Wicker lamps of Haridwar

It was someday in March a day after your birthday that I landed in Haridwar. I was with two single friends on trip long overdue and I could see clearly till the end of the sky when I finally reached.We took a room in Ganga Kinare UP tourism bungalow and missed the evening aarti by sleeping overtime. We were high on something that afternoon, I don’t remember too well now what it was. Maybe it was the freedom of three single girls travelling alone on taxi with enough cash to last them for quite some time!

The next morning I stole away to the shore to take a private dip, I felt I had a lot of madness to wash away. As I stepped slowly into the the cold freezing water the reality of my flesh struck me. Shivering like a nobody I saw an old sadhu far away on the other side of the shore. He was old, grey and looked very lonely.  He could have died with the shock of cold water on his flesh but he was hardy. More hardy than me. Hardier than my being a woman let me be.I covered myself from the gaze of that measly sadhu far away to not distract him.

It was good to see him bathe in the glory of his being a man.To only be a distant observer of the customs that he drew his strength from. I guess in a way I was also trying to be a man like him by taking this morning dip. There was no other way of being close to him other than becoming like him. But it made my flesh week and dissolve into the cutting water. Clearly I wasn't cut out to do this. I wondered that tingling morning if it was easier for men to cut away from those warm familiar things and strike for the larger truth.To push away the comforting blanket, to snub off the well meaning affection. To walk away from invoked vows of togetherness. To live like nobody else deserved any compassion! Olny an aggresive hunt for the the truth!

As I looked at him my thoughts turned to you. You and that old Brahmin were so much alike. Both of you so rooted in the habit of suffering. There was a hardly a trace of sloth on your bodies.

Did all my warmth look like sloth to you? Maybe it did! Is that why you had pushed me away? I didn’t know…I was only 24 then. All I wished that moment was to not have been pushed away so indifferently into the cold cutting real life.The sadhu was mumbling some mantras and pushing away the little wicker lamps into the river I wondered if he saw any light or warmth in those little lights fading away in the vastness of water. 

I prayed that you merge In the divine whenever you died. I hope you don’t come back because I saw how inconsequential those little lights are in the vast flow. It made no sense lighting up those silly sentimental things...

I came back to the room shivering to the room wrapped I my yellow Hare Rama stole. I looked like a crow as the morning pictures tell me. The two women wrapped me in some warm clothes and the sun came up. I saw some blooming flame of the forest and took pictures. It was an alive day after all the little faltering lamps had died down in the Ganges..I am glad I missed the evening aarti. I prefer the raging sun and the the crippling cold river to those lamps that never reach anywhere.

photo courtesy: Abbas Shamael Rizvi