Rahu, Eclipses, Lord Anjaneya and my Hindi teacher

Today I bumped into my 'once upon a time Hindi teacher' in a nearby Supermarket. She asked me if I had read the lesson about Eclipses that she'd taught during the previous week(as part of my Rashtrabasha Hindi exam).

Jolting from my bed, I woke up to realise it was just a dream probably culminating from my reading about the 3 Solar Eclipses, the 2nd of which would happen later this month. The Hindi teacher being a muslim lady, whose name I do not even remember today, could not continue teaching us after that since we were growing up to be bigger boys then (due to her cultural reasons). But I had not forgotten some of her teaching and so decided to pen down something about Eclipses that I learnt years back.

Once the Gods and Demons (aka Asuras) decided to join together and extract Amruta or the Divine nectar, which could supposedly give immortality to whoever consuming it. They decide to use a large mountain called Mandara and churn the sea to extract it. All the while, the Gods were conspicuous of not letting the Demons have access to Amruta. However, contrary to their intentions, it ends up with the Demons.

The Gods realising that the Demons with the power to immortality will not only compromise the power of Gods but also spell doom to everyone decide to confront Lord Vishnu on this.

After much reasoning, Lord Vishnu spins his magic, distracts the Demons and steals the Amruta away from the Demons. However, it so happens that one of the Demons named Rahu, who is in the form a snake, also employs the same trick (as that of Lord Vishnu) and has a go at it. The Sun apparently observes this and warns Lord Vishnu. But by now, Rahu had already consumed a bit of the Divine nectar. So Lord Vishnu uses his chakra and decides to slice off Rahu just beneath the head. The lower part of Rahu's body drops to the earth and eventually gets called Ketu. Enraged by the Sun's act, Rahu, the now immortal head of a snake, decides to seek vengeance by swallowing the Sun. But since it didn't have a body the Sun always emerged out after a short while. Realising its folly, Rahu submits itself to Lord Vishnu who in turn forgives and allows it to swallow the Sun whenever it felt hungry. This act happened after Rahu's long fasts and that's when we experience the Eclipses.

Now to connect another mythological concept with the above - before one such eclipse, a tiny little baby monkey, carelessly left to fend for itself by its mother, looks at the Sun and assumes it to be a bright coloured attractive fruit. It then decides to jump to the sky towards eating the Sun. During the process, the monkey accidentally pokes one of the eyes of Rahu, which was just about to eat the Sun after a long fast. The injured Rahu approaches Indra who rides his huge elephant Ayravath and confronts the monkey. The monkey now sees an even bigger fruit in the form of Ayravath and turns its attention towards it. Indra now shows off his arsenal and thunder-bolts the monkey. The little monkey falls to the ground and remains lifeless.

Looking at all this, Vayu - the monkey's father gets enraged. In a fit of rage, he decides to carry the little monkey and locks himself inside a cave by sucking up all the air resulting in the entire universe unable to breath. Lord Brahmma, along with other Gods, visits the cave and powers the little monkey back to life and thereby please Vayu much to the relief of the universe. Brahmma also blesses the monkey to ever remain invincible and be immortal. That's how the little monkey, known as Lord Anjaneya, also came to be known as Chiranjeevi (meaning immortal).

I now think - had Vayu demanded a better deal, may be, we may not have had Eclipses at all. But for now, let's pray to Lord Anjaneya !