Nine Lives(87)

Here on the boundaries of life and on the cusp of reason, they pray and meditate, daily confronting their fear of death. Caught suddenly by the influence of the goddess, these crazed anchorites roll on the ground in ecstasy, screaming “Jaya Tara!” (“Victory to the goddess Tara!”). It is also here, within the bounds of the cremation ground, on nights with no moon—the most inauspicious time in the month according to orthodox Hindus—that they perform their Tantric rites.

Yet, just as Manisha Ma had said, in many ways what is most striking about this place is not any sinister quality, so much as its oddly villagey and almost cosy feel. There is a palpable sense of community among the vulnerable outcastes, lunatics and misfits who have come to live there, and those who might be locked up, chained, sedated, hidden, mocked or shunned elsewhere are here venerated and respected as enlightened lunatics full of crazy wisdom. In turn, they look after one another and appear to tolerate one another’s eccentricities. It is a place where even the most damaged and marginal can find intimacy and community, and establish their own centre of gravity.



Later that evening, when Manisha Ma took me to the temple, I got a small glimpse of how Tantra still plays its part in modern Indian politics. Inside the sacred enclosure, a line of pilgrims were queuing to have darshan of the image of the goddess, but although it was approaching the time for the evening aarti, the place was surprisingly empty for such a famous shrine. Separate from the main crowd, in an enclosure to the east, however, stood a group of burly men wearing homespun khadi, and one of these was clutching a goat.

“I am a Bollywood fight director,” explained the man holding the goat, “and for many years I was a stunt fighter. Now I am standing for election. That is why I have brought this bakri all the way from Bihar, in my own car—to offer it to the goddess.”

Milan Ghoshal leaned a little closer, in a confidential manner. “My seven colleagues have come to Ma Tara too,” he said, waving his hand at his entourage of tough-looking moustachioed men in short sleeves loitering some distance away. “You see,” he explained, “in our state, politics is only for the strong. There are many tough and violent men competing for power in the Bihar Assembly.”

This, I knew, was certainly true. Bihar has long been renowned as the most lawless state in India: in recent elections, many of the candidates actually fought their campaign from behind bars, and a large number of Bihar’s Legislative Assembly MLAs have criminal records. Milan certainly looked the right man to fight an election in such a place: he had a thin beard and a shaven head, a firm jawline and a broken nose that, together with the deep scar above the left eyebrow, gave him a harsh and brutish expression. Yet for all the broad-shouldered, village wrestler physique, he wore the simple long white homespun kurta of the politician, and around his neck he had strung a rudraksh rosary.

“In Bombay,” he said, “they call me Milan Thakur—Milan the Boss. I trained in martial arts in Bhutan, and now I am a master. No one can beat me in a fight; not in Bombay and not in Bihar.”

“And all this is important in Bihar elections?”

“Of course,” he said, putting the goat down. “Bihar is a rough place. I need Ma Tara to fight alongside me. If she accepts my offering, then maybe with her protection, I will win. Ma Tara can help get us power. If not, I have no hope. I am not a rich man, and I cannot spend the money that some of the other candidates will be throwing at the people.”

I introduced Manisha Ma, who had just come up from the temple, where she had queued to have darshan. When Milan learned that Manisha lived in the cremation ground, he bent forward and made a gesture of touching her feet. “Tantra is much more powerful than conventional religion,” he explained. “Without the shakti of the Devi and her followers you cannot do anything.”

“And you think this is the place to access that power?” I asked Milan.

“There are very few places where shakti is still worshipped,” he replied. “That is why I drove for eight hours to come here, getting up before dawn. In my part of Bihar, when men seek shakti they know they must come to Tarapith. We chose today because tomorrow is an amavashya, a night with no moon. On this night and the next, we believe, the goddess is at large, and more open to our prayers.”

Milan indicated a platform where a priest was chanting amid a yantra—a Tantric symbol made from flowers, coconuts, bamboo, vermilion and coloured sand—as part of the yagna ritual of sacrifice. A fire was burning in its centre, and flickering candles framed its corners. As the flames rose higher the priest threw in handfuls of rice from a thali, all the time reciting Sanskrit mantras, while two of Milan’s colleagues sat silently cross-legged on the far side. Milan sat for a while with Manisha and me, watching the priests chanting, and when the ritual was over, he got up. “Now it is time for the sacrifice,” he said, “my astha bhole.”