Four-fold damnation by landslide, mule-kick and miracle in Halo Central

Gonzo Ganga travelogue

N.B. The protagonist is a fictional character called Ian Hude bristling with neo-colonial attitude.


Four-fold damnation by landslide, mule-kick and miracle in Halo Central


The “Wets”, named for all time by Ironclad Thatcher, still go to view the Taj Mahal. Chaps with lice go to Goa and Manali. I go to the Garhwal to find out why this piss-poor Himalayan province is turning into Halo Central.

You need the Darkness of Being of a Terry Gilliam working on The Brothers Grimm to withstand the drive through the plains. It’s all-day from the Delhi airport through charmless dipstick. This is after you’ve got past the flying cockroaches lit magenta by the horror flick fluorescent whites. You’ve also run the gauntlet by customs inspectors wearing whole cans of coconut oil. You can still see their epaulettes reflecting their teeth and your passport will always smell faintly of pappodum. All-day since, with the determination of a tractor restrained by invisible pachyderms, you liberate 220 clicks past Meerut and Roorkee. Then the river appears, vast and khaki, and you’ve reached the gateway to Shiva County.

My Brahmin driver Krishna, a pocket-sized incongruity, out-of-date as only a citizen of the upper reaches can be, sports a Clark Gable pencil moustache, some bristles black, others white. Krishna says Lord Shiva is pleased, he likes you to visit Him during the monsoon – it shows resolve. Brahmins are starving these days, says Krishna, Untouchables rule, even using a caste slur in Sanskrit to illustrate his point. This charioteer talks on, languid as a cow, changing gears like he’s chewing the cud.

I know this. I know India is the next China. Besides, I can see Mahatma Gandhi’s spinning wheel on top of an inverted pyramid for myself. It’s a new-fangled charkha, modified by Untouchable software engineers, practically no whir. They’re called Dalits now, as in Dalit Panthers. Outside, it’s hot as a buffalo’s armpit and humid as Mount Latifah. My ears are ringing with anticipated temple bells. I need the rain to drown out an entire list of things in my head and stare hard at the silent airconditioner in our imitation Range Rover.

Krishna tells me, in passing, about Begum Samroo, a Muslim courtesan from Delhi’s Chandni Chowk who marries an elderly Polish mercenary, turns Roman Catholic in Protestant-British India and builds a garish cathedral in the middle of a cow-pat. Krishna points out the concrete crosses in Samroo’s field and a dome to her church to rival St.Paul’s.

II

Haridwar has doll’s-house miniatures of Goddesses Ganga and Yamuna, Gods Shiva and Vishnu and a whole cast of consorts, sages and minor deities. These playhouse temples are meant for the halt, the lame, the short-of-breath and the feeble-of-purpose who have to make do with simulation. There is an authentic raging river of course, pulsing along, flexing glacier-fed muscles - great for immersing cremated ash in, whoosh, it’s gone! There’s a paved promenade, a pier, several bridges and a mighty statue of Lord Shiva nine stories high with a flight-hazard blinking light sticking out of his matted hair. The Ganga is Haridwar. There are iron chains thick as your wrist anchored to concrete bollards to prevent sleeping beggars from turning their heat-haze siestas into unintentional nirvana.

We don’t stop for all this. We glide on, going upstream. We swerve and feint, as always, past hotels, motels, temples, lepers and parking attendants holding up empty plastic jugs for sale. Those are plastic jugs to hold holy Ganga water. A Jipney goes by with thirty in the 20 litre size careening on its roof rack. That’s one for each comfortably seated passenger in the Jipney.

Soon we’re in the Rishikesh bazaar. It’s approaching dusk and people are milling about thicker than flies. Our imitation Range Rover is hurtling along at 50 clicks, totally nonchalant. Krishna is asleep at the wheel. I realise this only when he crashes though his silence for the minutes before should have tipped me off. Miraculously, there is no bloodshed. It is just Lord Shiva logging on. Our Sumo, such is its proper name, has ploughed into the back of the sturdiest car in India, an unsuspecting Ambassador (Ambassador- a hybrid vehicle beloved of taxi operators and geriatric politicians, a JCB height Morris Oxford circa 1954 tweaked to function continuously. Steroid pumped version in 2005 sports 1800 cc Isuzu engine, power “breaks”/steering and a robust Vauxhall body made from worn moulds purchased cheap). Happily, Krishna regains consciousness on impact and manifests a monumental show of remorse and negotiating skills like Kissinger.

Right after Krishna pays out a paltry sum for distorting the Ambassador’s chassis the raindrops come on to play their set. It begins then and never stops for the 10 days it takes us to go to Cherrapunjee and back. Krishna is blaming bad stars. Also talking about how to expect hurdles to progress. Just as he starts on the topic of evil a bus with 26 passengers falls down the gorge as we watch.

Two buses were inching past each other. The one on the outside must have gained a little width without noticing. The deceased driver, a multiple trip pilgrim, has been adjudged an offender, low on resolve. I can’t say a thing about the 26 passengers except they went owing to guilt by association. A crowd forms on the edge of the road to stare at the top of the bus sitting in its own crater by the water’s edge. The municipality will have to use porterage. The watchers are avid but silent. The rain is making the noise, turning the cliff into mud-pie. So, what can you say about a logical boulder which comes, stealthy as Garhwal’s own Gunga Din, and carries off three (3) bystanders! Catches them in the small of the back and puts paid to their curiosity.

I am assailed by doubt and want to give up my Nikes to charity. Krishna starts yelling Shiva, Om Shiva, Om Shiva. He can make a lot of noise for one wired so economically. Everyone starts walking back to their cars and buses shaking their heads like Noddy. Pilgrims must keep their thinking lofty. It is not in the spirit of things to look for chaps under boulders. God knows why. But buses and bystanders alike need to note the number of dozers and JCBs lurking around and not just stare at their caterpillar tracks.


III

When we get to the source at Yamunotri and are not shivering as much as all that the priest takes out a rexine covered diary and wants my address and phone number. He says he will bring me prasad whenever he’s in my neck of the woods - all the way from Yamunotri. Also, that all my successors will know that in 2005 Mr. Hude visited Yamunotri with the Brahmin Krishna, his charioteer - even after 500 years. This, because of the indelible if smudgy entry in his dog-eared diary which he thrusts back into its gunny sack dungeon. The gunny gives off a little puff of black at the intrusion because till recently it contained only coal.

Krishna says to eat the rice prasad cooked in blue plastic in the hot spring by the shrine. He doesn’t like me calling it mere rice, but prasad or not, I’m sure it shouldn’t be blue with dye from recycled low-grade plastic. I suggest we give it to the crows. Krishna’s eyes dart about in alarm. He says Lord Shani (Saturn) will paralyse me for blasphemy. So I put the soggy wet mess in my pocket with a good natured grin. Krishna really should have been a Dalit. You could mistreat him in a place like this with phalanxes of hereditary Brahmin priests about. Perhaps not actually because their eyes only glitter at the prospect of fleece. They are not judgemental. But I could have fallen down at the sight of the young woman in a Bowler hat! I look up from her, at the eternal mist, the towering glacier, the ancient temple, the Yamuna tumbling out of the glacier and again at her- yes, she’s still wearing a black coat and Bowler. I’ll certainly be damned.

Gangotri is a cake-walk in comparison but I fear you’re not allowed to think facile thoughts on arduous pilgrimages. There’s no parking. The river is so angry it sends up more spray than a dyslexic. The rain at 13,000 feet cuts a bit. The soup in the hotel is a bit thin. A posturing Sadhu in sack-cloth and ashes, sits lotus pose in front of his fire. He has a notice up. It’s a scroll, tacked to the wall by the front door to his stone hut. It reads in both English and Hindi and he points to it, a riddle: “What does a Sadhu do with Money or Women?” and below this piece of ambiguity he’s drawn a large crimson arrow. He is tending a cauldron right where the arrow points. Once you’ve read the notice, he waves you on like a policeman performing his civic duty. Krishna says he’s got this way because of too many high altitude treks to the Gangotri glacier a day’s perpendicular away. I can’t tell if the Sadhu wants something or he doesn’t. My not being able to tell has Krishna cracking up.

Kedarnath has the longest mule-track to the summit. If you are cheap or ambitious you can walk. You can be carried up in a palanquin chair by four huge lungs. You can ride mule-back if you can sit a mule at 45 degrees. If you’re just a small bag of bones you can shimmy into a sack and be carried up piggy-back by just one lung. The Kedarnath trail is a veritable casino of hard-earned rupees. All the mighty lungs come from Nepal where they breed a tribe for just such meritorious service. For practice, in Nepal, acolytes carry Brass-plated lead Buddhas up the nullahs. These “Carry Buddhas” are revered but never worshipped.

For Hude and Krishna, impressively limber, devastatingly able, mules are the natural beasts of choice. We set off and notice things. It’s true, in the rains, only the female mules are willing to work. The males are set free to graze in the high mountains rather than having to feed and clean them at home. But this female willingness is a relative affair and it’s good that Krishna doesn’t have to pay for a vasectomy now. Standing behind a mule even if you have just bribed it with a great dollop of Gur (palm sugar) is not advised. It took Krishna over an hour to find his voice. When he stood up on his sea legs at last I wanted to award him a three-corner hat and introduce him to the bowler. It did get rapidly better after that but Krishna’s wife will have to certify the rest. The assault fails the emasculation test because the mule’s hoof caught in Krishna’s raincoat which was torn clean off. But I know even a cushioned shock like this could upset the sperm banks much worse than adult mumps. Krishna said Lord Shiva doesn’t like his “playing.” I thought about it before I realised I’ll be damned! The pencil moustache, the nonchalance, the je ne sais quoi…

Last stop is at the Preserver’s – Badrinath is Vishnu Dham. The legends fly thick and fast. I’m going like Noddy myself most of the time, largely naturalised. All the fantastic tales make such sense. And here’s a hazardous pilgrimage completed with no more injury than my driver slightly damaged between the legs. There’s a Romanian exile at Badrinath who tells me that the only people who believe the hokie-pokie are the pilgrims. He must think I believe nothing and won’t throw his cynical hide into the foaming Alaknanda. I don’t know why but I’m on the side of Halo Central. He’s here to open a vegetarian McDonald’s. Various other hard-boiled permanent residents are having the roads widened and star grade motels built. The minister is building a second helipad and hospitals with oxygen tents and heart fibrillators. It’s four fold damnation after all - if the hokie and the altitude doesn’t get you, divine retribution and the all too human assault on your purse will.


(2032 words)

Title: Four-fold damnation by landslide, mule-kick and miracle in Halo Central

By Ghatotkach

written in mid-August 2005