Baidyanath Temple, Deoghar

The Shiva-lingam, The arti, The scent of flowers, bel leaves, Water, milk, honey and ghee Poured over, The prayers sang, Offering offered With the eyes closed And the hands folded Seeking for redemption From papa, adharma, Sins committed unknowingly. The rock-built temple With a small door For coming and going And the mast over the pagoda, A big rope hanging from But with the trident and flags And the red sacred threads Tied with the Hara-Gouri temple, The panda inside and outside Telling of Har, Har Mahadeva, Shiva-Shankara, Gouri-Shankara. The temple complex wide and vast With the deities all around, But the Shiva temple the main temple The construction of which I cannot, Its engineering I do not, Everything but a mystery, A mystery divine of ancient India As we wrote it not, How the hill was cut and made, So careless in taking a note of! But it used to pain my heart When I used to see the lepers, The blind and the infirm Sitting at the entrance to the temple And asking for alms And frankly speaking, on seeing them A split used to intercept me at the psychic level, I used to get emotionally disturbed With my reverence ever so held in strict confidence And on the other the plight of theirs Letting me not enter the temple. How had it been the temple in the past, How is it now-a-days, How the crowds and the modes of conveyance, How the people doing business, How the things easily available, Flowers, sweets, water, incense sticks, How the Shivaganga pond, How the crematorium attached to, How the olden tales of it Frightening us When loneliness was a foe of man the foot traveller!