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.
