A pilgrimage

 

There is an open large sewage drain, the mother drain of all the smaller sewage drains and nullahs in the town. It flows with its black, stinking sludge. An eliminatory canal taking away the waste and refuge emanating from the overworked urban bowels. People grimace and cover their noses as they pass by it. But this impurity is what defines the purity of holy waters. There are little temples nearby. Here the people enter, open their souls while breathing in the incense smoke in front of the idols.

I walked for a considerable length by the big open sewage nullah. It’s a strong smell: the smell of stress, pain and struggles of the overburdened humanity. It’s the heady stench of the mass transformation of life into mere struggle. I love walking by holy rivers. But this also is an avatar of the mother stream. The all-accepting avatar of primordial mother who is happy to accept all the dump Her children put on her. A mother unbothered about the urine and shit dumped on her by the infant child. My head spins due to the strong odor after fifteen minutes. But this also is a little pilgrimage for Maa’s blackened avatar. She is smiling even with all her filth because she is after all the very same mother whose divinity flows in crystal clear mountain streams. As I move away it seems as if I have performed a little pilgrimage.