Haridwar/Rishikesh I: Another Pilgrimage, Another Affair with Mother India

1. And We, We Took the Road Less Traveled (And That Has Made All the Difference)

 

C.S. Lewis once said: “The safest road to hell is the gradual one - the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts.”

A Common Sight in Traffic

So it only makes sense that the road we took on our pilgrimage to the holy cities of Rishikesh and Haridwar should be exactly the opposite (except for the bit about milestones and signposts). We leave the house early Wednesday morning, like good pilgrims, this time to the holy cities along the great river of India, the Ganga, whose waters are so sacred that people flock from all sides of the country and of the world for a chance to bathe in her (and, bravely, take a sip!). 

India is a grand balancing act of diametric opposites, two extremes which, like sides of a coin, need each other for their very survival. So it was to be expected that our second pilgrimage should show all signs of being the inverse of our first, Amritsar. To Amritsar (a Sikh pilgrimage) our driver was Hindu, to Haridwar (a Hindu pilgrimage) he was Sikh. The first was two hours late; the second half hour early. The first drove as if there was a bomb under the car that was triggered by deceleration; the second seemed to be meditating on the way, casually stopping for roadside chai (the greatest Indian pastime/addiction).

Overloaded bicycle

As the sun rises over India, we begin our pilgrimage. It starts with a spontaneous round of a game I like to call “What did you just call that?” The rules are fairly simple: one of us says a word that the other doesn't recognize, and we both get to learn what those crazy Brits(/Africans/non-resident Indians)/Americans call everyday things. Today it is star jumps (jumping jacks), but other days it has been candy floss (cotton candy), jumper (sweater), and maybe a dirty word or two (I mean, etc). Comparing notes about life is one of the best things about spending time with someone from another country; it helps you to realize just how bizarre and arbitrary your own culture seems.

Pilgrims walk to the Ganga

Indian roads took me by shock from day one, they have the same chaotic quality of migration that you see in those documentaries about leaf-cutter ants, in which a stream of ants rapidly make their way back and forth, crawling over each other in the process. But the road to Haridwar is unlike anything I've ever experienced. It takes a little over four hours to make the 200km (120 miles) journey by car and is truly a trek through India- in every sense. 

 

The journey begins quietly, our driver sailing through the streets of Chandigarh, which are nearly empty at this hour, save those huddled and bundled commuters waiting for the bus. We pass through Ambala, a small city, and back out into the country side, where fields of wheat, sugar cane, yellow wildflowers, and orchards fly by the windows. As we travel, the road gets more narrow, more bumpy. Cows, the (bigger, uglier... I mean, holier, um, more enlightened) squirrels of India become a more and more frequent sight until at last we have to begin to make stops to allow them to cross. Water buffalo pull heavy carts, mouths open with the exertion. The men who drive them look as though it was they who had been pulling the carts all their lives: skinny and drawn, world-weary.

A bridge is closed, so our car bounces across an ancient, tiny footbridge over a teal river. At times, the pavement has been worn away, leaving road of only dirt and dust. We pass cars and trucks turned and flipped over on the side of the road, and patiently wait for our turn to drive around a mound of wood-chips, a load spilled by one unlucky truck which tipped over.  As we get closer to our destination, monkeys begin to appear, large tan macaques; we serve to avoid squishing them. About half-way through the journey, we begin to spot the other pilgrims; people taking the trek by foot, usually without shoes, carrying ornate burdens as sacrifices to the Ganga. Some of them are fifty or sixty miles away still.

Mountains begin to rise in the distance: the Himalayas. These are only the foothills, but to someone who grew up in the Appalachians, these are mountains in themselves. Then, suddenly, nestled into the side of the mountain along a wide teal-gray river, is Haridwar, sitting serenely and colorfully. A gigantic statue of Shiva, god of destruction (from whose head the river is said to originate) looms over the scene, his hand in the “Fear Not” mudra (hand gesture). He is the ultimate aesthetic, the paramount religious renunciant, after whom the many sadhus along the river devise themselves. And here he is, eternally standing along the beloved Ganga.

We go off in search of an ashram (religious dormitory, the stitch-work of a trip to India) which we can call home for the next few days.  

2. Setting Up Camp

The driver takes us through Haridwar, stopping at a lovely ashram, with a highly decorated courtyard and a clean and homey feel. Any guesses why we didn't stay there? 

That's right, racial profiling. 

This isn't my first problem with racism. I was nearly prevented from seeing the India-Pakistan Border by a grumpy guard, and I've been taken out of a crowd at an entrance for a "random" bag check (although my purse was dead flat and clearly only carrying my wallet). It's almost always people with authority: cops, guards, the ilk, which is quite a problem in a country in which each movie-goer is given a full-body pat-down before entering the cinema. On average, I don't really feel as though there's too much racism directed at me. But this time, it was a little costly. 

"He says no foreigners" Virali translates. "They do fishy things with the rooms and harm their things." 

Okay. From my appearance, it's very clear that I'm not a prostitute, drug dealer, or into anything wild an' crazy. The man at the door smirks at me and we turn away to leave. 

Yes, that's a mini-door. No, I don't know why.

Luckily, the staff from the next ashram is quite friendly, and we quickly get a room for about $8 each (per night). The first room he shows us has no hot water and an Indian toilet; the next a Western toilet (which, we learn, lacks the capability to flush) and four twin mattresses pushed together. No bugs, except maybe for that spider that I resist stomping on (am I really going to kill something in Haridwar? Come on). It takes us about twenty minutes to rig all the windows locked, and then a few more trying to figure out how to lock the door. The key, it seems, is to both push with all our might at the same time while one of us slides the lock upwards. The theme becomes: hope you don't have to pee in the middle of the night, because I'm not getting up to help you open the door. I wake up early the first morning (around 4am) to the sound of the rowdy pilgrims in the alley outside our window; it sounds like a party (maybe this is what the sadhus do at night to maintain their serene composures during the day).  I realize where I am, and have one of those moments in which I let lose a mental "Ewwwwwwwwwww" and peel off the blanket. 

The building our ashram is in.

We're staying in a grimy Indian ashram. We should be devastated, right? Write up a terrible review for some website? Huff and puff?

We spend the whole time laughing over the place, over our grunting as we push closed the door, over devising a way to minimize touching the linens, over squeezing out a tiny side door to use the public toilet, over the experience. 

I wouldn't change a thing.

3. One Minute In India

I've come to realize that no matter how much I tell you about my travels in India, nothing comes close to the experience of seeing it. So I've taken this video of the roadside in one small town; I'll admit, I can do better (and promise I will) but for now, I thought you might like to see a little bit of what I saw along the roadside on the voyage. 

You're in luck, my friends, because I'm fairly certain this is the only minute in India that I've spent on the road in which I haven't seen a man urinating.