Delhi Street Art – Hanuman jee and a few other thoughts

Hanuman Jee  in Street Art 

Let us once again visit Street Art in Delhi, this time a more structured tiled fresco created in a subway to cross the busy Baba Khadak Singh Marg opposite the ancient Hanuman Mandir and the ever popular Coffee house run by DTTDC. Now acronyms are supposedly designed to help you escape long words and tongue twister, this DTTDC acronym succeeds in doing just the opposite, it is not only a tongue twister but also lazily expands to Delhi Tourism and Travel Development Corporation (or something similar).

Don’t agree with me: Try saying DTTDC DTTDC DTTDC in quick succession, like you would say

She Sells Sea Shells on Sea Shore, or if you are desi at heart like me say

Chandu Ke Chacha Ne Chandu Kee Chachi ko (I hope you remember the rhyme)

 Got it? No problem, it is not a lifesaving skill like CPR so let us move forward.

If you are serious coffee lover totally avoid coffee here, but if you are a serious pseudo-intellectual whose family is happy when you are not at home spend as much time here and try to figure out the 29785698759th value of pi or how to solve all other problems of the world ranging from drop in GDP to rise in hemlines and the coefficient of variation along with linear regression between the too.

Got it?  No problem it is not a lifesaving skill only time killing so let us move forward.

Anyways this post was about Hanuman jee so let us go back there.

As I was entering the subway I first noticed the epic scene from Ramayana where Hanuman Jee  the original superhero who can fly, change size, burn down a golden Lanka to ashes and yet bows down with folded hand to his lord Ram, was bringing back Sumeru Mountain which was home to some very rare and endemic medicinally useful plants as defined in Ayurveda, the ancient Indian Medicine System.

A bit of mythology update here is the need of hour.

During the war between Lord Ram and Ravana, Laxman, the kid brother of Lord Ram, was critically injured and Hanuman was assigned the task of bringing back Sanjeevani Booty from Sumeru Mountain. (Sanjeevani = a kind of magical herb that could cure anything, booty= herb, not what Shakira shakes).

Now if you ever wondered why every Hero in Ekta Kapoor serial goes through coma in a few episode you now that the original idea was from Mahakavi Balmiki in the original epic “The Ramayana.”

Now the challenge was while Hanuman could find the mountain he could not find the specific herb, as he has never attended botany classes as he was busy trying to eat sun as a child. (No this story I am not sharing please google it).  So long story short, what the mighty Pavan Putra Hanuman lacked in his understanding of flora of Himalayas he more than made up with his quick thinking and unmatched strength.

As time was short and cell phone signals did not work in remote Himalayas even in those days, Hanuman jee had no idea how to contact Shree Ram who was in Lanka, but due to the war situation all signals were jammed by the damned Lankan telecom department, so the international roaming would have also failed. But we forget we are talking about mythology and not science fiction.

So Hanuman jee literally took things in hands and since he could not identify the Sanjeevani booty (now considered to be – Selaginella bryopteris) in common folklore and Latin nomenclature accepted worldwide by brotherhood of botanists.

So this scene that you see in this picture depicts that epic moment from the epic Ramayana when Shree Hanuman the original Superhero, who has been shamelessly copied without any credit by all kind of men from Bat to Brad.  I just loved the scene and immediately clicked the picture of Hanuman Jee in the fresco. What I don’t like in this picture is that the artist forgot to add any greenery to the Sumeru Mountain in Hanuman-jee’s hand, but may be the poor artist has never seen a green hill considering the amount of forest degradation that has happened in our hills, especially the ones in Delhi like Anand Parvat (Hill of Joy) and Pahad Ganj (The market on Mountain, or is it Mountain with market? I am not sure please inform me if you have any idea).

As they say street art depicts life (or it should), so no negative marks to the artist for depicting a brown hill in the hands of Hanuman jee, in place of a lush green mountain where Sanjeevani Booty must have grown in olden days.  But I fail to understand how come Sun is shining so brightly in the fresco as Hanuman jee had completed this epic trans-Himalayan journey overnight before dawn in order to save Laxman. May be artistic freedom ? Anyways.

Oh as for the guy trying to have an afternoon siesta while balancing like an acrobat on a desi muddha I have no idea who he is, he just came into the frame, while I was trying to figure out the best angle to click pictures of Hanuman jee carrying the mountain. This other picture is by some street artists working on the Nomad Haat project in the subway, do check them out next time you are in Connaught Place.

Let me end the post with thunderous-

Jai Bajrang Bali, Tod Dushman Kee Nali

Also check: Birthplace of  Hanuman 

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