PHOTOS. A day in Rishikesh, the once cultural epicenter of Indian higher consciousness and 1960s folklore. Today it’s as much a historic destination as a place to learn yoga and dropout in orange ropes. But there’s plenty of authentic India to behold. A Sadhu on the back of a motorcycle. The chagrined smile of a young Brahman heading to her temple. Children walking in mobs. A cow blocking pedestrians and devilish monkeys in the image of Hanuman, the Indian monkey God. A clown swami greeting restaurant patrons.
Walking across the pedestrian bridge, beholding the Ganges, its people and custom are inseparable, its history older than even China. These are the highest mountains in the world, where the Upanishads and Yoga Sutras were written, the world’s oldest sacred texts about how to live an integrated life, long before Christ, Moses, Mohammad, Socrates or Confucius set foot on the earth.
The Ganges is fresh, as the high mountains are just upstream but the water is brown and murky. I decide to join my fellow Indian bathers. Three teenage girls bath with all their clothes, giggling. The boys arrest their clothes, but for their shorts, and swing mud at one another. The tribe of kids admire Nathen’s muscles and tattoos. The complications between men and women are strained by ions of patriarchy.
Take boat across the river (10 rupees, 25 cents) to the other side. The joy is palpable. The mountains and river and incenses and tradition is woven together as if an outdoor temple. Everything resonates as sacred.
The mid-day monsoon rain pounds the city, breaking the humidity and heat. It’s brief and dramatic as we lunch along the river at the “Organik Café,” an upscale yoga studio and spa catering to Westerns who seek the dubious first class path to Enlightenment. Who can blame them, me too, if only it was that easy. The place is empty. Business is down. As I would discover everywhere, the recession has followed me to the other side of the world and is global. Places so dependent on visitors feel it hard. Read in the Hindu Times that the bestselling book, Eat, Pray, Love, about a divorced woman who rediscovers herself on the road – the pray part India – is being made into a movie staring Julia Roberts. I smile. East meets West in the most bizarre ways.
The few Westerns I pass resist eye contact in a way that reminds me of the alienation I feel among Americans. Getting and spending we lay waist our powers, little we see in nature that is ours, opined Wordsworth.
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