AT dusk, along the beginning of the sacred Ganges, fed by the Himalayan mountain waters of the rainy season, the same river I would later encounter hundred of miles downstream in Varanasi, was just another sacred ceremony involving music, prayer, chanting and purification, alongside the towering figure of Lord Shiva, the all powerful Supreme destroyer God. Mesmerized by the chanting and raging river, I am reminded of Arjuna, the hero from the Bhagavad Gita, who triumphs over his unwieldy senses in his quest to see the world as it really is, without psychological filers and the ego needed to cope in this world.
Flowers and small candles set sail on banana leafs. As in most places, you’d think it’s for the tourists. Not here. This is India. Countless manifestations of Gods and Goddesses are venerated everywhere, everyday, by hundreds of millions of devote Hindus. Religion is a verb. It’s not an empty European cathedral or a Native American museum. To be a guest in India is to take part in a living tradition. It’s this authenticity, so unlike well trodden Asian destinations, that make India unlike anything else. It’s the real deal. Indians are as devote as Muslims, which help explain the conflict in Punjab and Kashmir, which skirt Pakistan, that I will visit later.
At a spiritual level, the Ganges is the very definition of Northern India – life, purity, flow. At the more practical level, by the time the Ganges hits the plains, it becomes one of the most – maybe the most – polluted rivers in the world. It is a repository for all things – garbage and sorrow, crematory and vegetable wash, urinal and bathtub.
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