“To laugh often and much, to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children; to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate beauty, to find the best in others; to leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition; to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded.”
And these are the thoughts that occurred to me while I sipped my tea sitting in my easy chair and starring at the clouds from my drawing room in Qatar. The holy Kumbh mela and Kashi, one of the oldest living city in the world with a documented history of 3,500 years, were surely mesmerizing for lesser mortals like me but a plan to visit them came as a shocker. The journey that took us there has been a life worth lived, while the actual ceremony of taking a dip at the Ganga during this season of Prayag Kumbh, which happens once in 12 years and sitting by the boat and viewing the ghats in Benaras were the tipping point.
The Holy Ganga for long has remained bookish in my heart, reading about it in our school text books as one of the most holy and important east-flowing river. But what I have always carried with me is this photographic memory of my mother giving us (my brother and myself) coins to offer to mother Ganga by dropping them from our train when it came directly above the river, while we cross it during our visit to Mumbai from Calcutta and back. The coins are to be thrown in such a way that they do not get stuck in the piers of the railway bridge, nor should it fall prey to the few people who come below the train to collect these zillions of coins thrown at them from the train.
There are a number of travelogues that talk about the vagaries of life in India, the super-rich of Mumbai in one side, while the poorer Dharavi, the other side in direct contrast with each other. But one cannot appreciate, indulge or comprehend such vagaries unless one has lived to see one. And that I believe is what we lived during this trip. A seven year old cute innocent child smiling and shouting how eating chicken has added to Katrina Kaif beauty, the shanty lanes of Old Delhi, the lone rickshaw puller sleeping on his rickshaw seat tightly covering himself in his torn lungi - his single form of defence to fight the chilling cold of Delhi, announcement made in search of innumerable naked three year olds getting lost in the Kumbh, a number of naga sadhus sitting naked with a cigarette in his hand and starring at the Ganga, consistently loud honking of cars, busses, motorcycles, autos all at one go…………sights and sounds which makes you appreciate every small little things in life that has gone unnoticed in our wider craving.
After a visit to one of these places you tend to make peace with yourself and thank almighty for knowing that your parents did not loose you in one of these places, that you could go back home and sit in the dining table and rest assured your mom will bring a plate with food in it for you, that you could still wear new shoes to school and a school bag and a pen and have a scale and a pencil and a sharpner too, that you could still make phone calls to your friend, that you could still drink Mirinda from a nearby shop, and that you know what Mirinda tastes like…. Such is the vagary of life that at this time and age, I still see a laughing little seven year old pointing at a Mirinda can, having mistaken it for some chicken dish, and telling my friend who wholeheartedly bought him the Mirinda and a plate of chicken biryani, so that he knows what it tastes like. And at the end of it all, the smiling little boy says “Thankyou Bhaiya”
And far away from the meddling crowd of Allahabad and Delhi, when we reach India’s oldest city Kashi, one of the holiest abode for Hindus, serenity flows in, as if time has suddenly stopped clicking. The heavenly Kashi Vishwanath Temple, the holiest of all Shiva temples, finds a mention in the Rigveda, and a visit to Kashi could be comparable to what Haj is. A place where every Hindu would at least want to visit once in their lifetime, and I am glad we could do so at this age. The living moment of being in the sanctum sanctorum can by no means expressed in words. One tends to forget the state of being and merge with this unexplained force of nature that makes your mind stop thinking. It’s a state of pure bliss, no thoughts, no worries and all calm. And the blissfulness is taken to the next level when you make the boat ride in the Ganga.The boat gently rocking you and rowing you to all the Ghats, the sun still red and rising, gentle breeze, flock of birds floating the Ganga, the reddish pink buildings by the ghats all cajoling your five senses. Babies being baptized by the Ganga,kids jumping into the river, couples praying together and offering the Ganga to the Sun God, the Naga sadhus in ecstasy and the burning corpses…..the complete stage of a human life encompassing Brahmacharya, Grihastashrama, Vanaprastham and Sanyasam - the sheer simplicity of Kashi of being able to witnessed the entire cycle of birth, life and death by a mere boat ride, would be the best way of putting Kashi in perspective. Don’t know if there is heaven or hell, but a visit to Kashi reaffirms the belief, wheather heaven or hell both exists in this mother Earth that we actually live in!
The want for sheer existence in Delhi to the ecstasy of the Sadhus, and how both treat life so simple in spite having literally nothing. The underbelly pricks when we notice that small convenience in our life is an austerity for others. So at the end of it all are we going to do something about it? Are these few days of glory at Allahabad and Kashi remain as stories to tell? Are these going to remain as mere experience that we would share with others who have never been to these places? Questions in turn that would make us a Naga and stare at the clouds, only thing missing being the charas to smoke away to glory!
