One cannot call me a very religious person. However this spring when I went to my home town; I visited an age old naam ghor with my family.
Well let me explain it to you what is a NAAM GHOR, just in case you are not familiar with it. We Assamese people have our own religious system apart form the Traditional Hindu, Muslim etc. This was spread and inaugurated by a Saint called Srimanta Shankar Dev. You can call him our Guru. According to this, the Vaishnav Dharm, we do not pray to any idol. We rather pray to a supreme power with a vision of Lord Vishnu / Bishnu. The base of this religion is Hindu and was practiced mainly for the same reason as Buddhism or Jainism; to demolish the cast system. Well to be honest if we look back to the history, probably he succeeded in His motive. So the temple or the place where we worship is called Naamghor. Does not matter what sect, cult or group you are from, A Naam Ghor is a place where every one is welcomed and any one can go and pray. To cut short, it is a place of worship and place to practice traditional culture.
So, coming back to my things, we went there to accomplish our Family Ritual of New Year visit to the god. Initially I was not sure about the experience that was coming my way and the episode as a whole. That Naam Ghor is one of it's kind. One of the oldest and acclaimed. The Gayan and Bayan and the Namacharya started the chorus singing of prayers known as Naam Kirtan. We were to sit on the ground cross legged ( it was tough though, with a city life style in practice). And gradually I picked up. I realised that I knew all the Naam Prasanga and the verses that were sang. And one thing kept coming into my mind is that as a child I was taught almost all of these. And in the stream of time seems I have lost all of it. It only the "roots Bacon". I some times wonder where are we heading at? where will my children be? There will be a day when we will have some Jackson Borkotoky ( Borkotoky being one of typical Assamese last names), working in interiors of some African country. Where he will have to "Google" his roots. Well that day does not seem to be very far.
Am I speaking too much of philosophy in a Blog that is for babbling our feelings.......??? You keep thinking and let me know... I will think at my end.
