I went to Haridwar last week. For a “holy dip” with my family. And as I took my first step into the refreshingly cold water, there were a couple of things that dawned upon me. Nothing pathbreaking, people have observed this before and perhaps it will be just the same years later also.
But the religious frenzy, the hype, the aura, the trance like atmosphere..it all gripped me for some time. I could feel all the thrusts of the force we call religion, something that was pulling me down in the cold, ever-moving water. Something which was urging me to submerge my head in the cold water and emerge out purer. And when that something finally succeeded and inside my head went, something again tugged at me, perhaps a whisper, or a lyrical trance, even a wavy chorus at times, they all urged me to feel pure, to feel relieved, to feel clean, to feel new even.
It wasnt the water, how could it be? it was the same water the waves and currents of which I grappled with when I went rafting last month. Im sure I didnt feel pious and cleansed then, only nervous and excited. It was the same water in which i stood knee submerged on the last day of the last year. I didn’t feel pious even then. Only strangely cold and awed by the serenity and filth that simultaneously adorned the place. It was the same water that almost every house in this country has had at some time in its history, locked and preserved in plastic, believed to be purifying the house even from beyond the walls.
So it wasnt the water. It was the aura, the religious paranoia that held the air tied to a thin string and pulled it to the brink of choking. So much so that you could’nt breathe. Your lips ran dry and you had to open your mouth wide to fill your lungs with air. And the words floated in the air, ready to sit on your tongue when you opened your mouth to breathe. they were set words, pre moulded and shaped and crafted, they came in the same way to everyone, language or origins or even nationality made no difference to them.
No wonder then, that everyone looked the same, the faces, the gender, the color, the size, it all had no meaning there. Men entered into the so called ladies room and ladies changed into dry clothes like men do. Their wet clothes lying on the ground like squiggly worms, choked and shivering, bubbling with froth and finally lying lifeless on cracked stone.
Such was the frenzy that held captive the huge place. No one seemed to notice that the place was too small and people too many, no one bothered about the filth, the hygiene, the plastic bags lying about and the lost shoes.
It didn’t last beyond several seconds for me. I was still feeling the tug of that something which was urging, almost forcing me to be a part of it all, to lose my identity, my gender, my face and form and float in the religious tide even as Ganga was flowing beside me. But that tug was interrupted by a tug more real, more physical. It was the nudge of someone, (dont know if she was my mother, they were all the same at that time) who was telling me to take aarti. I spread my hands and obeyed, in a way that we have been told to do it since years and years. In a gesture that every Indian is aware of. As my hands went over my head, someone holding the Aarti looked at me in a weird way and told me that no one pious and religious and god fearing partook the holy flame without giving something back. I remember asking myself “but I came for the water…where did the flame come from?” I looked at the river but got no answers… And just then a 10 rupee note slipped into my fingers…
Thats when it all broke…and fell into little shreds around me. Thats when I saw it all.. there was nothing godlike about it at all. It was basely human. It was Greed. They could’nt even leave the Ganga alone. Everyone wanted to use her, either for cleansing themselves or for making money out of it. They were all her pimps, selling her. Making money out of every ripple she had, every current she displayed. Even the ladies in the changing room asked for something in the name of Ganga. As did the numerous Pandits and the prasad walas and the aarti walas and shoe keeper and the flower walas…basically everyone!
It was nothing then but just a money making exercise. Some people extracting money from those who think that giving money is another way of cleansing themselves. It was all vicious, people taking money from people willing to give more..
It came down to nothing..and I did as i was told. I gave money to everyone who asked for it and did as everyone told me to. But I didn’t feel pure, cleansed and religious
pay for purification...
. I felt sad. And I walked back to my hotel thinking that Ganga would have been so much more beautiful, so much more serene, so much more powerful had she been left alone. Had she been allowed to be free she would have moved around like a beautiful woman with long wet hair…sprinkling water here and there and flowing in the wind..maybe then it would have the power to cleanse as well..
But now, it only made me feel filthy, so much so that I had a bath as soon as got to my room.
