A journey to remember...day 3

Oct 2, 2006

As expected in any vacation, everything was not smooth sailing. We faced some hitches the next day morning when we were supposed to start our actual trip towards the mountains. Our tour operator did not send the cab in time and that really irked us. Finally after a plethora of phone calls to and fro, a driver by the name of Dhoom Singh, a funny name I thought, showed up at our room door. We were greatly relieved! The first stop in our journey was Haridwar, literally meaning entrance to Lord Shiva's abode, which are the Himalayas. Lord Shiva has made the snow capped mountains His abode where He along with His consort, goddess Parvati are endlessly involved in the play of creating and destroying gigantic worlds symbolically represented by His thandav (dance) as lord Nataraja. The journey to Haridwar took us 6 hours by road from Delhi; passing through the state of Uttar Pradesh of which Uttaranchal or Uttarakhand as it is now called was a part before breaking to form an independent state.

We reached Haridwar at around dusk. The first sight of the Ganges flowing majestically was overwhelming. It was also a holy day in the Hindu calendar, the last day of the Navrathri festivities called Vijayadashami. Huge effigies of the demon king Ravana were erected for ceremonial burning. Not so far away could be heard voices of men giving discourses about the way Lord Rama defeated Ravana to ultimately re-establish dharma in the epic Ramayana. Crackers and fireworks added to the din and bustle of thousands of people thronging Haridwar for a holy dip in the Ganges on that very auspicious day. Haridwar is one of the four Kumbh kshetras, the other three being Ujjain, Nashik and Varanasi or Benaras. We went to the ghat on the river banks overlooking some temples where the evening services were being offered to the presiding deities. As soon as I stepped on the one of the stone steps, I slipped and fell; resting my entire body weight on my hands. For a moment, I felt the ground slipping away from me and carrying me straight into the gushing river. A slight flurry and much anxiety to my parents who have a predisposition of protecting me all the time. Especially my father who has been told by an astrologer that I have a gandam (premonition of a mishap waiting to happen) through the agent of water. My mother's heart would have skipped a beat when I later jokingly told her that nobody will come to your rescue even if you accidentally fall into the river as people would believe that the Ganga mayi (mother) decided to take away your son or daughter. I saw some ascetics seated by the side of the ghat with long matted hair, Rudraksh necklaces around their necks and their bodies smeared with ash all over; a visible sign of their renunciation of the world. It also helps them to protect their skin from the scorching Indian sun and insect bites. From Haridwar we headed towards Rishikesh passing through thick foliage of shrubs and trees from which were emanating some cries of wild beasts which I pretended not to hear!