Folks,
Let us begin by taking a look at the opening scenes of the Monday episode No.61 and then the ending scene of the Thursday episode No. 64.
-Episode 61 beginning: Rudra , having seen the dead bodies of his mother and his Daadi, and not having found his Baba at the Triveni Sangam, is running full tilt thru a prickly wood, with branches tearing at his bare chest. He is weeping tears of rage, his face is distorted with impotent fury. He finally reaches an open Shiv Mandir, and straightaway enters into a furious altercation with the lingam, but only after plucking 3 trishuls out of the forest of trishuls planted around the lingam, and hurling them as far as he can.
He abuses the Lord in the best Bollywood hero manner: Tum nahin ho, nahin ho tum! Sirf patthar ho tum..Aastha, dharm, vishwas, sab khel hai tumhara! ..Aaj yeh Rudra tujhe chunauti deta hai, tere honeko lalkarta hai!! Then he proceeds to try, of course in vain, to uproot the lingam...
Later, as Maimuyi-Bhairavi (MB from now on, though Rudra still calls her Maimuyi), having made a dramatic entry by suddenly jumping out of the tree (where she had perched, like the vetaal of legend, solely so that she could show Rudra, and us, the split garuda chinna spread across the soles of her feet. She could hardly have done that standing on terra firma, unless she can levitate!😉) tells him that he is not allowed to weep , as even a single tear is his eye would destroy karodon logon ki ummeed, unki aas. Pralay aajayega..he replies: Pralay to aa chuka, Maimuyi.. ab maine to sab kuch kho diya.
And when she says that every garud has to die at least once, doosra janam lene ke kiye, Rudra's limp, teary-eyed response is Jab jeene ki ichcha hi nahin bachi to doosra janam lekar kya karenge?
So what we have is a defeated, eviscerated Rudra, devoid of courage, of tenacity, of the will to fight. He does not even think of his beloved Maya, left behind, or his Baba, vanished without a trace. All he seems to want, his face blurred with tears and helpless agony, is to be allowed to crawl into a hole and pull it in after him. It is a tribute to the actor that though this Rudra, aimless and terminally despondent, mad me gnash my teeth, he was utterly convincing.
Episode 64: the closing scene. The four funeral pyres having been lit, Rudra turns to his 4 fellow garudas. His face has been wiped free of any traces of the reminiscent sadness that made him linger over the bodies of Sahadev and Punnu, the wrenching grief that made him weep helplessly, his face crumpling, over his mother's mortal remains, or the anguished determination with which he renewed his vachan to his Daadi. It is calm, but not the calm of resignation. It is the calm of self-assurance, the calm of a leader who knows exactly what to do and how to do it.
He does not make any opening remarks, to highlight the garuda identity of the other four, to stress what that special status requires of them, or demand that they live up to it. He simply assumes that they know all this and that they are both ready and willing. So he plunges straightaway into the heart of the matter, his voice as firm and commanding as his eyes, which scan their faces back and forth, as if compel assent and commitment:
Mahakumbh par sabse bada sankat ab aanewala hai. Parivarik kartavyon se hum mukht ho chuke hain (he seems, for the moment, to have forgotten Maya and the need to get the zeher ka tod ). Ab samay aa gaya hai hamare jeevan ke uddeshya ko poora karne ka. Wo hazaron, lakhon log, jo is khatre se anjaan hain, ab unki suraksha ki zimmedari hamare kandhon par hai..
At this point all nod assent, except Charles, who does not nod, but does not voice any dissent either.
Ab sabse pehle humein Baba ko dhoondkar wapas lana hai. Wohi Mahakumbh mein naagon se raksha karne mein hamari sahayata karenge.
The way Rudra formulates this is very significant. He does not put the need for them to rescue Shivanand in a personal context at all, though that element is bound to be there for a son. Instead, he places it in the context of the Team Garuda rescuing one of their own, and that too a vital resource for tackling the naga threat.
He speaks not as Shivanand's son, but as the Garuda Pramukh, the Rakshak No.1. By doing so, he echoes Shivanand's own credo: Parivaron ke rakshak hote hai ( and for Rudra now, the whole of the kalpavasis at the Mahakumbh are his parivaar) , par rakshakon ke parivaar nahin hote.
He continues, and his voice cracks like a whiplash: Aap sab dhyan rakhein, hum shareer se bhale hi anek hain, hamari shakti, hamara lakshya, ek hai.
There is thus no room in the Team Garuda for any ego, or for individual quirks or likes and dislikes. They have to be like a smooth, well-oiled machine, aimed at reaching their common goal. Rudra's motto for them reminded me, curiously enough, of the ringing pledge of the Three Musketeers + D'Artagnan: All for one and one for all!!
Finally, having moved away and standing with his back to the rest, he delivers a resounding call to action: Aur ab sanket aa chukka hai ki hum apne lakshya ki or aage badhein..Amrit ki raksha ke liye, nagon ke viruddh is Mahasangram ki tayyari ab aarambh hogi!
His eyes, narrowed and almost expressionless, are looking out into the far distance, at something only he can see. There is, in his face, his stance and his whole demeanour, the mark of a leader: the habit of command, and the assurance that his commands will be accepted and fulfilled.
Rudra the Garuda Pramukh is here at last.
The title: The Oxford dictionary has this to say:
Metamorphosis: Change of form by natural or supernatural means. Check.
Change of character. Check.
Transformation from an immature form to an adult form. Check.
That is why I chose this title. It fits perfectly, does it not?
The metamorphosis: the initiation: It is but rarely that one gets to see a sequence so perfectly conceived and perfectly executed that one does not know whom to praise the most, the writer, the director or the actors. Perhaps all of them in equal measure. For if that was not so, there is no way Rudra's mesmerizing initiation scene, with the amazingly apt visualization of esoteric mystical concepts like the awakening, one by one, of all seven of his chakras, could have come out with such stunning audio-visual beauty.
The action is as relentless as it is unexpected. When Rudra's self-pitying torpor is proof against MB's eloquent bhashan about the inevitability of personal loss, of the destruction of his original self in order that he, the Mahakumbh ka Maharakshak, the garuda pramukh, might be reborn, what does she do? I expected her to grab him by the shoulders and shake him till his teeth rattled. But no, she responds by throwing at him, with deadly accuracy, the same 3 trishuls that he had earlier pulled out and flung away in defiance of the Lord.
As Rudra staggers under the impact of the blows and the pain, she rams home her message, and rarely was a call to action more telling, more eloquent, more forceful. Admitting of no weakness, no hesitation, and demanding total, unquestioning commitment to duty as defined in it. One could say it was like a drill sergeant on the parade ground, but I would rather say that it was like a messiah's clarion call.
Na kisi ka apne man se janma hota hai na kisi ki ichcha se mrityu. Hum sab niyati ke das hain. Jis uddeshya ke liye tera janma hua hai, use to poora karna hi hoga. She grabs his arm and literally drags him along as she continues: Tujhe sangharsh karna hi hoga.. Pointing at the huge crowds below: Wo hi teri niyati hai, jo tujhe pukar rahi hai..Karodon jeevan, samast maanav ka yeh Mahakumbh, amrit ki raksha, ab tera hi daayitva hai..Aur uske liye tujhe apne aap ko dridh karna hoga, aur yeh jo bojh niyati ne tere kandhon par laadhi hai, us bojh ko sahte hue tujhe apni ladayi ladni hogi..
And then the most vital instruction of all: Aur sun, sabse mahatvapoorna.. (Tujhe) apni shaktiyon ka anumaan ho, un par niyantran ho, aur jo aag tere andhar dhadhak rahi hai, use aur laal kar. Usi aag se tera shuddhikaran hoga..
When MB leaves him at this point and seemingly disappears, Rudra, still bewildered and rudderless, looks around helplessly for her, and when he cannot spot her, wails in despair : MAIMUYI!!!
But she is there, and what is she up to? Her eyes gleam with satisfaction as she brings out the staff of office of the garuda pramukh, with a stylised, crowned garuda at the top and wings folded back along the length of the dand. (Let us not ask whether the box with this dand came from, any more than one should ask where the wherewithal for the abhishek, from the dhoti to the milk and was it chandan for starters, before the vibhuti, came from all of a sudden!) And once she has offered it ceremonially to the still confused Rudra and withdrawn, the fireworks begin, literally and figuratively.
A succes d'estime: It is very difficult to visualize and depict such mystical happenings and keep them credible, whether it is the opening of the chakras in Mahakumbh, or the handling of the Ark of the Covenant and the Holy Grail in the Indiana Jones films. It is to the credit of the Mahakumbh duo - Utkarsh and Arvind Babbal - that this scene not only passes muster but emerges as a winner. As the chakras open up and glow, one by one, along Rudra's spine and up to the crown of his head, I felt a surge of elation that was in direct proportion to the acute depression induced by the Rudra of the last 2/3 weeks!
I was not surprised when at the end of it all, Rudra sank to his knees and then collapsed altogether, his body unable to cope with the tidal wave of the energy that had coursed thru him. But as MB stands looking down at him, the unalloyed pride and joy in her face says it all: Rudra has passed the test.
NB: But where did the ceremonial dand, which acted as lightning conductor during the chakra opening sequence, vanish to afterwards? It was nowhere to be seen from then on. I suspect that it is like cloud computing, or the scenes in the recent version of the Mahabharata, where the maharathis never carry any weapons but draw them, as and when needed, from where they are stored in the cosmos! 😉 Let us see when it reappears.
Dwija, or Rudra reborn : As far as the actors went, both Rudra and MB were in top form, and if initially Rudra was more passive than active, he made up for it later. And even when he was passive, he was a perfect fit.
As the milk abhishek courses down his face, I was irresistibly reminded of a panchamrita abhishekam that I had seen performed at the Mahashivaratri sandhyapooja at the Pashupatinath temple at Kathmandu. As the dahi, the honey and the milk flowed down over the panchamukha lingam, the features of the mukh facing the bhaktas , earlier lost in the black stone, emerged in sharp focus, and one could see the face of the Lord!
Once Rudra has, after the aarti by MB, been duly anointed with the sacred tilak, and has been given his neat black costume, he looked, for all the world, like the Rishyasaringa of whom he had reminded me in his opening shot in Saraswatichandra, standing waist deep in water and doing the tarpanam for his long dead mother.
The handsome face was detached and remote, with an inner stillness that came from knowing, and acknowledging, his identity, his calling, his duty and his niyati. The kohl-rimmed eyes too were still, seeming to look more inwards than outwards, but there was no longer any doubt in them, nor any hesitation.
This, at long last, was the Rudra that Shivanand had wanted to see, only he did not know how to bring this version out of the emotional, rudderless Rudra he knew. So, what he could not manage in all this time, MB pulls off in 15 minutes flat! If only the cerebral Shivanand could have achieved even a fraction of this effortless authority!
After watching MB in action, I had only one thought and only one
question: Aap itne din kahan thin? Pehle kyon nahin prakat huyin??? It
is a pity beyond all pities that she did not jump out of that tree a week
earlier, for then so much tragedy could have been avoided. But that too was niyati,
as she told Rudra with calm finality. And then again, perhaps Rudra had to
be completely smashed by personal tragedy
before he could, like the malleable clay of the potter, be reshaped into
the garuda pramukh.
NB: Maybe Bhairavi, being a shape shifter, chose Maimuyi's face, as she
told Rudra, because she was the closest to Rudra. But there are no prizes for
guessing why the PH chose her, to get Seema Biswas back! Such a wise decision.
She must have be a martinet of a schoolmistress in a previous life, and in this
one too she cracks the whip and Rudra obeys without question. As for me, the
minute I spotted her at the bottom of that tree, I was up and cheering, such
was my relief!
The metamorphosis: the call to action: This too was very well done, right from the scene at the vantage point when Rudra, with his extra vision, spots the impending tragedy of a murderous mass stampede at the panchasvi (?) snan, to the final moment when he reassures the crowd of those he has saved, and advises them to use the second gate and to co-operate with the police and the volunteers.
The MB technique: At this point, I would like to offer my take on the MB technique for making Rudra (a) identify the crisis, then (b) decide that it is his responsibility to act to prevent it and finally (c) move on to decisive, effective action.
It was not exactly that she looks to him as the leader when she asks
him, time and again, what should be done next. It is rather that she is intent on teaching him and
pushing him to be one. Whence the question, Kya dikhta hai ?, like
Dronacharya with the bird in the tree, and then Ab kya?
The shishya, Rudra, is not to be allowed to relax or
backslide, he has to be kept on his toes all the time. Yes, she has quiet pride
when he performs as she would have wanted him to with the crowd control, but
again there is the Ab kya?
Nor does she let go of the leading reins, the ones with which young
children are allowed to take their first baby steps, but with the surety that
they will not be allowed to fall. She is always in charge, a
watchful presence at his side, making sure that he does not slip back
into his old ways and succumb to weak emotionalism. So she halts him in his
tracks as he is about to touch Maya, and holds him back with a logical and
soothing explanation: it is not enough to keep her barely breathing, she
has to be brought fully back to life, and for that, Rudra has to get going with
his mission. And then there are the last rites for his dead family members.
So you see, MB is no silent, admiring or even encouraging presence at Rudra's
side, rejoicing in his leadership status. She is a guru in every
sense of term: educating, inspiring, pushing, guiding and correcting.
The mark of a leader: I always
wonder how such crowd unrest scenes, with hundreds of milling, moving,struggling,
falling extras, are handled. How do they
do the rehearsals, which cannot be many, seeing the logistics involved?
Be that as it may, the whole sequence, despite the Samson-style heroics by our garuda pramukh, with that kid on his shoulders for added impact, went off very well. I loved the way in which the crowd was pushed back, literally, foot by foot, till there was a reasonable distance between them and the first lot that had surged ahead, and they had calmed down, so that Rudra could let the ropes drop.
But the most impressive of all, for an assessment of this new Rudra as a leader, was not so much this rescue act, remarkably courageous and effective as it was, from the gravity-defying leap up to the tower to the display of the tremendous physical strength that let him hold the frantic, surging crowd and force them further back. Nor his assumption of responsibility at the beginning: Yeh hamara daayitva hai.. Humein is sankat se ladna hoga.. Humein inki raksha karni hogi..
To my mind, the most impressive part was the way in which he addressed the shell-shocked crowd, which had finally realized how narrowly they had escaped death or serious injuries. He did not harangue them, but instead sought to reassure them and calm them down, so as to ensure that they would be rational and sensible from then on, and would not rush into a frantic search for their families that would precipitate another crisis. Khatra thal chuka hai. Shant ho jayiye..Aap aur aapke priya jan jeevit aur surakshit hain..Is bheed mein aap sab apnon tak dheere dheere pahunch jayenge. Bas thoda dheeraj banaye rakhein.. ..Ab chinta ki koyi baat nahin hai.. Doosre dwaar se snan ke liye prasthan karein..Police aur swayamsevakon ki salah mankar unki sahayata karein..
This the right stuff that real leaders are made of. No wonder that MB, proud of her shishya, blesses him and adds Har yug mein aisa hi ek Maharakshak ho!
The gathering of the white clan: What was the most striking about the scene in Maya's bedroom was the way in which the new Rudra behaves with the other four garudas - Thappadiya Mai, Charles, the DM, and Katharine - and towards Maya as well.
He reassures the first, when she pleads Maya ko bacha lega na? with a tranquil Ji Mai, ab hum aa gaye hain. And after introducing MB with a Yeh hamari guru bankar aayi hain, he adds Ab Mahakumbh mein sab theek hoga..
As he approaches Maya's bed, he is calm and confident, there is none of the old agonised worry, no uncontrollable grief or love. Again, when MB has restored Maya's breathing, and assured the others that the vish will not spread any longer, though an antidote would be needed very soon, Rudra's response reflects the same, new found self-assurance: Mil jayega, Maimuyi. The contrast between Thappadiya Mai's frantic rejoicing and Rudra's calm, measured relief, is also striking.
When Charles embraces him and complains about his sudden no show, his answer sounds a tad weary, but again there is the new consciousness of his fate-decreed mission in life: Kahan jaata, Charles..Niyati is dharti ki maati se hi likhi gayi hai..Yehi janmabhoomi hai, yehi karambhoomi hai... Lovely lines.
Again, when the DM extols his bravery in having prevented a major catastrophe that would have shamed the Mahakumbh organization for a long time, Rudra hardly reacts to the praise, merely asking Aur koyi samachar? And when they hesitate, he states, without the least display of emotion, that he knows all about his Baba having been captured by the nagas. Par zyada der tak nahin..Hum unhein bahut jaldi wapas le aayenge.. The three of them must have been shell-shocked, even of pleasantly, by this new avatar of a take-charge Rudra.
The dark side: the Vesh clan: Let us dispose of the minnows first. There is nothing much to say about the bit where Balivesh, and then Naanu, demand not just money from Greyerson, but also contacts for weapons procurement. Except that it confirmed that Katharine had indeed jumped ship and gone over to the white side. That, plus the amazing spectacle of Naanu applying what looked like grease paint, or facial make up, to his wrinkled cheeks and to the bags under his eyes!😉
As for the other and more interesting scene with the Guru Maharaj (GM), that yielded much comic relief and at least one bit of significant information. As the GM waxes eloquent, on his slates, that the narsanghar at the Brahma Nisht Panth naagon ki krupa thi.. and Greyerson immediately pipes up with a request for a meeting with the nagas, Balivesh, a tad uncertain as to the GM's response, confines himself to waxing crudely eloquent about the beneficial fall out for the Sri Santh Panth of the killings in the rival Panth.
But it is Naanu who adds the very revealing and amusing bit. Naagon ke saath sakshatkaar hamare gaurav mein char chaand laga dega. Then comes the clincher: Hum bhi to naagvanshi hain! No wonder Naanu always looks snaky!! This revelation, coupled with Balivesh's incredible assertion: Jon hi garudon ka traas badha, hamari sahayata ke liye naag padhar gaye , demonstrates the depth of the folly prevalent among the Veshes.
Dansh, could he have heard these claims, and provided he had any sense of humour, which I doubt, would have been rolling in the aisles at this prospect of a bunch of jackals imagining themselves to be tigers!😉
The bit of new information came from the GM who, after shooing
Greyerson's request for a meeting aside with the ominous warning that trying to
act smart with the nagas would be an invitation to disaster, added that
the naga guru, Guru Drish, was also
his, ie GM's guru. I felt dizzy trying to compute the likely ages
of the shishya No.1, Naanu, his guru,
GM, and GM's guru (and Dansh's too), Guru Drish!In fact, Naanu seems the oldest of the three!
The dark side: the nagas: Now for the real dark forces.
The habitat of the nagas bore a marked resemblance to Gabbar Singh's lair in Sholay, right down to the lookouts posted at regular intervals, though no Sambha equivalent was immediately in evidence, a post to which I am sure Mr. Blue Eyes would have laid claim😉. So the Sholay homage in Mahakumbh continues!
Also, the nagas clearly believe in the cult of the leader; no democracy for them! As Dansh strides past them, his walk a very credible imitation of a panther on the move, each of the other nagas bows to him, while he barely acknowledges it.
Nagon ki Leela: Let us also pass
quickly over Mr. Shampoo Ad, aka Naga
Pramukh Dansh, trying to flirt
with a Girl in Black (who I understand is called Leela), a wannabe
ace shot, in a markedly affected manner. He was actually talking
of dil dhadakna, almost like a human being, except that he is not
one.
It might be too late for it, but Dansh should try some anti-acne medicines; his
cheeks look like the moon's surface. Himalaya Neem Face
Wash, perhaps? Soon we can expect a new ad: Naagon
ki twacha ko bhi swach aur sundar banata hai hamara Himalaya Neem Face Wash!😉
Ms. Leela is, I learned from a
thread here, going to help Rudra in the end. If true, that would be pure
irony of the blackest kind!! For now, she is keeping Dansh at a distance,
but also on an invisible leash. It was fascinating to watch her
technique. I must say that the two of them exhibit far more of that elusive
quality, chemistry, than did our official amar
premis, Rudra and Maya!
If I was initially wondering how
she managed to keep him at arm's, or at least a finger's length, given that he
does not look like the type to take even the slightest rebuff, the riddle was
solved in the last precap, which
revealed that she is Guru Drish's daughter. No wonder Dansh is on his best (by
his standards) behaviour with her! It also seemed that her father would be in
favour of her marrying his favourite pupil, but the maiden will have none of
it.
We shall watch this space, but for now, let us move on to more serious matters.
The grievances of the nagas: Listening to Guru Drish - who, incidentally, and in clear contrast to Dansh, comes across as dignified, rational, attentive to detail, never over confident, always ready to factor in bad news, and logical - I got the impression that the nagas have a long list of grievances against the garudas which are not necessarily limited to the fight over the amrit.
Hearing him talk of Sadiyoon se hum garudon ki zyaadatiyaan, unke zulm, aur unki ghulami karte aa rahe hain..Na jaane hum kitni baar unke haathon haar chuke hain..Par is baar, jeet ke asaar abhi se dikh rahe hain.. Yeh mauka hum naag kisi bhi haal mein nahin gava sakte (notice the Urduised language he uses, as compared to the Sanskritised Hindi of the garudas and even the 'Veshes) , it seems almost like a colonial type situation. Or the devas vs asuras one, with genuine grievances harboured even by the most reasonable and fair asura kings like Mahabali, which periodically stoked the deva-asura wars.
So far, we have had no inkling of this historical, or rather mythological situation, and it remains to be seen whether we are told anything about this in the future episodes. If what Guru Drish says is true, this might go some way towards explaining the acute naga hostility towards the garudas, even if nothing can in the least minimize or explain away the mindless savagery of Dansh and his cohorts.
In fact, Dansh comes across as not just brutal without reason, delighting in killing and in the infliction of pain on those he considers his enemies, but also as arrogant and over-confident in an equally mindless fashion. Of course he cannot argue with his guru, but he does complain that the latter is not pleased with his 90% score against the enemy. (Where Dansh gets this 90% score, reminding one of the shampoo ads that promise an 800% increase in hair strength, is a moot question!😉)
He is impatient with the guru's caution regarding the 100 fold increase in
Rudra the garuda pramukh's strength
after MB has joined forces with him (it seems clear that both the guru and Dansh are familiar with MB's
existence and her powers), and that his task, already tough would now have
become tougher.
One can guess that as the Mahasangram progresses, there will be an increasing clash of opinions between the two about both the naga plans and their execution. But that lies in the future.
For now, Dansh's counter arguments - that the garudas have always been prone to being undone by their emotional weaknesses, that he, Dansh, has no problem with Rudra displaying his strength, even against him as the Guru fears, for his own goal is different and he knows how to get there - are not unconvincing. As also his countering the guru's caveat that they have no information by asserting that he knows how to extract all the vital information about the Book (he does not seem to know that there are two Books, each of which is incomplete without the other) and all the kaafi saare raaz jo Shivanand ke dimaag mein qaid hain, dimaag jo ab hamara ghulam hai.
Extension ahead?: If Rudra has his way, these will be famous last words. Let us wait and watch. The only thing I cannot understand is how all this is going to be compressed in 56 episodes. I see an extension on the horizon, which might be much better than a rush job at the end, to tie up all the loose ends like compressing an accordion.
Plus, they should avoid meaningless wastage of time like that scene of Thappadiya Mai resisting the incomprehensible insistence by Charles and Katherine that Maya was dead and that her last rites should be carried out samay rahte hi. A most faltu scene if even there was one, which added not a jot to the story but merely lowered my estimate of Charles' IQ.😉
No Take 5, obviously, and nothing either about the ridiculous scene of the reviewing of the CCTV footage by the DM and Charles. WHY the horrendous mass shooting scenes were not spotted during the live monitoring of the feed, which is mandatory and is always done, is a HUGE plot hole that no one has bothered to fill, for the simple reason that there is no way to do it.
One point that would interest
you. The naga note, on monogrammed
note paper adorned with their ubiquitous 7 headed snake logo, informs the DM
that Shivanand hamare paas hain. Not hai. So the nagas are showing Shivanand at least this much of respect,😉 for all the
bashing that he seems to be getting from Dansh.
I hope they do not start showing him being tortured, as in the bad old Polish days. Not that it will have any effect, but I have tweeted Utkarsh that if there is any such thing, I will get after him with MB's danda!😉
The same old request!: If you survived this post in good order, and actually enjoyed it, please do hit the Like button without fail. I like to keep track of all my supportive readers!
Shyamala B.Cowsik
PS: For those interested in the chakras and the related Kundalini phenomenon, here is a note on the subject I had
compiled and posted on my last thread. Of course it is all borrowed wisdom😉, bar the last, italicised para, which is my own assessment.
I had there added a very neat diagram of the location of the 7 chakras, courtesy Santhi aka pasumarthisa. Without this diagram, my note might not have been easy to follow. She had noted that the Kundalini is located at bottom of the spine, is awakened by yoga and can be raised to the agnya (6th) and sahasrara (7th) chakra, ie the two top ones.
As you would remember, while the opening of each of the 7 chakras was shown for Rudra, the Kundalini shakti was not specifically shown in the initiation
scene. However, as can be seen from the note below, it is relevant in the context of the opening of the chakras.
THE KUNDALINI SHAKTI
Swami Vivekananda described Kundalini briefly in London during his lectures on Raja Yoga as follows:
"According to the Yogis, there are two nerve currents in the spinal column, called Pingal and Id, and a hollow canal called Sushumna running through the spinal cord. At the lower end of the hollow canal is what the Yogis call the "Lotus of the Kundalini". They describe it as triangular in form in which, in the symbolical language of the Yogis, there is a power called the Kundalini, coiled up.
When that Kundalini awakes, it tries to force a passage through this hollow canal, and as it rises step by step, as it were, layer after layer of the mind becomes open and all the different visions and wonderful powers come to the Yogi. When it reaches the brain, the Yogi is perfectly detached from the body and mind; the soul finds itself free.
We know that the spinal cord is composed in a peculiar manner. If we take the figure eight horizontally () there are two parts which are connected in the middle. Suppose you add eight after eight, piled one on top of the other, that will represent the spinal cord. The left is the Ida, the right Pingala, and that hollow canal which runs through the centre of the spinal cord is the Sushumna.
Where the spinal cord ends in some of the lumbar vertebrae, a fine fibre issues downwards, and the canal runs up even within that fibre, only much finer. The canal is closed at the lower end, which is situated near what is called the sacral plexus, which, according to modern physiology, is triangular in form. The different plexuses that have their centres in the spinal canal can very well stand for the different "lotuses" of the Yogi."
When Kundalini Shakti is conceived as a goddess, then, when it rises to the head, it unites itself with the Supreme Being (Lord Shiva). Then the aspirant becomes engrossed in deep meditation and infinite bliss
Kundalini can be awakened by shaktipat"spiritual transmission by a Guru or teacher"or by spiritual practices such as yoga or meditation. Sometimes Kundalini reportedly awakens spontaneously as the result of physical or psychological trauma, or even for no apparent reason.
When awakened, Kundalini is said to rise up from the muladhara chakra through the central nadi, the sushumna, inside or alongside the spine and reaching the top of the head. The progress of Kundalini through the different chakras leads to different levels of awakening and mystical experience, until Kundalini finally reaches the top of the head, Sahasrara or crown chakra, producing an extremely profound mystical experience
There are two broad approaches to Kundalini awakening: active and passive. The active approach involves systematic physical exercises and techniques of concentration, visualization, pranayama (breath practice) and meditation under the guidance of a competent teacher. These techniques come from any of the four main branches of yoga, and some forms of yoga, such as Kriya yoga, Kundalini yoga and Sahaja yoga emphasize Kundalini techniques.
The passive approach is instead a path of surrender where one lets go of all the impediments to the awakening rather than trying to actively awaken Kundalini. A chief part of the passive approach is shaktipat where one individual's Kundalini is awakened by another who already has the experience. Shaktipat only raises Kundalini temporarily but gives the student an experience to use as a basis.
I suppose this last is what happened during the initiation, with Maimuyi-Bhairavi, the teacher, awakening Rudra's Kundalini, and the 7 chakras as well. She must have been helped in this by the enormous trauma he had suffered so recently.
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