I met Ma

Today is the ninth day of Navratri.

For the last nine days, I had not found the mind space to visit Ma at a pandal. My own little sadhana had been happening at home, painting a different form of Shakti each day, spending time with her through colour, chanting, silence and reflection.

After my philosophy class today, some classmates invited me to visit a Devi pandal with them. I couldn’t go, as I needed to get a ride home.

But when I reached Bandra, close to my house, I suddenly felt a deep urge to see Durga Ma. I tried getting an auto for almost twenty minutes. Nothing. No Ola either. I called a friend about another pandal, but he said it was too crowded.

So I let go of the idea and began walking home.

I was almost opposite my building when I heard loud garba music. I followed the sound and came upon the sweetest little gathering. A beautiful Devi ghat in the centre, two young girls dancing around it, and three elderly women sitting on chairs.

I stood there watching, smiling at this unexpected sight.

One of the girls noticed me and called out to join them. I didn’t need another invitation! I stepped in, and the three of us danced around Ma for an entire song, almost ten minutes.

When the song ended, the girl took me to one of the elderly women and said she would bless me. I touched her feet and received her blessing. Then the girl asked me to take blessings from Devi. I knew the ritual, so I knelt before the beautiful ghat, about to offer sindoor and turmeric to Ma.

Suddenly the girl stopped me and said the old lady wanted to do it for me.I was a little confused, but something in me welcomed it. The woman was very old and frail. I waited as she slowly came towards me.

She applied sindoor to Ma and then to me. She brought her hand to the diya flame and placed it on my head in blessing. This ws the whole ritual and I thought it was complete..and I was about to get up.

But she wasn’t done. She went back to the flame, touched it, and returned her hand to my head. Then my back. She rested her hand there for a long time.

Then back to the diya. And again to my head.

Again and again. I didnt know what was happening…Something began to happen within me..I had goose bumps.. I closed my eyes. The tears started flowing..and I completely surrendered.

She continued doing this  for almost ten or twelve minutes. She must have reached for the flame and returned to bless me at least fifteen times…I lost count but it went on..

Her hands were old, soft, yet incredibly strong. There was such intention in every touch. Such tenderness. Such an unmistakable feeling of love being showered  onme.

And this woman knew nothing about me. We had never met. We didn’t even know each other.. Yet in those moments, I felt as though she knew something far deeper than anything I could have told her.

I felt as though Ma herself had entered those hands.

I don’t know how else to describe it. It was as though the hands of this frail old woman had become the hands of the Divine Mother. I could feel the love moving through them. Not an idea of love, not an emotion I was trying to create, but something so tangible, so alive, that my whole being seemed to recognise it.al my cells felt drenched in this love.

There was nothing to ask for. No prayer to make. No desire to place before her.

Only to receive this grace. I felt completely utterly held. Without doubt, without expectation, without needing to be anything at all.

Just held. Just loved. Belonged to Her

For those moments, I lost all sense of time. I forgot where I was, who I was, what had brought me there. There was only that touch, that flame, those hands, and this immense, unconditional love.

It felt as though something was being poured into me, and all I could do was sit and allow literally the tears of gratitude and fullness to flow.

The tears..would not stop…it as as if my whole being was so full of the love that it was just briming over.

When I finally got up, I touched her feet again…She gave me prasad. I hugged the young girl who had invited me to dance, still crying. Thankfully, she didn’t seem surprised!

I crossed the street and came home. I could say that sentence once again

I lit a diya at home,  before Ma and sat there crying ..thanking her without words for a long time. Not from sadness, but from a gratitude so deep that I had no words for it.

It felt as though every cell of my being had been washed in love. As though I had sat beneath the Ganga, a river of pure grace. And somehow, that grace had taken the form of an old woman’s hands.

I keep returning to the extraordinary simplicity and unexpectedness of this turn of events

For nine days, I had been painting the nine forms of Shakti, contemplating her many expressions and Chanting, And on the ninth day, when I so wanted to go and see Ma, and every attempt to reach her seemed to fail.

And then, she came to me. Literally.

Not in the grandeur of a temple. Not through an elaborate ritual. But through two little girls dancing, a small Devi ghat, a flame, and the loving hands of an elderly woman I had never met. I was crying also because it felt as if this whole elaborate setup was done just for me.

Perhaps the divine is not separate from life. That Ma is not only in the form we worship, the image we paint, or the sacred space we travel to. She is also in the life that moves through us, in the tenderness of another human being, in the love that arrives without reason or expectation. And Faith does pay. One does not need to know everything.

And perhaps grace is surrendering

I had spent nine days painting her many forms. And on the ninth day, I felt her in the hands of a stranger.

I had wanted her darshan. Instead, I received what felt like her sparsh, her touch.

I cannot explain it any other way. It was Ma. It was love unconditional full and pure, and not in my imagination either..

My gratitude knows no limits.

My nine days of sadhana had found their blessing.