We finally agreed upon Haridwar and Hrishikesh. These places were supposedly very beautiful, peaceful etc. Lots of positive, a few bombastic, adjectives were used to get my approbation. I just wanted, somehow, to exit Delhi. So even Arctic Circle would find my sanction. There was no need of cajoling me.
So, on the 23rd of June, we set off to the bus-station in Delhi. It is called ISBT. After we somehow reached there, in an auto and then a rickety rickshaw, we assumed that it would be like the bus-stations we have here, in the South. How preposterous was that assumption! It was (and still is, I’m sure) a sordid, messy place, with people running helter-skelter, shouting all sorts of slogans. The ‘Inquiry’ room was locked. Someone said, almost philosophically, “Sahib! Yahaan, aisa hi hota hai” We were lost in that chaos. If I were to coin a phrase for it, it would be this - cacophonic and slatternly. It was nothing less, nothing more. We somehow figured out, which bus to board, where to get the tickets etc. from the vendors, paan-wallahs etc. The distance, we were told was nearly 170 kilometers. We assumed, again wrongly, that it could be completed in 4 hours at most. We are used to the highways in the south, so giving 4 hours was liberal enough. The bus left at 1.30 PM and reached at 7.45 PM, which means, more than 6 hours! Why it was so, and why that was supposedly usual, let me elaborate.
The bus looked like a big, wobbly box, somehow put together, with an engine. Add to that, the roads. The roads in Delhi really impressed me - clean, broad and beautiful. I expected the same from the highways. But, as was the case, it was the exact reverse. It was a mucky, thin and an awful ‘highway’. Even taking a Mercedes, wouldn’t help. The top speed you could gain was may be, 50 kmph. Our bus waded through the narrow highway, at such a pace, that you’d feel that walking was a better option. It is not that the roads are actually narrow. The problem is that half of it is either broken or encroached upon. To make matters worse, was the heat. It was 40° C and the sun was blazing like never before. And the conditions were further hostile especially to me, because the seat I got, faced the sun continuously, and I wasn’t allowed to close the window. So the sun was lashing down on my cheeks, to the point of baking it. The ordeal continued because, the sun just wouldn’t set, even at 7.30 PM! I kept cursing my luck, the weather, the roads, the government, the authorities, and everything continually during the entire journey, or should I say, tribulation. The one exception was when the bus stopped for food. It was expensive yes, but was a relief. I drank water from the tube-well. The surprisingly cold water came as a welcome reprieve, for me atleast. Finally, the journey culminated at 7.45 PM.
The moment we got down from the bus, scores of rickshaw pullers started nearly hounding us to board their rickshaws, which would take us to the hotels of our choice, depending on the budget. And don’t ask the condition of those rickshaws…. they were all there, half broken, some without foot rests, rickety, tottering, and extremely painful on the rear. Something was protruding which tore part of my new t-shirt. It was horrible. But the fare, a meager Rs. 5. Why? The hotel wallahs foot the remaining Rs. 10, so it would seem a win-win situation for all - the customer pays less, the rickshaw puller gets his share and the hotel owners, a customer. The rate system of the hotels has their own story to tell. On weekdays, a non-AC room costing Rs. 500 can easily shoot to Rs. 1500 on weekends. And about the AC rooms, the less said the better. And this phenomenon is universal, in Haridwar. No fixed rates there. Economists would love the game of demand-supply. And if the weekend is some Ekadasi, then it is party time for the hotel owners. The same non-AC room can go up for bidding upto Rs. 2200. And the AC rooms? Rs. 3000, flat! The condition of the rooms however, remains the same. No extra services for paying five times the actual. Getting to terms with this mechanism, we somehow got a room, because we came on the last weekday, and had to shell out, a supposedly throwaway price of Rs. 1100 a day, because our booking extended till the weekend.
We had bath, watched the television for sometime and then, it was dinnertime. We were told that non-vegetarian food was “not available”. It wasn’t totally unexpected. There are numerous “Vaishnav Bhojanalays”. I was given the impression by my father that Dehradun rice is served, hot desi ghee is poured on top, added to that are delicious chutney and overall a great experience. Yet, again, we were proved wrong. Those Vaishnav Bhojanalays serve Alu 65, Vegetable Manchuria, noodles, and yes, even rice. I wonder what the Gods must be thinking! We preferred an Indian sort of food, and we ordered rice, dal and a curry. The rice was not Dehradunian, no desi ghee was poured, and the dal and chutney were anything but delicious. The scene inside the bhojanalay was equally chaotic. Waiters shouting, customers howling, children running, someone puking etc. we managed to steer clear of everything and concentrate on the ‘lovely’ food served. After clearing the bills, we thought of loitering around for sometime. Here I was impressed, for once, with the quality of sweets available. I had rabri, jalebi, basundi and petha. I was extremely gladdened with the sweet eating experience, partly because I rarely get to taste these delicious wonders and partly because I was tormented for the whole day. So pleasant events delighted me even more. We waded through the narrow by-lanes of the historic city and reached our hotel. After that, I fell flat on the bed and dozed off. I deserved a good night’s sleep.
It was the 24th of June, Saturday. We were supposed to take bath in the Ganga. The ghats of the river extend miles. The main ghat is called “Har Ki Paudi”(see picture). 
We took quite sometime reaching there, as we were constantly told that it was just five minutes away from where we were. That five minutes ultimately became forty five minutes. We walked and walked and walked. We somehow reached the ghats. Har Ki Paudi was further away. That made for a very colourful picture. Scores of people, taking bath in the holy river, the sadhus chanting Lord’s name, there was an element of euphoria there. Somehow I forgot what I had to face before. The scene is very captivating. I chatted with a few fakir like sadhus. They have no fears, no complexes, speak straight from the heart. They look scruffy and crazy from outside, but believe me; some can really shock you with the depth and breadth of their intellect and knowledge of scriptures. Common folk, however, were just indulging in merriment. It is a marvelous sight. There are all these prachin (ancient) temples, which have mentions in our scriptures. The erstwhile Maharajas have constantly renovated them. We then decided that it was time for us to take the dip. I was a bit jittery, and the rest shy. I didn’t risk exposing my well rounded, pot-like midriff. But I was coaxed out of my inhibition. The water was ice-cold nearly and the currents were immense. Added to that, the ghats were extremely slippery. We luckily faced no such problems and after three dips, we emerged, rejuvenated and invigorated. It certainly was a great feeling to take a plunge in Ganga, that too at Haridwar.
Empowered and with a feeling of holiness, my father, wanted to do Pinda daan, a ceremony where one invokes the blessings of the ancestors. He consulted a nearby policeman. He guided us to a priest. There are hundreds of them - all willing to perform any ceremony you want. After the ceremony, which supposedly went off well, was the time for dakshina, a fee for the priest. There are no fixed rates, unlike in the South. These priests are masters in accounting and commerce. Suppose you have Rs. 500 in your purse, they’ll make a list of expenses and charities, which will definitely sum upto Rs. 500. They can do this to any sum, even something like Rs. 759. So, my advice is, take as little money as possible to the bathing ghat. The priests will politely pillage your wallet and you’ll be left standing without even affording a rickshaw ride back to the hotel. It happened to us, and many others. The alternative is to carry some cash in another secret wallet. You can reach your hotel eating along the way in all these stalls and vendors. Food is really economical here in Haridwar and luscious too! All types of vegetarian food, in all varieties are available. So if you are a Bengali, you can find many Bengali restaurants, same is the case if you are from Maharashtra, or Tamil Nadu, or Gujarat, or Kerala. The people here are very accommodative and helpful, unlike quite a few of our ‘modern’ cities. They are willing to go out of their way to help you with the directions, bargain with rickshaw pullers and yes, absolute strangers smile back!
You’ll have to quickly reach your hotel and plan for the day. The ideal thing is to take a packaged tour of Hrishikesh. You’ll be given a time, say 10.00 AM, and the bus will leave earliest by 11.00 AM, you’ll be considered lucky even. It is not that there aren’t enough passengers or buses; it is just an example of gross mismanagement – of operators, middlemen, bus drivers, agents, touts etc. Sometimes it is fascinating, how so many things can actually work simultaneously, albeit with a time lag. We got into one, by fluke, which was supposed to leave at 9.30 AM and it started at 10.15 AM, voila! Two passengers supposedly hadn’t arrived, and we pounced. We were shown various temples, all ancient and historically significant. One of them was where Goddess Sati was born, another where Lord Shiva disrupted Raja Daksheshwar’s grand ceremony, lots of them are there on the way. We also got a glimpse of Swami Ramdev’s Patanjali Yoga Peeth from the outside. Swami Ramdev is the top-most yoga guru in India, and people of Haridwar feel proud everytime his reference is given. They consider him one of their own. This bus was imminently better than the one in which we reached Haridwar. Hrishikesh isn’t all that far from Haridwar. It is barely 35 kilometres or so. We stopped estimating the time it would take. C’mon, nothing was working! There are so many temples that the guides want you to see, and add to that the chaotic traffic situation. We reached Hrishikesh by noon. We were first made to walk in scorching sun to Lakshman jhoola.
Legend has it that, Lord Lakshmana, made a bridge like structure as a connect between two hills, underneath which River Ganga is flowing. We cheerfully crossed it, and had a feeling of doing something very holy. We visited a few temples here and there, took a few photos, and we were told we’d have to go to a place called ‘Swarg Ashram’, which means Heaven Abode. We were stuffed into a jeep, in a manner worse than poultry chicken, along with nearly ten others, and were transported to the ‘Swarg Ashram’. This is a two-kilometer ordeal and the condition of the jeep – the less said the better. Didn’t someone say, the road to heaven is through hell?
After reaching there, and praying for sometime, we were shown the way for lunch. There are quite a few restaurants in the alley. One of them is called Chotiwallah; literally, a man with a ponytail (see picture). People say, the head-cook here, had a ponytail and cooked very well. Hence the name. The Chotiwallah brand is so famous now that in 
Haridwar too there are a few restaurants by the same name! There is no record of any pony-tailed cooks there! The restaurant was a bit messy, but hygienic, and the food was just about average. There is a showpiece Chotiwallah there now, and he poses for photographs happily. After lunch, we idled around for sometime and then boarded the bus. It was about 3 PM then.
We were then taken to many temple-cum-amusement parks. Sounds astounding? How can a temple be an amusement park? Well, it is. There is one that has Vaishnodevi style caves, replicas of all famous Shivlingas, a few optical illusions with strategically set mirrors et al. These seem pretty interesting, but the catch is that you’ll have to perform a small puja, so in the name of dakshina, the priests extort some more money, and want you to ‘donate’ to the ‘ashram’. This is the principle difference between say an Essel World and these sorts of ‘temples’. While the Essel Worlds of the world, don’t ask you for dakshina or a ‘donation’, these do! But ultimately both are amusement parks. Talk of commercialization of religion! Well, that’s the way things work here. And what does one get in return of the gross moneymaking schemes? Excellent services? You must have guessed the answer. There are many of these ‘temples’ on the way. These ‘temples’ look extremely good from outside. Gigantic sculptures, Brobdingnagian paintings etc.; so if you call this a place of recreation and not a ‘temple’, I think it is fine enough.
After heading to other similar temples, we went back to the Ganga ghat, where a few people (see pictures) congregated.
Everyone was deeply immersed, quite literally in devotion. One thing I’ve seen is that the people, no matter from which background they are from, are ever so cheerful and chirpy. They are buoyant, again literally, when they take dips in the holy river. Such is the milieu there. The ghats have some points that are worth mentioning.. There is an engraved notice board, which has about six rules. One of them says, ‘photography is ‘strictly prohibited’’, another rule says ‘non-Hindus are not allowed’, another one reads ‘use of soap and washing clothes is forbidden’, the one below it tells us ‘no tax is to be paid in this premises’. But it shouldn’t be astonishing that all, and I mean, all rules are flouted. If photography were ‘strictly prohibited’, from where do you get to see these photos? And yes, I wasn’t the only one with a camera. There were 
thousands of them. If ‘non-Hindus are not allowed’, how come so many foreigners come here, take dips, photos and then move about? Surely the authorities can identify ‘non-Hindus’. And then this, ‘use of soap is forbidden’. Just on the isles, a lot of women, were busy washing their children, clothes and the like. Tell them that a rule exists specifically forbidding what they are doing and they’ll retort, “Aur kahaan kapde dhoye? Delhi mein?(Where else should be wash our clothes? In Delhi?”) Such is the condition. And yes, accounting for the ‘no tax’ rule is equally interesting. Surely, I wouldn’t mind paying a small tax, if the fees of these priests’ were regulated. Each one charges dubious amounts and psychologically coaxes you to pay up, and you have no other option. After our bath in the Ganga, we headed for the hotel.
Oh, I’ve forgotten to tell you about the roads of Haridwar. The biggest road is as clattery and chaotic as the Secunderabad station road, albeit with half its width. All other ‘roads’, if that tag can be given, resemble the hustling and bustling by-lanes of General Bazaar or Sultan Bazaar. They have to be seen to be believed. They just go on and on, amidst all the frenzy and madness. You can’t use any system of transport. After all, even a cycle can’t pass through them! Thousands of people march through these, bargaining, heckling, haggling and negotiating with the ecstatic shopkeepers, who clearly were on cloud nine. Their eyes were popping out and their heads were constantly pendulating, they know that Saturday evenings can make many a rags-to-riches story, so they were making hay while the Sun (in this case arc-lights and bulbs) was shining. They are smart people, they invite you in with great accord, and then quote exorbitantly, as they know, you’ll get it to half, and hence, they’ll get the privilege of acting as though they’ve incurred a tremendous loss, but gave you the deal, just because you were so special. Such is life here. The only thing, as I mentioned earlier, really worth having here is the food. It is palatable, tasty and inexpensive. What else does one need? You can keep eating in these roadside stalls, carts, vendors et al, everyone serves you with a gentle smile. This is a big difference with the big cities, one of which was recently awarded the tag of ‘rudest’ (rightly or wrongly) by foreign publications. The planning for the next day was done after we reached the hotel, and then as usual, like everyone else in the world, I went to sleep.
We made up our mind to go to the Mansa Devi temple, which is on top of a hill and after that come down to take bath. We reached there on time. But as things go, we were ‘before time’. Incidentally, there is a ropeway service here that opens an hour after we reached the place. So we resolved to go to the hilltop on foot. It was a 45-minute task. We executed it scientifically – slow-deep breaths, back straight, chest out, chin up and no conversations. There are many benches to rest, and we used them. The ascend is interesting in the sense that everyone encounters a plethora of monkeys. Some carry food packets along with them too. The trick is that you shouldn’t eat in front of the monkeys. If you do, numerous monkeys will jump out of nowhere and snatch away your packet. So, be careful! After reaching the pinnacle and praying, we decided to take the ropeway for the descend. I never had boarded a ropeway carrier before, so it was all the more fun. Wonder why Tirupati doesn’t allow it. Thence we proceeded towards the bathing ghat once again; the water currents this time were not only fiercer, but also the water was chilly ice-cold. So I wasn’t left open-mouthed when I slipped - and slipped big time. But for those chains and rods, which I firmly clung on to, I’d have to negotiate these vicious currents all by myself. After thanking the Gods, and packing up from the ghat, we sped towards the eateries in the market. After the trek to reach the apex of the hill, and taking bath for quite sometime at the Ganges, to say that we were hungry would be an understatement. As it was a Sunday morning, my day wanted ‘homely Bengali food’. And voila, we spotted one. It was traditional luchi-torkari, a typical Bengali household’s Sunday breakfast. My dad felt elated. After eating some sweets from a nearby shop and lassi, which was oh-so-wonderful, we sat on a rickshaw and luckily reached the hotel. ‘Luckily’ because I never expected we’d reach the hotel, I was almost sure that the rickshaw would collapse. Two factors were instrumental for that thought – the rickshaw itself and its unwieldy passengers. We packed our baggage and idled around in the hotel room, surfing channels. We checked out of the hotel at 10.30 AM as it was time for us to board a bus back to Delhi. As usual, the bus and time we were allotted – the one at 11 AM, wouldn’t just leave. Even after 12.30 PM, after the operators, conductors, touts and people of their ilk, who control this business tested our nerves, some passengers, visibly exasperated, nearly came to blows with the authorities concerned. And as always, it worked! The bus left immediately.
Looking back at the ‘holy’ city and its approach roads, there is an immense scope for infrastructure development. In fact, so colossal is the task, that our unemployment problem can be solved! It is not that things have gone out of control or are beyond repair. It doesn’t need any Herculean effort from anyone. The city only deserves better treatment and some objective thinking on part of the concerned authorities. What we need is a collective effort. Mark my words; this place can be transformed again into a heavenly place, as it was even twenty years ago. What the authorities should do is – have broader (and cleaner) approach roads to this holy city, regulate these hotel owner-tout-middleman-operator-policeman mafia (yes!), and make it a value-for-money service for the devotees. They can model Haridwar on the lines of Tirupati, which is an epitome of cleanliness and good management. But everything can’t be left for the authorities too. Some actions by people who call themselves ‘devotees’, clearly beat my reasoning faculties. They litter the river, throw all sorts of junk, plastic bags, and have left the place in shambles. Ironically, these are the very rivers that they worship! Clearly some soul-searching should go on from the side of the devotees too. Will Goddess Ganga be pleased and forgive you if you dirty her and pollute her, just because a two-line prayer has been said without understanding the meaning and sans any devotion? Another point, which comes to my mind, is the food served in these so-called ‘Vaishnav Bhojanalays’ – can’t there be original Indian food? Why Vegetable Manchuria? Why Ruffles Lays? Why Coke and Pepsi? Twenty-five years ago, apparently it was the most exquisite place to come over and spend sometime. How the situation now is, you’ve got a fair description of it. We are supposed to be a race that thinks about the future glory, but if things continue like this, I doubt if there will be any future to think of.
Well, there are so many lovely memories too. One of them is my little interaction with the ubiquitous Sadhus. They are vivacious to the core, and have a great sense of humour. Their comments, often sarcastic, a few philosophical and the rest informative, can have you in splits. Another wonderful experience was crossing the Lakshman jhoola, it somehow gave an uplifting and highly emotive feeling. Here was a place, where those whom we worship, lived, built etc. But by all means the best moments were those while taking bath in the holy Ganga, along with thousands of others - the staggering number of people who take bath simultaneously is only second to the Mahakumbh Mela. The water is cold, the currents are furious, the ghats are slippery, yes. Those who are depressed for some reason or are not feeling well will immediately be rejuvenated, and those who are perfectly fine and want to have a good time, like us, will feel even more beaming with energy - the reason, the expression on the faces of the devotees, those emotions of bliss, of almost eternal peace, satisfaction and felicity. May be it so because they have their relatives all together, in a far-off place, or maybe no one will trouble them with their daily chores but I believe it stems from deep consecration for the divine. The holy places are there to help you forget what you are and give you these feelings – saintliness, piousness, and ultimately, happiness!
The author would appreciate if you posted your honest opinions here.
