Let me put up this long and winding post. I wrote it a
couple of weeks ago.
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Where do I begin for this post? Andy Williams would say
something, and Julie Andrews would say that one might as well start from the very
beginning. But where does the very beginning begin? I could reminisce about
looking at pictures from back in school when I was in class VIII, and seeing
pictures of a clear green, sparkling river and a river bank and known smiling
faces, and how I had been wishing I could have been there. I remember lingering
over a couple of pics while trying not to. Or should I just zoom forth – some
two decades through – and consider January this year? A smooth ride on the
highway and sit-ins and conversations in a garden with a riot of flowers and
squirrels and my best friend, and delightful fat puppies to cuddle in the early
evenings before the sun went down? Or should I mention how I found myself in
Delhi a month ago – because if I hadn’t been here and hadn’t joined work –
there was going to be no holiday – stolen from that thief of time. I’m not sure
whether the beginning is really located in any of these beginnings – so I’ll
jump to the jumbled middle.
I didn’t really think I would be going for an utterly
unexpected holiday for a whole day off to Hardwar. Even when I booked the
tickets – back on the 28th of January, once Suvro da told me to –
there was a part of me, which was quietly and stoically sceptical. But the
holiday did happen.
Early one morning, a week ago, I took the train from New
Delhi Railway Station. I do not mind waking up early to take trains or buses or
aeroplanes. In fact, I usually prefer early morning travel for varied reasons.
The taxi ride to New Delhi Railway Station was my first in remembered memory. I
rather enjoyed it. The roads were dark, empty and looked clean. Yet I couldn’t
see how that road could be traversed in less than 55 minutes during normal
hours. The train journey was quite nice too apart from a passenger who nudged
me by accident while sleeping. I nudged him back hard and instinctively and he
waved his hand in apology while still sleeping. The journey was not too
terribly long and yet it was long enough to be able to catch mini snoozes, mini
phone calls and a breakfast. There wasn’t much of a view apart from one short stretch
where there were emerald green wheat fields and a couple of lonely farmers.
At Hardwar, I got a rickshaw at the station and soon enough then
came the narrow, winding alleys with colourful shops, set (merry) cheek by (happy)
jowl selling everything from bells to blankets to bangles. I was awfully
tempted to buy bangles or take pictures but I did neither. But there was a
flash and flurry of colours and mixed fragrances, and I could quite see why
foreigners would find the medley of colours and narrow alleys – for better or
worse – exotic. Just as suddenly – when I started wondering how the Ganga would
appear in the midst of what I was seeing – the sinuous shop alley ended. Before
I knew it – there was the Ganga to my right. I paid the rickshaw driver and
hopped off. I looked at the Ganga and smiled before knowing I was smiling. It
felt cooler even though the afternoon sun was hot.
I reached Hotel Teerth and getting a room was a two minute
deal since Suvro da had already mentioned that I would be arriving. And there
up on the balcony – I gazed at the Ganga. I love small ponds and even little
fountains. I find water bodies – small or large – magical. I love rivers and mighty
seas and oceans. But this was something else – and I know why. I searched with
my eyes for I knew I’d find “Shiva guarding his own”, and I did. I had to bend
low from my balcony to find him though. He was turned away and at an angle, and
looked jauntier and haughtier and grander than I remembered him from a picture
seen close to a decade ago.
Suvro da and his mum arrived from Mussoorie, and I skipped
up the flight of stairs to their room. Shiva from Suvro da’s room was not
hiding. He was standing there all tall and grand and I didn’t have to bend low
to find him from that balcony! The afternoon was blissful even though there was
an annoying hammer that started hammering away at some point. I didn’t think I
was going to snooze – in fact, I had no intentions of snoozing and I was determined
to stay awake. But at some point I was dreaming that I was falling from a great
height and jolted awake – and I went back to snoozing.
At four it was off to the Manasa Temple. Suvro da and I
stopped at a roadside shop for tea and a flaky biscuit that the French would
have been proud of. We walked along those alleys, and the bangles and bells and
blankets kept beckoning at me. I was half-loping through and half-looking at
those colorful alleys with all kinds of smells floating through from incense to
fried food to even the fragrance from the bells (or was that in my head?) so as
to not lose sight of Suvro da. I had no idea how we were getting to Manasa
Temple but I was all-in for anything really. Suvro da had earlier pointed out to
the landmark and said there was a view up there. Soon enough he was getting the
tickets for the ropeway. I didn’t bat an eyelid but to think I had stayed away
from ever taking the ropeway from the time I was an 8-year old stubborn mule
along a lakeside in Switzerland, and had loudly claimed for a long time that I
never would. Let me not go into reasons. Even some three years ago when a whole
bunch of 70 people took the ropeway (Gondola) in Gulmarg – I had gone off for a
walk in the snowy mountains.
The ropeway ride was marvelous. If there was something I was
sad about it was that it came to an end too soon. On the ropeway, Suvro da said
“And now you’ll tell me that you’ve never been on a ropeway…” to which I had to
grunt in affirmation and mumble under my breath. Suvro da pointed out that the
odds of being hit by a random vehicle back in Muchipara were higher than
falling off a cable car and breaking one’s neck. He pointed out to the curving
hill road, which he and his entire troop had taken during the school excursion
back in 1989. We reached the Manasa temple and took a sandy rocky slope to the
view-point. The path wasn’t too terribly precarious if one were wearing
sneakers but Suvro da went about in his flip-flops and I kept muttering ‘don’t
go that close to the ledge…’ Apparently, the monkeys at the view-point are a
menace. Just before taking the ropeway there was a panda who was trying to get
Suvro da to buy a bag of offerings not for the deity but for the langurs! They
take the food offerings but there seemed to be random stuff like pictures and
boxes that people had left up there at the view-point, and a couple of curious
monkeys were going through the stuff. One monkey also took a bag of puffed rice
offered to it by a visitor, and ran off and sat with it next to the ledge. The
view from the top was kingly. Hardwar lay like a toy town way down and Suvro da
pointed out to the original route of the Ganga, which the British had diverted,
and he pointed out to the dam they had built. I could have sat there on the
view-point just admiring the view and watching the Ganga winding about at a
distance if it hadn’t been for the pesky monkeys, I guess. I took a couple of
pictures, on Suvro da’s bidding, but my pics look nothing like what I saw
through my eyes. I am reminded of “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance”.
I half-skidded and slid down the sandy ridge while we were
going back down. Suvro da did better in his flip-flops. We had piping hot
samosas and great big jalebis at a shop next to the temple, and we wondered
what made people decide that they would set up an eatery next to a temple up on
the hills… I didn’t pray at Manasa temple. They say that one can make a wish
(or wishes, I suppose if one is so inclined) and tie a thread and do the perambulation
around the Sanctum Sanctorum, and if the Goddess is feeling benevolent and grants
one’s wish – one goes back at some point and unties one’s thread. But how does
one find one’s own thread? – I wonder. Anyhow, I didn’t know what exactly I
could pray for when I was ambling about up there, and so I shook my head at the
thought of praying any prayers at Manasa Temple. I made all the clear prayers I
could at 22 and I haven’t changed any of them since then.
We came back on the ropeway and I managed to take one hasty
picture but I watched the descent carefully trying to record every bit in my
mind and greatly enjoyed it. I don’t know why I had been so scared of ropeways
almost all my life…
Suvro da was racing back along once we were on flat ground
because the Ganga aarti was to begin at 6 p.m. We walked over to Har-ki-Pauri
and it was already full of people. But we edged along and took our places. I
was sort of in a dream-like state by then. Maybe this is what the Durkheim-ian collective
conscience is all about? Or maybe I was looking at and feeling only what I
wanted to feel. The fire lamps and the chanting in the background felt
incredibly familiar. My gaze was fixed and I don’t even think I cared too much
about the crowds thronging the ghat. The aarti came to an end in ten minutes,
and we walked off and away from the centre. I had thought there would be a
sudden river of human beings leaving the ghat but I didn’t feel the crowd
dispersing. I saw a couple of chaps sitting next to the Ganga with their feet
in the river and I very badly wanted to do the same. In fact I had been wanting
to quietly dip into the Ganga and take a swim since the afternoon. But I did
nothing of that sort. The current of the waters looked very strong but Suvro da
pointed out to some people who were wading about in the middle of the Mother
Ganges. She wasn’t in full swell. I still didn’t leap into the Ganga nor did I
go about on a canoe. Back in the work-place, folks asked me later whether I had
had fun white-water rafting in Rishikesh. Somehow people had assumed that I had
gone for rafting or canoeing or for some water adventure sports with my mentor in
Rishikesh.
Suvro da’s mum had also been there at Ganga-aarti and we
joined her and strolled over to a roadside tea-shop. I saw the statue of
Netaji. Barring his distinct INA uniform – he rather looked like he were in
disguise. Suvro da’s mum later narrated a story about Netaji when he really had
been in disguise and was about to cross the ice-cold Volga (I believe it was).
His accomplice urged him to take a swig of Vodka. Netaji refused saying he had
promised his mum and his Mother (his country) that he would never do such a
thing. His accomplice told him that it would be better to take a swig and cross
the river with the help of the warmth that the Vodka provided to cross the
Volga than becoming incapacitated. That convinced Netaji and so he prayed a
prayer, took a swig and crossed the river. We of course sat out there for our
tea. The tea here is heavy, incredibly sweet and doesn’t taste too much like
tea. However this cuppa wasn’t bad. I could hear the river as I sipped on the
tea, had some biscuits that Mashi had brought along and heard gentle voices
around me and in my head…
We went for a walk along the river banks and Suvro da shared
a bit about the time that he had come over with a bunch of his school-boys back
in 1989 and how they had stayed at the only lodge on the other side of the Ganga,
and how he had got all of them – teachers included – to walk across to the
other side for their daily meals…He even shared a wee-bit about a visit to
Rajaji National Park during the course of that excursion. The National Park
could be seen as a forest shroud in the distance, up in the high hills across
the banks from the hotel balcony. While we were standing on the bridge and
watching the river rush along below I was looking at the lit flower diyas,
which were sailing with the river current, carrying their offerings to the
river Goddess and perhaps her God. I wanted to float a diya. As we returned
from our stroll down the river-side I was musing aloud that it would be rather
nice to have a small shop selling colourful trinkets and who-knows-what-else
right next to the river. Suvro da stated that the locals would never let
outsiders in. I like to imagine that maybe in some lifetime I had become an
insider – maybe far up The River. I was reminded of a vague story that had
begun in flashes inside my head (when I was a trifle barmy many years ago), about
a woman who had loved and probably lost in worldly terms, and left behind
whatever she could, and went off to spend the rest of whatever remained in
Hardwar…I never got to see more flashes and there never was a complete story.
I did float a diya. Suvro da remembered in his way
matter-of-fact way. I had forgotten by then although I was looking at all the
beautiful flower diyas along the way and on the way back from our river stroll.
I bought one diya and was badgered into buying two and nearly caved in but I
stuck to one. There was a priest who appeared. I was asking Suvro da whether I
couldn’t just float my diya on my own, Mashi was watching, and Suvro da was
telling me to take off my shoes. The priest asked me a question to which I
shook my head while looking resolutely away, and then before I knew it – the
chanting began and was over. I got to bathe my feet in the Ganga. I got to
touch the holy waters. And then I floated my diya in the Ganga…
The evening came to an end with the roar of the mighty river
and rather too soon and suddenly. It would have been too soon, for me, no
matter when it might have come to an end. I fell into a deep sleep ridiculously
early. I could hear the Ganga in the middle of the night. I woke up and sat out
in the balcony for a bit. The waters were lovely, dark and deep and looked like
they were cast in a magical light. I could hear the notes and the low roar of
the waves. God knows when I went back in and fell asleep again. It came to me
in my half-sleep state that the odd bouts of fever and the persistent
body-aches had disappeared, and so I grinned when Fimh said something, and he
said something else.
There was one delightful mini-walk by the Ganga early in the
morning and a very strange cup of tea. Suvro da didn’t find the tea strange. He
found it awful. And then there was the ride to the station through the dark.
The train was late but it came along eventually to Hardwar. I think I could
write a whole blog-post about the wait and the train ride back to New Delhi
Railway station. But let that be.
The train was late in arriving at New Delhi, and it put a
damper to my erstwhile envisioned plans. Suvro da’s mum and I sat put on an
empty bench and chatted, Suvro da sat and chatted for a bit but walked about
here and there for the most part, and as the afternoon lingered on, Aakash,
Suvro da’s old student arrived. We had a neat lunch at the station. We walked
over to Platform 13. Suvro da and Aakash went back to help a passenger with her
luggage onto a train. Rajdhani chugged into the station and we all boarded. I
was rather impressed by the clean and nifty interiors. Suvro da was telling me how
there was originally only a Calcutta-New Delhi Rajdhani and a Bombay-New Delhi
Rajdhani until all other cities like Madras and others started yowling that
they too wanted a “Rajdhani” Express. But soon enough it was time for Aakash and me to
get off the train and Suvro da nudged us to get off. I couldn’t pretend that I too
was a traveler. Aakash was loitering about on the platform as the train started
chugging out. I asked him what he was doing and he said he was wondering
whether to run alongside the train because that is what they used to do as
children – and one can actually run “faster” than a train till a point. I sort
of chuckled at the thought of Suvro da seeing two of his students running
alongside his window. Suvro da and his mum departed on the Rajdhani for
Durgapur in the late afternoon, and it was time to leave the station.
