“In Tarapith, thanks to the Mother, I moved onto a different plane. I collected many disciples, and found that the life here suited me. At the end of the first year, Tapan Sadhu said we should go on a yatra, and I agreed to go with him. We travelled in trains across India to Benares, Haridwar and Rishikesh. We had no money for tickets, but the ticket inspectors are a little afraid of the sadhus and they never ask for money.
“From Rishikesh we walked up into the snows to Badrinath and Kedarnath. By the time we got there it was very cold and the winter blizzards were beginning. But it was still wonderful—I felt I was in heaven. Whatever he ate, I ate. We used to practise yoga and asanas, and live a life of meditation in the silence of the high Himalayas. For me it was pure joy. Looking back at my old domestic life, it seemed meaningless, without any spiritual substance. I felt free for the first time. It was a total release.
“We stayed up there a whole winter, and then the summer too. In the hot weather, the waters of Ma Ganga were cool and refreshing. But we were too attached to Tara Ma to stay there for longer than that. Ma Ganga is very powerful, but Ma Tara is stronger and more compassionate. The greatest pleasure we have is here, with her. It is here in this place of death, amid the skulls and bones and smoking funeral pyres, that we have found love.”
That night was the amavashya, the Night of No Moon.
Crowds started to arrive in the cremation ground around midafternoon. By sunset, preparations had begun in earnest for the sacrificial rituals that were to be performed after midnight. Piles of kindling were carried on the heads of the Tantrics, and goats led in, some pulled on leads by individual sadhus, others in great herds by villagers looking to sell them. In every hut, lamps were lit.
Many of those who drifted into the burning grounds were sadhus and Baul minstrels, but as the day wore on, a surprising number of those who gathered were ordinary middle-class Bengali families from Bolpur, Shantiniketan and even Calcutta. All, for their different reasons, were determined to access the shakti of the goddess on the night when she was at her most powerful. I asked Manisha if it was unusual that so very many goats were being led into the cremation ground for slaughter.
“The mother is very hungry,” she replied. “She is constantly needing to be fed, and of course she never moves by herself. To summon her you have to be prepared to feed her entourage of dakinis and yakshis too. They want their pleasures, their drink and the blood of a goat.”
As darkness fell, and the shadows grew longer, Tapan Sadhu began to build a large pit for the sacred homa fire immediately in front of the hut. It was the first time I’d had a good look at him. Tapan was a handsome old man in his seventies, with a long grey beard and a surprisingly lean and toned body, the fruit of many years of yoga. He brought kindling and wood from the back of the hut, as well as one of the tridents, the biggest skull and a handful of incense sticks. He placed the trident at the edge of the hearth, and the skull at its base. He then garlanded the skull with marigolds and red hibiscus flowers, hanging his rudraksh rosary around it, and carefully placing a thali of offerings and a lit candle beside it. As he was busy with his work, a well-dressed Bengali businessman approached and asked Tapan if he could make the sacrifice for him and his family. After some haggling, terms were agreed.
Before long, other fires were beginning to flicker through the trees. Across the cremation ground you could see squatting sadhus silhouetted against the flames. Some were muscular and naked, sitting crossed-legged in meditation amid clouds of incense. Others were building yantras of coloured sand under the banyan trees, with candles marking the eight points of the Tara Chakra. A few were passing chillums of bhang around circles of fire watchers. Shrouded, dreadlocked and topknotted figures emerged from the dusk, passed into the light of a fire, then disappeared again into the darkness. From somewhere in the dark I could hear the voice of a lone Baul singing a song about the Devi to the strumming of a dotara and the rasping twang of a khomok:
I am sick of living, Ma, sick.
Life and money have run out,
But I go on crying, Tara, Tara!
Hoping. You are the Mother of All,
And our nurse. You carry the Three Worlds,
In Your Belly.
I am not calling you Mother any more,
All you give me is trouble.
Oh my mad, mad heart!
Once I had a home and a family,
Now I am a beggar. What will you think of
Next, my wild-haired Devi?
How many times, Mother, will you tie me to this wheel
Like a blindfolded ox, grinding out oil?
Take the blindfold off, oh my dark Devi,
So I can see
The feet that give comfort.
At the next fire, one of the sadhus began to blow a conch shell. From other hearths came the noise of wild drumming and ecstatic shouts of “Jaya Tara! Jaya Guru! Jaya Jaya Ma Tara!”