An Ode to My Hanuman Ji

Hanuman ji used to be my favorite god. So fierce, and strong yet a soft soul on the inside. His own powers were never enough for him to not bow before others. As mighty as he may be, he was still unsure of the extent of those powers. A very relatable god.

I memorized hanuman chalisa at a very young age. When I didn’t know the concept of puja-path, I used to just sit in front of our mandir and recite the hanuman chalisa. I didn’t know what it did, but I still did it. Over time when it started to become a chore, when school hours became too early and when studies took over any free time, I stopped reciting it. I have even forgotten the chalisa in its entirety now. When I look back, those seem like simpler times. There was no force, no ulterior motive, no ‘ideology’ behind any action people did. Just pure will.

I have never been a regular puja doing person, unlike my sister. Sometimes it feels so strange that the same household could produce such strikingly opposite characters. One who would light a diya like twice or thrice in a year, while the other who couldn’t not pray for even a single day. It might look like to you that I am not a good ‘Hindu’, and it is because of people like me that our culture is being destroyed. Well to that I would respectfully disagree. Religion is destroyed by people not adhering to the holy thoughts and actions envisaged by it, rather than by not lighting diyas in front of idols. Faith and worship are a very subjective matter. More so, it’s a very individual matter. No two people can worship the same way.

Once my mother asked me which God’s locket would I want for my neck chain. Without a second thought, I said hanuman ji of course. He is my favorite. To this she said, but you should have Durga ma as a locket. She is a lady god. I asked so what. I was an ‘adult’ by then, a child adult – a menstruating adult. Why keep a male god on your body when that time of the month comes. It felt absurd. Since when do gods care about such petty problems, they have bigger things to worry about. Well gods don’t, humans do.

People and many sources say that Hanuman ji didn’t die. And that he still resides in some mountains in South India. In a way this thought has always given me solace. But with that solace comes impatience. What is he waiting for, a dying world and rotten society is the time for literally any god to come alive, if there exists any. The recent case of Varanasi gangr*pe scarred me to the core. Anytime such cases come into light, I try to hide from it. I seriously cannot handle it anymore. It shows that the brutality, and the heinousness of humans knows no bounds. These are the people who say ‘Insaano ko Rakshaso k prakop se bachane, Bhagwan aate’. What Rakshas? Even they wouldn’t be as gruesome as Insaan today. The bear/man question if exchanged to rakshas/man question, I would any day choose the former. Death has stopped being scary enough for women.

It is after such incidents that my loving belief on Gods waver considerably, so much so that for a few days I wouldn’t even look them in their eyes. People might say, why Gods, they didn’t do anything wrong, it was the ‘bad’ men. Well wouldn’t it then be so selective? When I say on any success that its never me, but the Gods that do it through me. Why won’t it be the same for criminals. Where were their gods? Where were THE gods? A holy city – Varanasi, older than time – Kashi, Bhagwan Shiva’s land, where else are women safe?

Women take it upon themselves to carry forward the pot of culture on their head, even while it crushes them little by little every second. Still the culture, religion, society never bats an eye to shame them, assault them, r*pe them and kill them. Who are these protectors of Gods, who think even a single action or words uttered by women could become the end of their religion. The male ego so fragile, that a young girl, defending her friend and herself, became the center of countrywide hate. Hanuman ji, hearing sita ma puts up sindoor for the long life of Ram ji, covered his whole body with sindoor. A feminine object – sindoor, is smeared so easily by him, with no second thought.

The poster of hanuman ji quite popular in the present age on an orange background, where he is enraged, is my least liked projection of him. Since I have known him, I have seen him as the correct and kind user of divine power. Not an angry and fuming God. Nurturing and childlike, devoted and protective, he is a God women look up to for strength. I am not one to call upon others to be protectors of women, but he is my God. I would like to see him as I would want my Gods to be. He was the start of my global obsession with Gods and their stories. Your hanuman ji might just be a fierce warrior, but mine is the ज्ञान गुण सागर, one who saw ma Sita as his "Janani" (mother); who brought over a whole mountain when he was unsure of the plant; who ate the sun (its too hot lol); and who was the favorite of little Rishika.