[Reader-list] Harballabh Sangeet Mela of Jalandhar - Fourth Posting

[Naresh Kumar]

Hi everybody,
I am dividing this posting in two parts. The first half is related to
my own memories about Jalandhar and Harballabh and in the other half I
will concentrate on Devi Talab Mandir, the site of the festival.
Although I spent my childhood in Chandigarh and for last seventeen
years I have been staying in Delhi yet I have got a strange
relationship with Jalandhar. After partition my grandparents settled
there. Some of our relatives live there even today. My father
established his business in Chandigarh but my grandmother used to live
in Jalandhar even after the death of my grandfather. My father's uncle
lived in Ali Muhalla and we were In Rasta Muhalla. Though my father
had disposed off that house before he passed away in 1981 yet some
hazy memories of that are still alive in my mind. It was a big house
with a number of tenants. There was a woman who had a buffalo. She
also ran a small shop. There was a grocery shop very nearby and from
there we used to bring curds. It was after almost 26 years that I went
to Jalandhar in last December to attend Harballabh.
As far as the festival is concerned I heard about it when I was
studying in class-VII. Mr. N.S. Rathaur, my music teacher who served
at Maharaja Faridkot's court as a singer from 1958 to 1970 told us
about the festivals of Jalandhar and Amritsar. "If anyone wants to
quench his thirst of listening to classical then he must go there," he
told. He also told that he had heard Pt. Omkar Nath Thakur singing
there and the audience of the city had an obsession for his Gayaki. It
was he and his elder brother from whom I heard many anecdotes related
to musicians.
My friend Gokul Chand, a good violinist went to participate in the
Harballabh competition1 in 1990. That very year, I heard on my
transistor some highlights of L. Subramanyam's recital at Harballabh
from AIR, Jalandhar. Ikbal Singh, the other friend of mine who is
visually challenged won the Harballabh competition in the senior vocal
category in 1994. Namita Sharma, a visually impaired woman who teaches
music in a college in Ludhiana told in a T.V. game show that in 1990
she won the Harballabh contest. So, from my childhood I had a strong
desire of visiting the festival which materialized only when I went
there as a Sarai fellow.
About the site, my basic information will come from Deepak
Jalandhari's book, 'Shri Devi Talab Mandir: Itihas ke jharokhe se', a
document of 70 pages, published from the city itself in 2004. Along
with this, I have collected some oral testimony through the interviews
that I did during my two visits, the first on December-24th-25th, 2005
and second on march16th, 2006. Above all, I will be unable to avoid my
own observations, which came during the fieldwork.
As I have mentioned in my earlier posts that the Devi Talab Mandir is
counted amongst 52 Sakti Pithas.2 This is the temple of the Goddess,
Visvamukhi or Tripurmalini. It is believed that the left breast of
Sati had fallen here.
 There is a story in Hindu mythology behind the origin of these
shrines related to Mother Goddess. Sati, the daughter of king Daxa
married Lord Siva, the supreme ascetic. Daxa performed a yagna but
didn't invite Sati. So, Sati decided to go there alone against the
wish of Lord Siva, her husband. When she reached her father's place,
Kankhal, in Haridwar, she was not received properly. She felt
disgraced and jumped into the holy fire in order to destroy the yagna.
When Lord Siva came to know all this he reached there and picked the
burnt corpse of sati on his shoulders. The place where any of the
organs of the burnt body fell began to be worshiped as Sakti Pithas.
Most of the Sakti pithas are in Himachal Pradesh and other parts of
northern India but the most important of them is Kamaksha, 3 near the
capital of Asam.
The author of the book has tried to situate the Talab in both
mythological and factual history. He also tells us that it is one of
the 108 holy water-bodies. According to him Chinese pilgrim Huen Tsang
also mentions Saraswat region and a holy place there.4 He further
tells that the temple was looted and desecrated by Mohamed of Ghauri,
Allauddin Khilji, Babur and Ahmed Shah Abdali with the help of local
Muslims and pathans.5
>From 1809-11 the area of Jalandhar came under Maharaja Ranjit Singh
and the temple witnessed its revival. Some people told that near Kali
Mandir, there was a metal inscription showing that the piece of land
was donated to Baba Himgiri.6
During 1952-58 the stairs were repaired and 48 pillars were erected
for building the temple in the lake. In 1965 Lala Mohan Lal Chopra, a
retired government officer started thinking about renovation of the
temple. This materialized in a meeting, which held in the premises of
the factory of Leader Engineers7 on 15-11-1970. The construction,
started8 on 12-12-70.
Earlier it was thought to make a copy of Laxmi-Narayan Mandir of
Delhi. Finally, it was decided that the temple would be in the center
of the lake9 and would be dedicated to the Goddess Durga only.10 in
1995 it was thought to decorate the temple with gold and silver.11 For
this kirtans12 were organized at the houses of the riches of the city
along with the processions to mobilize money and gold. Later the help
started coming from ministers, industrialists and NRIs.
At present there are many temples in the compound like Annapurna
Mandir, Kali Mandir, Amarnath Cave etc other than the Tripurmalini
temple and the recently gold-decorated Mother Goddess temple. There
are three good dharamshalas for the tourists, which charge Rs.50 for a
bed in the dormitory and 100 for a room. Other than Langar facility
there is a good canteen where you can have very tasty food but that
won't be Child-labor Free. You can see a nine-year old boy cleaning
the table and his elder brother who is twelve only, standing at
tandur.13
Around thirty children can be seen performing hawan while reciting
Vedic chants in a traditional guru Kula managed by Mahesh Yogi14 from
USA. There is a good hospital having all the latest diagnostic
machinery like MRI, which is provided at a very cheep rate to the
common people.
The temple-committee consists of 21 members-all high-caste as Sharmas,
Guptas, Aroras, and Kapoors etc. Many of the committee members are
also the members of the Harballabh Sangeet Mahasabha. Sheetal Vij, the
president of Mandir Committee is the vice-president of the Mahasabha
and on 16th March, he brought a check of Rs.100000 for Harballabh
committee, which came to him as a grant from the state-government. It
was his arrival that changed the atmosphere of the programme about
which I wrote in my previous post.15

Notes:
1.	When the festival was revived in 1989 with the support of NZCC,
Patiyala, thee competitions were started to promote young talents in
classical music. The winner of the previous year is given a chance to
perform. In December, Divakar Sharma and Sanjeet Singh performed as
young artists. Sunanda Sharma, an emerging classical vocalist told
that Girija Devi as her disciple picked her up when she was singing in
the competition and being judged by Girijaji. In one of my further
posts I will write about the competitions and send the interviews of
Ikbal, Namita Shilpa and Sanjeet.
2.	2. There is not a uniform opinion about the exact number of Sakti
Pithas. It varies from 51 to 53. D.C. sarkar's book, which I could not
find in the Delhi University library, is an authority on the Sakti
pithas. I don't know if it mentions Devi Talab.
3.	3. It is the place where the genital organs fell.
See Jalandhari: 2004,p.p.5-7.
4.	Jalandhari: Chapter-2.
5.	6. Personal communication with Rakesh Dada, the treasurer of
Harballabh Sangeet mahasabha, March16th, 2006.
6.	7. The secretary of Mahasabha and the owner of Leader Engineers
also told this thing in her interview, December-25th, 2005.
7.	The writer says that he was an eyewitness to the beginning of the renovation.
9. I don't know whether constructing temple surrounded by water
started with Golden Temple of Amritsar or it is older than that.
10. The new temple has three idols like Vaishno Devi.
11. Rakesh Dada also accepted that it was an attempt of building
something like Golden Temple. Here we should not forget that the
Amritsar Golden Temple was also renovated after Operation-Blue Star.
12. Devotional singing in a group.
13. I myself saw this during my visits.
14. He who owns the Maharshi Channel.
15. Please see my previous posting for knowing what happened.