Waiting for the Shatabdi Express train to Dehra Dun.
The Shatabdi Express
Note to self: Next time, ask Uday Travel to not get us seats 32-33, the emergency exit seats in the Executive Coach. The window is so scratched up that it's like watching the Indian landscape on a very bad TV.
The night we arrived in Delhi, I hadn't been surprised to see the roads teeming with traffic - India never seems to sleep. Our greeter/guide pointed out rows of mysterious objects along the roadside. We eventually sorted out that they were yolks for a person to carry across his shoulders, with a small water jar on each end, the whole contraption gaudily decorated in colored paper and tinsel. They were lined up by the hundreds on bamboo racks.
The full explanation was later shared by Sharon Seto (Woodstock's head of development and a long-time friend):
"The 2005-2006 school year began this Wednesday [July 27th]. Each year, I am amazed to think of the amount of effort it takes for our students to get here from all corners of the world. Even the final leg of the trip, from Delhi to Mussoorie, can present quite a challenge. Forget the complications of monsoon and overcrowded roads. Over the past years, the road from Haridwar to Delhi has been closed completely for a couple of weeks during the Shravan Mela. This festival is rapidly gaining popularity and its impact on the region is increasing each year. Sanjaya Mark, Head of Elementary and fifth grade teacher, shared a description of this festival:
"Come Shravan (the auspicious monsoon month of July-August in the Hindu calendar), the northern Indian states of Uttar Pradesh, Uttaranchal, Haryana, Rajasthan, Punjab and Bihar acquire a flaming orange hue.
Lakhs [100,000s] of saffron-clad pilgrims carrying water collected from the Ganga in Haridwar, Gangotri or Gaumukh (the glacier where the Ganga originates) in Uttaranchal, return to their hometowns to consecrate the lingams [phallic symbols of Shiva] as a gesture of thanksgiving to Lord Shiva, the Hindu God of Destruction.
The Hindu pilgrims, known as "Kanwarias", arrive barefoot from across the country and converge on the banks of the River Ganges to collect the holy water. Since tradition has it that the water pot must not touch the ground till the time of consecration, charitable organizations put up makeshift stands where the pots can be kept. All along the route to Haridwar, voluntary organizations put up food and medical stalls to cater to the pilgrims.
pilgrims on their way to the mountains - photo by Ross
But it is the Haridwar-Delhi highway which is choked this season with a steady flow of kanwarias (so called because they carry a kanwar or pole on their shoulder with the covered water pots balanced on its two ends), many of them footslogging, some riding bicycles or bikes and some traveling on trucks and vans and even bullock carts.
The route, a distance of over 250 km, reverberates with the high decibel chants of bol bam and Har Har Mahadev, as invocations to Siva. Loudspeakers on the roadsides and those fitted to the vehicles blare out bhajans [devotional songs], some set to raunchy Hindi film tunes. The frenzy of the kanwarias knows no bounds; they do a jig to keep the mela [festival] mood going even as entranced older pilgrims quietly utter their prayers as they continue the trek.
The outcome of this growing practice of Ganga water collection is that, for almost 20 days, normal life comes to a standstill in most of these states, to the extent that the main highways connecting the rest of north India to Haridwar are closed for vehicular traffic to facilitate the safe passage of these devotees."
In Mussoorie we saw another manifestation of the growing popularity of the Shravan festival: dozens of young men on flag-decorated motorcycles, wearing orange t-shirts with images of Shiva, making a pilgrimage holiday to the holy places of Uttaranchal. We ran into one bunch of them at the Tibetan temple at Happy Valley; for pilgrims on a holy tour, they seemed rather too interested in my nubile daughter. But, then, Geoffrey Chaucer warned us all about pilgrims centuries ago...
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