Masala Vagabond: Haridwar/Rishikesh IV: The Riverbank of the Ganga- In Photos

03 March 2011

Haridwar/Rishikesh IV: The Riverbank of the Ganga- In Photos

1. "Everything Religious Goes Into the River..."

...jokes Virali as we watch devotional items floating downstream.

The riverside is incredibly crowded as we prepare to see aarti (a religious service) at it's banks. Men strip down to their knickers to take a dip, women join them, still wearing their long, flowing outfits. To take a bath in the River Ganges is to wash away the sins of the past, to be purified, blessed. To die along the Ganga is the greatest honor.

As dusk approaches, little boats made of leave and filled with flowers are set aflame and released, flowing down the stream. People gather on both sides to witness the ceremony.

The deities, little statues carried in ornate gazebo-type housings, are placed along the riverfront and tended by priests. The nearby temples begin to throw the day's flowers and milk into the water, a teenager shivers as he uses a magnet on a stick to gather coins.

It grows dark, and aarti begins. The crowd is singing in unison, a man is hitting gigantic gong next to me, and the priests wave flaming tiered lamps in circles over the river. Clock-wise, in the Hindu ritual of devotion. The singing overwhelms even the nearby gong, not in volume, but rather in prominence. It's a lovely song, and the voices sound so sweet, so devout.

At the end, we hold out our hands for prasad, that food blessing that reminds me of Dane Cook's "Christ Chex" bit- religious num-nums.

Along the Ganga, it doesn't seem to matter as much how materialistic the priests might be, how rough they are. While one's faith could easily be shaken (or shoulders, as in my case!) in one of the mandirs here, it becomes easy to forget that when watching the Ganga flow by.