The money-hunters of holy banks

 

It’s a world of bitter-sweet experiences. For hundreds of sweet ones on the banks of Ma Ganga, one can’t help coming across a sour one. And that forms the basis of this muttering from Rishikesh.

When I’m at Rishikesh I simply go footloose. I just keep walking most of the time, soaking the smell, sight, touch, taste and listen all that is on offer at the pilgrimage town.

Seeing we walking with such careless demeanor, a woman ascetic with a brass kamandal tried to plunder money. She approached like a realized mother, all made up of course as a mendicant friar and asked for money. To begin with, she asked for food for the five of them. ‘We are five matajis, so 20 rupees for the food for each of us,’ she says. These are navaratra days, so I give her 100 rupees without bargaining. She probably thinks that I’m a sitting duck for cheating. Meanwhile she took a thief’s peek into my modest wallet as I took out the money to give to her. I want to move but she puts her hand on my head, trying possibly to play some psychotic energy game or magical trick or some sort of hypnotic maneuver so that she could plunder more money. With the blessings of Ma Ganga, I have enough energies in my head. She starts shivering. ‘Please take out two notes from your wallet. I take a vow in the name of Ma Ganga that I will give them back,’ she says. Before I realize she is tying a mauli dhaga on my wrist asking, ‘Are you married?’ I’m not interested in her queries about my matrimonial status.

I don’t have a change in my wallet but since she has taken a vow in the name of Ganga Ma while standing on Her banks, I give her two 500 rupees notes expecting her to return them. The moment the notes land in her claws she folds them in her fist. The way she holds them makes it sure that they are in her greedy talons not to be returned. Now I realize the tales of the thugs who take money and play the magic trick of making it disappear with the clap of a hand.

I remember an incidence from early youth in the village. A street magician took 100 rupees from my friend and with a clap the money vanished. He had a lovely python and a flute to add to the charm of his street show. Now the 100 rupees of those times created a big issue. So we manhandled him, his pagri fell. One guy was just ready to break his flute on his head. That’s when the poor magician realized that the Jatland isn’t suitable for magic tricks. And the money comes out of his gullak. He holds the python’s mouth, pries it open, puts his hand in and draws out the money. Imagine the smartness. Magic money goes into the python’s mouth!

‘We will go to kedar with the money,’ the female thief in saffron says. To me it’s not about money. It’s about taking a false vow in Ma Ganga’s name. I don’t know what Ganga Ma thinks of me but I feel I’m Her ardent devotee. I shame the woman for being a liar, looting money in the name of Ma Ganga. I get really angry and in no nonsense terms ask her to return the money as promised. Somehow she hasn’t been able to make the money vanish. Good that she hasn’t a python with her. Somehow her trick of making the money vanish fails. Ma Ganga’s blessings!

She gives back one note, with a look as if I’m plundering her. I am firmly against such a sham sadhvi, so I point my finger at her and asked her to return the other note as well. She is trying to make me feel ashamed for getting angry, for losing control of myself just about money. Why should I be? I’m not a saffron-clad saint to be ashamed of my well-deserved anger on cheats. With a broken heart she hands back the other note all crushed due to the pressure of her talons. ‘I was just checking your heart for its grasp on money,’ she says as if I have failed her testing of my desire for worldly things like 500 rupees notes.

Then she tries to give me a rudraksh bead. I tell her I that don’t need anything from her. Neither her blessings, nor her bead. I don’t want at least from those who tell lies in the name of taking vow of Ganga Ma. Had it been a male sadhu I would have snatched away even the hundred rupees. But these I leave with her as a grace mark for her being a woman.

But Ma Ganga knows how to spin her lovely magic and change mutterings into musings.

I’m walking sullenly about cheats on the banks of Ma Ganga. But She is such a kind mother. She knows how to uplift the spirit of Her child. I’m walking in the crowd and suddenly see the autistic girl on whom I wrote a story a few years back. I see her with her parents on the banks of Ma Ganga. The last time, a mere child, she looked so unjustifiably deprived of her slice of joy among all that festival aura and with tears in my eyes I prayed so sincerely for her during my entire stay at that time. I wrote a long story of blessings on her. She is a woman now! I had prayed for the faith and health of her parents so that they would help her in her journey for as long as possible because nobody can take care of a special child like her parents. And there I see them carrying her in a wheel chair in the busy bazaar. She looks healthy and beautiful; a lovely young woman now. Her parents appear in good spirits and look healthy, happily carrying their responsibility.

Imagine out of the thousands of pilgrims, Ma Ganga blesses me with their sight to let me know that She remembers my prayers for this family.