INSIDE THE GURU'S GATE - Anpere

passages of the scripture. A middle-aged kathakar, for instance, exemplified his topical
approach of straightforwardly discussing a theme, in this case on human desire
(trisna), evoked by a stanza of the Hukam taken in Gurubagh Gurdwara on October 1,
2000:
[Introduction] The today’s Hukam is Dhanasri Mahala 1, on page 661 in
Shri Guru Granth Sahib ji:
[Quotation:] “My soul burns over and over again. Greatly agonised,
the soul is distracted and falls prey to many sins. The body, which forgets
the Guru’s Word, screams like a chronic patient.”
[Explanation:]The human mind/heart is always burning with the fire of
desire [trisna]. The mind/heart thinks that if I have earned a thousand
rupees today I can make it a hundred times more and get a hundred
thousand rupees. If the mind/heart will get this it will again think that
it can make ten hundred thousand rupees. There is no end to desires.
But the one who runs after his desire in this way his desires will only
increase. When we feed the fire with wood the fire will be much
stronger. The fire will never say “Don’t feed me with wood”. The fire
of desires is just like that. When desires are fulfilled in humans, the desires
redouble. For that reason humans keep wandering [in births and
deaths]. The life of a human will pass away in wandering. He forgets
the main goal for entering the world. And the things he pursues here
will be left here and not go with him. The only thing that will go with
you is the things you have done. Both good karma and bad karma will
go with you. It is not the matter that only good karma will go, bad
karma will also go. The rest of things, such as properties, all will stay
here. But even when a human knows that everything will be left here,
not even his own body will go with him, still the fire of desires are furiously
burning within him. He will get nothing but wandering. He
will only be sad.
To support his interpretations the performer may wrap an excerpt of the Guru
Granth Sahib in a rich embroidery of images and memorized anecdotes on the lives of
the Sikh Gurus in an additative style or structure the whole katha on the inexhaustabile
meaning of a single story. On one occassion, another local kathakar wove the
major part of a discourse around a detailed story on Guru Gobind Singh’s meeting
with a boatman to make the analogy to the Guru who carries people across the ocean
of existence (bhavsagar), that is, liberates them from the cycle of birth and death. To
support the final punch line of his discourse he quoted a gurbani verse which covered
a similar theme. The same kathakar had a special fondness for rhyming word couples,
such as nemi-premi ‒ the follower of the code of conducts and the lover of the Guru ‒
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Published on www.anpere.net in May 2008