I have been an atheist all my life. I visit the temple to check out the architecture, the community and the beautiful ladies who seem to be hyper-devout, but in 2024, I discovered I needed some superpowers. Life threw me into the dark tunnel called the “unknown”.
Back then, I didn’t know the unknown would be just a thrilling place. I wanted some security, some comfort, and someone to look up to it. Sadly, I couldn’t find any humans who could comfort me, and then I read the Hanuman Chalisa.
At first, I thought, it was so hard on the tongue. I couldn’t pronounce those words, it is in Avadhi, and it felt so foreign, I searched online for English translations and then things started falling into place. I checked various versions online, the one by Krishna Das was the best, I could groove to it, the other ones, which are the faster versions by Anant Mahadevan and Pandit Rasraj ji Maharaj were good, I would play them and recite them every day for 11 times. I have a YouTube playlist for Hanuman Chalisa, have a look and let me know, which one you dig the most.
I was overwhelmed by the beauty of the text. I thought this could be the greatest piece of literature in India. I haven’t read much stuff, but this one completely raises my energy levels.
I still don’t understand a lot of words, so I thought I would create a translation of each line and each word. So yesterday, I started this project. I didn’t want to do PDF and I didn’t want a linear website, where there are plenty of translations available.
I am avidly involved in the personal knowledge management space so there is a concept of a Digital Garden which is you create a hyperlinked static website, the only problem was all the easy solutions were paid ones, so I had to use the terminal and create this one, which meant, I slept at 4 am last night. The code would keep breaking and the site would go down. I am still not sure, how long the site will stay online before it crashes. So go and check here, would love to get some feedback.