesture nor she has a halo around her head, neither does the baby have one. There are no temples, churches or mosques in the immediate vicinity to impart some divinity, yet she is now a minor god. How did it happen?

Mary at JannaDeep Vidhyapeed, Pune

From the evangelical perspective, image of a mother cradling a newborn baby had been a symbol that launched crusades and build monuments. Billions around the world pray to this image every day or at least every week. Yes the attires do not match with the traditional ones but remember we do have saree clad Mary with baby Jesus all over the coastal belt in south India. It was a simple adaptation by our missionary friends to find easy acceptance among the native population. Maybe our Mother & Baby at SAT stroked a chord with a desperate but devote Christian family who had their young daughter in a difficult labor. They offered few candles and some silent prayers while the doctors and staff at the hospital successfully delivered the child saving the girls life. Sweets were soon distributed to the staff; thanks and the breath of life to the cement statue. A holy gossip at the next prayer meeting increased the reach of the new god, her devotes grew in number as more and more candles lighted on her altar and more and more babies were born happy and healthy.

Krishna & Yeshoda

Hinduism always believed in divinity of mothers & motherhood and we often address our Lady Gods as Amma (mother). It would be much easier for a rural father to find solace in a familiar image in a strange city so close to the hospital. He is scared for the safety of his child and grandchild and wants to stay near the hospital yet he wants to run to the nearby temple to offer his prayer and seek blessings on their behalf. In this very predicament, he finds a larger than life sculpture that reflects what he wishes for his daughter. Devotion fills his heart, offerings stars raining. The doctors perform their regular miracle in the labor room, the child gasps for his first breath and the god rises in the mind of yet another family.

I am unable and unwilling to explain this divino-genesis from the other religions perspective as my knowledge about them is insufficient and I dont want to risk it.

Yakshi watching over Malalpuzha dam in Palakkad

This country is peppered with millions of gods small and great, native and foreign and a new one to the club do not really matter in both human and spectral world. But it does matter for a desperate family as that sculpture provided solace for them in the time of great peril and what harm can it do? After all the patient life is in the hands of the good doctors let the bystanders peace be in the hands of a small god.

Mermaid sculpture at Shankumukham beach

Maybe one day fisherfolk will offer the mermaid statue prayers for safety at sea and the Yakshi at Malampuzha becomes the patron goddess of dams, but until that day, Mother & Child is our new god.