Mists on the Moon

 

Your soul gets a healing touch once you decide to be healed and pick out a symbol of divinity as a representative of your faith. We ourselves are the primary makers and breakers of our destiny. Have full faith in a river-rounded stone and it becomes a symbol of Lord Shiva. Have complete faith in the alchemy of holy waters and you have Ma Ganga here to absolve you of all your sins and miseries.

Mother Ganges holds the beacon of my faith. I feel protected, blessed, pardoned and absolved of my little sins and big follies in life. These moments by the Ganges softly touch my bruised soul and softly whisper, ‘Don’t worry, all is well!’

It’s the gentlest and warmest of comforts to have a motherly presence in one’s life. I lost my mother two years back but Ma Ganga is a living motherly force that saves me from the painful pangs of this typical feeling of being an orphan. Losing both parents turns us an orphan even if we are middle aged greying ones ourselves. 

This is late November. The nights are chilly. A stormy wind buffets the valley as it glides down from the snowy heights up north. But the mid-day sun carries enough warmth to allow the bathers in the holy waters to shake off the freezing jolt that the mother’s icy waters give. It’s refreshing and rejuvenating. Buffeting cold and melting, balmy warmth side by side, succeeding each other as the inseparable twins of Mother Nature. How would we know the significance of one if not for the other?  

I take a dip in the cold water and run out to stretch out on the banks under the warm, bright sunrays like a tiny lizard basking on a stone in the winters. The noon and the afternoon pass in this sojourn with the sun and the holy waters. It is going on for the last one week I have been here at Rishikesh. 

As the evening draws the curtain for the dusk to sneak in, the strains of light and dark ripple in the lap of holy fluidity defined by the swift currents. Soft emotions surface in my heart as the soul's tears of joy. O divine mother, my main identity is that of being your son. I feel disburdened of some heaviness. I find the unnecessary extras of life just a dark, blank spot where the weird shapes of my ego play a little, funny, worldly game.

When I am not bathing or chanting on mother’s banks, I read a book. Reading a book against the background of the holy river’s swishy sermons voiced through rapid currents is one of the pleasures that I’m yet to find a suitable alternative for. And reading Ruskin Bond by the Ganges is as good as meditation. He simplifies the complexities of life with his simple, lucid sentences.

This day, I had just walloped in Ma Ganga like a farmer's dirty calf after reading these lines by Ruskin Bond:

‘I feel drawn to little temples on lonely hilltops. With the mist swirling around them, and the wind humming in the stunted pines, they absorb some of the magic mystery of their surroundings and transmit it to the questing pilgrim.’

I look at a small temple on a low hill at a distance. Like Bond Sahab I too feel drawn to little temples on lonely hilltops. I am lost in the misty canvas on which this little white temple seems to be painted for the visual benefit of the sinners bathing in the holy waters. There is a gentle tug at my sleeve from behind. I look back. Two sparkling eyes look up to me.

‘Uncle, buy flowers for Ganga Ma!’ she entreats.

It’s a small girl. Very pretty with her sparkling eyes, clad in a white and pink sweatshirt and dark grey trackpants. The clothes are well trodden but clean. How can the clothes on someone be dirty if that person sells flowers for mother Ganga.

‘No beta, right now I don’t need it,’ I try to shoo her away gently.

But she has consistency as well courtesy. ‘Uncle, Ganga Ma will fulfil all your wishes if you offer her flowers,’ she says.

‘Ok, I’ll, but you have to click my pictures with my mobile also apart from giving me the flowers,’ I propose my scheme.

I’m a solo traveller and that means I have to request someone to take a picture if I’m drawn to capture some memories of the place. So far I have tried a few times with the so called well-meaning people but either they ignored the request outright or did the job with such half-heartedness that it broke my heart after looking at their work.

She is all focus as she holds my phone and performs the shoot with piercing sharp eyes and the steadiest of hands. The phone is a rundown cheap model and the subject is a greying middle-aged fellow on the down-slope of form and appearance. But her seriousness for the job means that both the phone and the owner get a reason to draw a bit of solace and satisfaction.

I get my flowers and presentable pictures and she gets her 10 rupees for the little leaf bowl that has a few flowers, an incense stick and an oil smeared wick to be lighted for the brief moments the offering floats among the torrents before being sucked into the holy embrace.

Earlier whenever I floated the leaf bowl of flowers, Ma Ganga would suck it in after just a few yards of tumultuous floating. I ask the girl to perform the ritual herself for me. With her lithe fingers she expertly strikes the match, lights the little wick, closes her eyes for a brief salutation to Ma Ganga and leaves the bowl among the swirling waves. It’s like a little canoe caught in the Pacific Ocean storms. But the journey has started with such pure and innocent hands. The flicker of faith goes tossing among boulders and torrential ripples. It is almost miraculous how the little leaf bowl survives. The wick keeps burning. She claps with merriment and jumps on her little toes.        

Biniya is her name, a little girl of 7 who sells flowers on the banks of Ganga Ma. The peak hours of her business are at the evening Ganga arti time when hundreds throng the divine congregation. During the day she scouts for bathers like me who might try lighting their lamp of faith under the full glare of the sun.

Her parents stay at a little slum by the holy river down the valley. The lockdown means that she is in class 2 without actually having gone to the government primary school. Online classes aren’t the option. So she is full time available to help her mother in the flower selling business. Her father works as a daily wager on titbits of labour assignment here and there. The last year he was busy at the new bridge over the Ganges, a bridge that his daughter uses now to cross over from the western bank to reach here where the business is better because many popular ashrams are situated on the eastern bank.  

Now she is into side business also. She charges me 10 rupees to click my photos on my mobile. I shouldn’t complain because I had started this. She has now taken her job too seriously. Whenever she sees me on the banks of mother Ganges, she offers her photographic skills instead of flowers.

‘Uncle photo khichva lo!’ she says pretty adamantly.

She calls me 'photo wale uncle' as her mother informed me the other day. Today as I was wallowing in Ma Ganga's cold waters, she stood on the steps and waited for me to come out.

‘Go and sell your flowers. You are losing business,’ I try to shoo her away.

But she has better ideas.

‘Uncle today you have to get a photo. You have got your beard and hair cut very smartly, so it will be a nice photo,’ she has her argument in support of her side business.

I am helpless. She clicks another assignment. Hands me the phone and asks a review of the photo.

‘See uncle, I have made you look like a hero.’

Buttering, eh. And her so called hero type photo has bigger charges. She is an experienced photographer now and charges more.

‘Uncle 100 rupees for this hero type photo,’ she demands.

I am initially at a loss of words. There is an argument and then I save 50 rupees by standing my ground pretty soundly. Now the assignment charge has gone to 50 rupees, so I secretly decide that tomorrow onwards I won't take my phone with me and buy her flowers instead. Her little leaf bowl of flowers costs just 10 rupees. That would help both parties.

The next day I tell her that I forgot my phone at the room. She is disappointed. She turns serious.

‘You miss your fees today,’ I chide her.

‘No uncle, I thought it makes you happy on getting your photo. I won’t take money for it. Please, don’t forget your phone tomorrow.’

She walks away with her little steps, holding her little basket having flowers, leaf bowls, incense sticks and oil wicks. I feel sad for her and feel guilty for having commercialized a little child’s sentiments for a little game of taking pictures. Even the rundown low cost smart phone is a luxury for them. It shows from the delicate care she holds it. Even a worst gadget turns precious in such caring hands and performs far better than the capacity of its pixels.

She doesn’t approach me the next noon. I wait but in vain. I can see her walking along the bank at a distance. Realising my mistake, I start walking in her direction but she vanishes on her swift little legs.

She is not to be seen for the next couple of days. But I come across her at the dusk time Ganga arti. She avoids looking at me to express her disapproval of my remark.

‘Biniya, won’t you take my picture today? See, I have shaved and wearing new clothes,’ I bow down before her.

She looks at me with her sparkling eyes and explores any trace of pun or jest in my words. But I’m very serious.

‘You like photos, uncle?’ she enquires.

I vehemently shake my head in affirmative. She smiles and then gets busy with all her attention. We see the pictures. The pixels in the cheap camera aren’t sufficient to provide justice to her effort under the artificial lights. She is disappointed.

The full moon peeps over the ridge. A wispy cloud is sprinkled over its face.

‘Uncle, there are mists on the moon!’ she shouts.

It’s beautiful. The child’s pure smile is even more beautiful. She tries to capture the moment. There is just a shiny dot to be seen on the screen as we watch her effort of catching mists on the moon through the phone. She makes a face as if she has failed to catch the beautiful scene. But the moon and the mists linger in her beautiful, innocent eyes.

She has to give attention to her business now as the congregation is breaking up. I cannot now belittle her by offering money for something she thinks gives me joy. I purchase a leaf bowl. Give her 10 rupees for her provisions and a blessing on her head for the selfless service she does to me.

‘Today your bowl will float for a long distance uncle. Light it yourself,’ she assures me.

I have grave doubts because my efforts have always failed within a few yards. She looks on with full faith as I strike the match to light the wick and leave the leaf bowl in the swirling waters. There it goes cascading up and down but always staying afloat on the foamy little crests. She laughs with merriment.

‘Didn’t I tell you uncle?’

The little daughter of Ganga Ma then melts in the crowd selling her flowers and tiny diyas.