Sarabjeet Garcha
Volume 4 | Issue 7 [November 2024]

Volume 4 | Issue 7 [November 2024]

Langar

Photo – Abhishek Jha

Lalo showers the door chain
with wood shavings, the only
flowers he can afford,

because Nanak touched it
two days ago. Now sitting on a
cloth spread on the mud floor

Nanak chews on the kodra roti
Lalo has served with saag,
smashed onion and chillies.

The tip of his beard sways
to the cadence of the trees
he passed on the way

to Saidpur. He sees Sulakhni
smiling in Sultanpur Lodhi,
Nanaki sitting by her side

in the kitchen, the knuckle pits
in a wet ovoid of flour catching
the chulha’s glow as both wipe

their eyes. Days later, stopping
at Haridwar, when he dips
his hands into the burbling

river, all words wash away,
but not the silence
Lalo kneaded into the flour.

The Last Meal

Photo – Abhishek Jha

The birdless evening his only ally,
he looks on as they lower
Mardana into a grave in Baghdad.

In the approaching dark, the rabab
feels so much lighter. If only
life were a miser, it wouldn’t

have loosened its grip so easily.
When Mardana quit talking of food
Nanak knew what was to come.

Does the quiet musician have enough
to chew on for the next
journey? Why couldn’t he wait until

tomorrow? Soaking the last morsel in
tears, his master would have told
him again about the hunger that

eats all sorrow.

Note: In the Japji, Guru Nanak says:

ਸਾਚੇ ਨਾਮ ਕੀ ਲਾਗੈ ਭੂਖ॥
ਉਤੁ ਭੂਖੈ ਖਾਇ ਚਲੀਅਹਿ ਦੂਖ॥੧॥

साचे नाम की लागै भूख॥
उतु भूखै खाइ चलीअहि दूख॥१॥

• The Guru Granth Sahib, p. 9

I translate it as follows:

When you hunger after the True Name,
this very hunger eats away pain.

In most Janamsakhis, Mardana is depicted as perpetually hungry. But his hunger is symbolic. It’s the hunger for the ultimate truth. Without it, he wouldn’t have walked with Baba Nanak. By showing Mardana as hungry forever, the Janamsakhi writers were telling readers that the fire was still alive within Guru Nanak’s co-traveller, but he let material hunger commingle with the spiritual. You begin with the former, but if you stop there, you are bound to go astray. When the world pulls Mardana towards it, it’s Nanak who comes to the rescue, nudging his companion out of sweet slumber. It’s much like Nanak saying, “Mardanya, are you done with your meal? Good. Now, don’t lose sight of the real hunger.”

This hunger, with its sublime corrosive powers, burns the distance between you and the Truth.