Eccentric Musings of a Hippie…..

The train sluggishly moved out of Mumbai Central station thereby marking the beginning of a spiritual (not religious) journey in what was going to become a remarkable experience.

Hailing from a typical middle class family in the south, my idea about North India was formed mainly by the trips that we undertook to various places as a family during the summers. But then, there comes a stage in your life when you would want to revisit most of those places for which you have suddenly developed an appetite for seeing and appreciating. So that’s how it struck me to visit Delhi, Agra and the twin temple cities of Haridwar and Rishikesh.

Bombay has always been my first love and though Paru often used to tell a lot about Delhi, I never used to agree with her on the fact that Delhi is better than Bombay. I didn’t have any expectations about Delhi but what welcomed me on my way to Kingshuk’s house in Sarojini Nagar was dark, tarred, well maintained roads with trees on both sides forming a canopy which completely captured my imagination and I fell in love with Delhi. A well planned city (credit goes to Edwin Lutyens), Delhi is far better than Bombay at least on a couple of parameters like good roads, lesser pollution and fewer traffic snarls primarily because, this is the place where the nation’s top executive and the judicial institutions are. At the same time, a lot of initiatives have also been taken in the capital to ensure a better environment – by enforcing a rule that made all the public transport run on gas. Credit also goes to the metro that was recently launched that takes away a lot of road traffic.

But Delhi was just a base camp. Calling ourselves hippies, Romit and I set out for the twin cities by road. We reached Rishikesh earlier than we had anticipated – 5 am in the morning. Draped in half sleeved t-shirts and jeans, we moved out of the bus towards the ghat braving the biting cold that was killing us. We spent almost 2 hours waiting for the sun to rise and relieve us from the cold and then slowly we proceeded to Lakshman Joola which is a huge bridge and is one of the major attractions in Rishikesh. The bold and beautiful Ganges flows under the Lakshman joola. Standing on the bridge and gazing at the Ganges with the wind kissing your face is an ethereal experience. A holy dip in the greenish blue waters of the Ganga that were shimmering in the sunlight was another exhilarating experience.

We rushed back to Haridwar in a bid to see the arti (evening prayers) only to find to our dismay that the waters of the river were blocked as some purification was underway and hence the arti wasn’t as beautiful as we had thought it would be.

To what extend a person would go as far his love is concerned? The answer would be Taj Mahal built by Shah Jahan in memory of his wife Mumtaz and what more, he even chopped off the hands of all the workers once it was completed, fearing that they might build another monument that would be more beautiful than Taj. Being a highly dreamy and romantic person (I really think so.J ) I was quite eager to see Taj but the kind of welcome we received at the Agra station was pathetic. We were tortured to hell by the ric drivers and guides who completely spoiled our mood. It seems like the “Athithi Devo Bhava” campaign by the Tourism Ministry hasn’t quite had its effect on any of these people.

Be it Agra or the beautiful Fatehpur Sikri or Haridwar, as Romit says “Divinity of all these places has gone” and it’s the guides, the people who manage and who work here are the ones to be blamed. In Fatehpur Sikri, a man came running towards us and told us in panting voice that the shrine of the Sufi saint would be closed soon and hence he requested us to go and visit it once before it got closed. The moment we went there, he asked for money. In Haridwar, if you go near any priest who calls you to give you the tirtha (or the holy water), you would need to pay him something because by the time you accept the tirtha and drink it, and he would have started chanting mantras for the welfare of your family that finally you would be forced to give. Such is the plight of the devotees and tourists who easily fall prey to these money sucking men.
The most exciting thing about this journey was that I believe that I have been able to touch the heart and soul of each and every place I went. Be it, taking a dip in the Ganga that flows through the rustic and exotic Rishikesh, or watching the evening Arti in Haridwar, or walking through the Parantha gali in Chandni Chowk (referred to as Old Delhi) and occasionally taking quick bites of the yummiest paranthas in India or taking a bumpy ride in a Mahindra jeep through dusty roads while returning from Fatehpur Sikri followed by an even more stupendous journey in a train that was packed with people…

Its been one enriching, spiritual experience.