Keshav Ji meets Giriraj Ji...

Sorry for being away from the action for so long. First Papa had gone travelling, so there was no one i could talk about such things to. And then i was travelling, so there was no one to talk to Papa and tell him such things. And since I have been back, Papa has been terribly busy on some deal that he keeps talking about!!

Anyways, now we are both together and hopefully you will see much more action out here.

Few days ago I went for my first long drive and first proper temple visit. Papa was in Delhi, and alongwith Mummy we went to a place called Jatipura (about 150 km from Delhi and about 25 km from Mathura). This relates to the time when Lord Krishna (my namesake!!) lifted the Govardhan mountain on his small finger in order to save the entire village from the anger of Indra (who was angry on the village and pouring rain incessently). So Jatipura is the place where this happened and the Lord resides there by the name of 'Girriraj Ji.'

It took us about three hours to get there. In between, we had to stop for 10-15 minutes at a place as I had done potty!! Once again we stopped on the way, but this time at a railway crossing and I saw a chhuk-chhuk gadi chugging along at full speed. It was raining along the way in bits and pieces, and hence the weather was pretty OK too.

As we walked towards the temple, after freshening up at the dharamshala, I got a little scared as parts of the way were pitch dark. I just hung on to Papa and hoped he knew where we were going.

The final approach to the temple was quite narrow. Due to the rain, all the muck had gotten wet and had become more slippery than any slide one can find in any park anywhere in the world. We had to really balance ourselves and move ahead very slowly, for fear of landing on our bums and sliding our way right into the temple sanctorum.


When we reached, Jai-Jai was having the prasad. Hence there was a big covering around the area and all of us had to stand outside it. Soon the covering was removed and I could see the prasad... big big laddoos, pedas, petha, and so many more goodies. I can tell you, I have never regretted not having teeth till date as much as I did then. If only I had my teeth, I would have just dug them into the prasad.. My mouth still waters at the sight of the food!!


Anyways, we sat around for a while at the temple. Papa made me sit on his head so I could get darshan properly. They had dressed Jai-Jai in a white coloured suit and made him wear lots of jewellary. Now, I only thought girls wore jewellary. So I later on asked Mom and she said that even boys wore jewellary, especially in the older days. Hence Jai-Jai wearing them was not a problem.


All this while Mummy was on the other side of the temple, trying to stay away from the crowds a bit. She is not too fond of them anyways.


We left back for the dharamshala soon after the aarti was complete. I was so pooped that i fell off to sleep pretty much soon after hittting the bed.


Next morning was a whole new experience. As we reached the temple to do the poooja, I could not find Jai-Jai anywhere. First I thought he must be a bit late and all (maybe his Mummy did not wake him up!!). But then I saw people worshipping this black stone and even my Papa did pranam to the stone. I was obviously confused.

So then Papa explained to me that this was the same Jai-Jai as the one i saw last night. Only difference was that he was not wearing any clothes just now and hence I was not able to recognise him.

This confused me even more. What kind of a Jai-Jai sits around like a nangu baby? I thought only small babies like me did so!! Then Papa told me that this Jai-Jai was also a small boy only. And more importantly, we were going to bathe him.

"Now now, have you ever had a bath with your clothes on?", he asked.

I guess I did not have a reply to this, because I was suddenly less circumspect about the nangu Jai-Jai.

So then we bathed Jai-Jai with some milk and water, then wiped him clean (like my Mummy wipes me!!), made him wear some clothes and put a tika. Now he was looking like a good baby. Then we thought he might be very hungry as he had not eaten since morning. So we gave him some milk, jalebi and pedas.

Having done our bit, we decided to head back to Delhi. SO we quickly had our breakfast, packed-up and left for our long, rather uneventful ride back.