Rishikesh to Nanital and now Varanasi
When we came down from the hills of Himachal Pradesh to Dehra Dun the first thing that we noticed was the heat again. Not only was it hot, but humid too. This is the way of the monsoon, coming up to it is the Indian summer; it becomes hot accentuated by humidity. Then the monsoon arrives and torrential rain ensues (supposedly), then comes September when the monsoon dies away and the air is left crisp and clean. It’s still hot but there is little humidity, giving you a nice island beach heat in which you don’t soak your clothes with sweat from the moment you put them on.
So Dehra Dun was hot, humid and sweaty, from Dehra Dun it was only a short bus ride to Rishikesh and in that heat it was enough. From Rishikesh we were facing a timetabled 9 hours on a state bus in the sweaty heat with locals vomiting in the seats around you and leaning over you because the aisles are so packed. Thanks, but no thanks matey.
So we made a decision to hire a cab for the journey, an Ambassador. Kind of reminiscent to a family saloon car from the 50’s in looks, it’s the Indian made motor car, used as the government transport of politicians and VIP’s (in a more up market guise). In the taxi form it’s at its most basic, no heater (thank God) and no hand brake (just stick it in gear and put bricks around the wheels on a steep slope) but the engineering and structure that will go on and on and on. It cost us 2000Rs for the 280-Km trip, an expensive way to travel but similarly priced to an A/C train ticket of similar distance that we would have taken if available, so we thought the price was acceptable.
The night before the morning we left it rained, really rained. We woke up to still more rain and flooded fields. Water was so high in the fields that it was bursting through the stone walls enclosing them up to as high as 2 foot from the ground, water squirting through the stones like a dam about to burst and out into the street where it could drain off.
We waited in the lobby of our hotel at the allotted time for the driver to come and collect us. The time passed and he didn’t turn up. After about half an hour past the agreed time, the Indian guy sitting next to us watching TV said that we were to go to the taxi stand and meet the guy there, as it was raining too hard for him to come to the hotel. Now why oh why couldn’t he have told us when we arrived in the lobby, he knew we were waiting for the cab, and he knew the cab wasn’t coming, but he still felt the need to watch telly and not tell us for 45 minutes, sometimes the mentality of the Indians amaze me.
We recently were in a State Bank of India waiting to change some traveller’s cheques, the foreign exchange man arrived and motioned for us to sit at his desk. We waited while he unlocked his drawers and brought out his ornamented pen holder with a date thingy on it, something that I might imagine Aunt Agnes to give for a Christmas present because she saw it going cheap in Woolworths. To save time I got out my traveller’s cheques and took a pen from the green ornamented pen holder and, as he watched me, I proceeded to sign a traveller’s cheque. When I had finished he said, “I won’t accept that cheque as you didn’t sign it with my authority.”
“Pardon?”
“You didn’t sign it in my presence.”
“You were sitting there watching me sign it!”
“You signed the cheque before I gave you permission. It says quite clearly on the cheque to be signed in my presence, I did not give you permission to sign the cheque so therefore it was not in my presence.”
I said, “What!!! Are you deluded with the meaning of ‘in someone’s presence’? You can see that the signature is the same in the passport!” I proceeded to show him other forms of ID and continued “I can sign the cheque again even.” but he wasn’t having it. I thought he had probably had an argument with his wife, and lost, so he needed to inflict his power on someone to make himself feel better.
He was adamant that he was not going to accept the cheque, and I new if I got angry he would hold his stand, so we played the game that he was right, I was wrong. I apologised and eventually, when he was satisfied with my grovelling, he conceded that if I signed the cheque again he might accept it, “but not until I give you my permission, I want to see your passport first”. So he spent a long time pondering over my passport checking the dates and validity, tracing the lines of my signature with his pen, and eventually after a completely unnecessary amount of time he gave his permission for the cheques to be signed in his presence. He took his time examining the signatures again, comparing each one to the one in my passport, and the original on the cheque.
I asked for a receipt of the transaction. Once it was comfortably in my possession and I had the payment slip, I told him that he was a sad and lonely man, and needed to get a life other than getting a power trip from wasting other people’s time, loudly enough for his co-workers to stop and look over, and we turned and headed out for the payment counter to collect our dosh.
I digress, back to Rishikesh. We donned our packed and unfurled our brollies and stepped out. The street was a river in places; water was washing down the sides and flooding the dips. The Ganges had visibly risen overnight, areas where we had watched the rituals of bathing were now underwater. The water had picked up speed and was now a seething current that you wouldn’t want to tangle with, whole trees were being washed down river and the silt coloured the Ganges a deep muddy brown.
We found the taxi and were on our way quickly, thankful for the comfort. We worked out that we should arrive in Nanital at about 5-ish in the afternoon. We settled in for the ride, taking in the scenery of flooded pastures and fields. We crossed over the Ganges once again and seemed to be making good time, until we came to a traffic jam. The road was solid, nothing was moving so we stepped out and headed up to the front to see what was going on. A crowd of Indians stood and looked at a bridge that was well under water. The Ganges had broken its banks further up and had decided that this was a good place to cross the road.
Buses and lorries decided to cross regardless and we could measure the depth of the muddy water against their tyres. After an hour the driver had watched the waters subside a bit and other Ambassador cars had made it across so we navigated a slow and bumpy path across the bridge. The water wasn’t deep by then but it was fast moving and completely opaque. With that first obstacle passed we encountered two or three less challenging river crossings where the water had covered bridges and then came to the mother of all washed out bridges.
We knew it was going to be bad as the queue of parked lorries and buses told us that even they couldn’t make it across. Again we walked up to survey the carnage, the water was wide, maybe 500 meters, and strong, so strong that a brave (or dumb) bus driver had tried to pass the flooded section and had ended up washed half off the road. The bus was left dangling the back end off the road, the front end stuck up in a diagonal over the road. The passengers were already evacuated and the bus was abandoned, probably now not to be recovered until after the monsoon.
This was a big one, the driver estimated a two-hour wait till the waters subsided enough for the lorries to get across, let alone the cars. It was getting hot, so we retreated a few miles to a roadside eatery we had passed and sat in the shade twiddling our thumbs with nothing to do but wait. Three hours later we received news that the lorries were crossing but the cars were still a no go, so we drove back to allot ourselves a spot in the queue.
Indian mentality had struck again. The lorries and buses had decided in their haste to get away to block the oncoming carriageway by driving up it to the river, so that when someone came across they couldn’t get onto the road on the other side. The problem of negotiating the abandoned bus and trying to squeeze past each other on a flooded road that they couldn’t see through the silted water inevitably led to more destruction. Two large loaded goods carrier trucks ended up shedding their loads over the side as they came to the same fate as the beleaguered bus. As the first truck slid off the side, the side door of the cab opened and enough people to make a football team piled out shouting and escaping the pending doom. No one was hurt and the truck was left dangling precariously off the side. The second truck headed off the other side of the road snapping it’s front axle as the wheel lost anything solid to roll on. This left a small gap in the middle of the road for anyone else to navigate through. Great!
By this time the locals had caught onto the opportunity of making some extra cash from the now sizable crowd gathered at the water’s edge. Temporary tea stalls and kitchens on trolleys arrived and started cooking up the usual deep fried cuisine of vegetable pakoras and battered, then deep fried sandwiches. Yes, read it again, a sandwich, dipped in thick creamy batter then deep fried in totally saturated cooking oil until crisp…
Farmers arrived with tractors and were offering tows across the water for 100Rs. Not to be outdone, local lads got together in groups and were offering a guided push for cars at 50Rs. After four hours of hanging around, the lorries and buses had sorted themselves out and were successfully crossing the road cum river. After another hour cars were being towed and pushed across. The smaller Suzuki Altos (the most favoured car in India due to its cost, low petrol consumption and its amazing ability to be crammed full with sometimes up to 8 family members in such a small cabin area) were emerging flooded, on opening the car doors you could see 3 or 4 inches of water swilling around the foot wells, some were unlucky enough to get water in the engine and had stalled, unable to restart. A slightly longer wait for them ahead methinks.
Our driver finally got up the courage to cross with the aid of a team of local pushers (car pushers, silly) for the now raised price of 70Rs, and we safely made it across the long stretch of immersed road and across three more minor ones. Only seven hours behind schedule and with a tickle of water in the rear foot wells.
The rest of the journey was uneventful. Eddie and I slept for most of the way, and awoke to be driven the last 38kms up the windy road to Nanital in more torrential rain and thick fog in the pitch of night. After 16 hours we arrived in Nanital, seven hours longer than expected. Thank God we had the foresight, if not an informed one, to take a cab. The bus may have been marginally shorter, but much less comfortable and much more cramped.
We stayed at The Hotel City Heart, a mid range hotel that gave us a very good off-season rate for their top room. Nanital is a hill station, once occupied largely by the British and has a colonial feel to it. At the centre the town revolves around a large boating lake which our room with a balcony looked out over. The hotel is set back from the main road up a 5-minute steep back road and our room consisted of a bedroom area, a sitting area with a settee in front of a large TV. From inside through the windows and door we looked out west that afforded wonderful sunsets over the lake on a clear evening.
As in Mt Abu, once we arrived we decided that the allotted three days we had set aside for Nanital wasn’t going to be enough. We cancelled our onwards train tickets and rebooked for a few days later. Whilst at the ticket office we met Hassan, a Muslim Indian that was truly fanatical about his faith. Getting up at 04:30 each morning he attended his mosque for the first of five times each day at 05:00. A smartly dressed and ever so English demur he spoke with unbroken English that he had picked up from dealing with westerners in his former business of a travel agent.
Hassan Mumtaz turned out to be a true friend, not the usual trying to sell you something Indian, but helpful and polite. He was a member of the town’s “exclusive” Boat House Club, built during the British occupation. It was for true gentlemen, even a wealthy English businessman was turned down for membership because he was born in India, and therefore was not a “pucker sahib.” He invited us to be his guest at the boathouse and that evening we stepped into a time warp of old British colonialism.
A large impressive building with boathouse floorboards and a sun deck over the lake where you could hire sail boats by the hour. A card playing room called the “Bridge Room” (very British, I say old chap), an open plan restaurant overlooking the Lake, a wonderful old bar clad with oak panelled walls with plush velvet sofa to lounge in while waiters in burgundy coffee house uniforms served you drinks at your table at the fraction of the price of a wine shop outside. It was a place where you felt special.
The members are all Indian, mostly doctors and businessmen who meet in the evenings for games of snooker on the club’s full size tables, congratulating each other on each and every shot that was made. Phrases like, “Jolly good shot sir” and “What a wonderful pot” along with “Jolly good game chap”. These are actual phrases they used, as if they were trying to emanate the old British atmosphere of sportsmanship.
Later that evening Hassan told us of his life ambition of trying to resolve the Indian-Pakistan Kashmir situation. For those who aren’t up to speed he explained that during British rule, Pakistan was once a part of India, and the area was largely a Muslim population. The British decided to make this area of India into a country in its own right largely for the Muslim contingency of India, and so Pakistan was born.
Kashmir was still part of India and is still mostly Muslim. The Muslim separatists feel on both the Pakistan and Indian side that Kashmir should become a separate country too, and are fighting an ongoing war with both the Pakistan and Indian armies to put across their plight in the sole aim to become independent. Hassan had spent a large part of his later life campaigning for a solution to the Kashmir problem, writing to the Sri Lankan and Indian Prime Ministers, as well as John Major, Tony Blair, Bill Clinton and Her Majesty the Queen of England, all of whom had replied (Rajiv Gandhi, the former Prime Minister wrote a personal and revealing letter in response. Funnily Hassan received the letter seven years after the Prime Ministers death, that’s the Indian post for you).
He once wrote:
Aug 11, 1999
The Right Hon’ble Tony Blair,
Once again I am compelled to write and divert your kind attention towards the sensitive and vexed Kashmir problem caused by Jinah and Nehru and to some extent by the British colonial rulers unnecessarily for their personal motives, leaving in the lurch our 20 Crore (200 million) leaderless Muslim community living in India.
As regards to my perception “The great future of two nations if united” you would agree that it negates the very basis of the two nations theory, which lead to the creation of a separate homeland for the Muslims of the subcontinent. Kashmiris self determination of separating themselves for their own rights, there has to be someone who could decide their fate and negotiate the matter once and for all and try to settle the long pending dispute.
The Kargil should never be repeated in any form and escalate to the other parts of the world in my opinion and bring peace in the sub-continent. You should realise the mistakes committed earlier and give a cool thought to my suggestion and act accordingly. I hope you will surely understand my plight and respond personally this time. Try to visit India after the new government is formed, latest by October this year to discuss sensitive issues.
With best wishes
Yours sincerely
Hassan Mumtaz
Tony Blair did reply, and visited India and Pakistan later that year. Can one man really make a difference?
Nanital is a mixture of activities in the town around the lake, and up in the mountains, a cable car takes you up the Snow View Peak, where, we are told, on a bright clear day you can see the Himalayas. The best time is early in the morning, however the cable car doesn’t open till 10:30 when it normally clouds over a little.
We did a 13km walk to the top of China peak where again views are superb; a friendly dog made the trek with us and was rewarded with a cheese sandwich for his loyalty. The actual uphill hike is only 4km from the road where we picked the dog up. Unfortunately the owner of the dog had to wait at the teahouse at the bottom for his dog to return, 2½ hours later, before he could go home. He wasn’t a happy man.
We arrived in Varanasi four hours late by train, after 26 hours of travelling. We were warned by many sources of the commission traps in Varanasi, so when we got a rickshaw we asked to go to a well known bakery called “Bread of Life”. From there we located the Hotel Sunshine, conveniently situated next door. This way you can tell the hotel that they do not need to pay commission to the rickshaw walla, therefore they can give you a discount!
The Hotel Sunshine has a good rooftop restaurant and lounge area with a TV for the evening. Varanasi has a slight feel of Delhi in that it is a busy and polluted town but with more atmosphere, especially at the Ghats, which are the main (if not the only) reason why most people come here. Again as in Rishikesh and all down the Ganges, pilgrims come and bathe alongside the thousands of locals who use the river for their daily bath as well as for clothes washing, toilet and drinking water.
Although there have been many government warnings of the dangerous pollution and diseases that the river contains – the faecal coliform count once measured at 250,000 times the World Health Organisations safe permitted maximum and the city’s sewage processing plants were only designed to handle a quarter of the current 4500 million litres of raw sewage I read in the Times of India whilst I was there – the Indians take ritual baths following a set routine of ducking their heads under the water several times and swilling, sometimes swallowing the water for it holy goodness. Mad!
Our first experience of the ghats was with a guy from the hotel. He took us down to Shivala Ghat, a small unassuming ghat five minutes walk. The water now was incredibly high, at the low water season you can walk from ghat to ghat along the 100 or so ghats that line the Ganges River at Varanasi.
Walking onto the ghat the first thing that struck us was the huge black and mean water buffalo that had gathered there for an evening dip and drink. These things are monsters and are twice the size of what we normally see in England grazing casually in our country fields. About as wide as they are tall their neck seems to be an extension of their backs, culminating with a wide eyed evil face crowned with long curled horns. They don’t take prisoners, if you are in their way you get walked over, get too close and they will give you a side swipe with their armoured head. Keeping well out of the way is the safest idea. So we waited, and waited, and eventually they sauntered off back into the narrow alleyways that connect the Ganges with the main street to fodder amongst the rubbish that has been discarded during the day. (Cardboard seems a tasty alternative to nutritious green grass.)
Shivala Ghat, like all the ghats in the rainy season was covered in silt where waters had risen from heavy rainfall and receded again. A marker high up on the back wall showed the water level of 1977 where the river had flooded Varanasi. It stood about a meter above my head. The next ghat along is Hanuman Ghat, the secondary burning ghat. A large waste of money called the electric incinerator had been erected here by the government at large expense but never was completed due to the Indians not going for the untraditional way of burning their dead. We sat up high on the side of a small temple that overlooked the black-charcoaled waterside. Hindus believe that if they die in Varanasi, they are released from the eternal cycle of rebirth and go straight to heaven and find enlightenment, and so cremations take place hours after the death of a family member.
Bodies are driven into town strapped on the roofs of jeeps from surrounding villages for the privilege of being burnt by the Ganges. Wrapped in colourful clothes and yellow tinsel they are brought to the waterside where they employ the use of one of the many ghats “holy men” to perform a ritual of bathing and anointing both the dead and the grievers. We watched, I fascinated, Eddie shocked and sick to the stomach as then a pile of logs is carefully set out in a burning pile. The logs are weighed to ascertain the cost of the of the funeral, it can be a costly business for the poor who can hardly afford to eat let alone set a loved one to rest. We looked on as the bodies pile up in a queue to be burnt, the first was moved on to be unwrapped of its colourful cloths which are then discarded upon the muddy banks, the body was then placed on the freshly built pile of logs while onlookers wailed and prayed then lit.
The first pungent smells of burning flesh rose and made me wince; Eddie had retreated by this time to a distance where she could not see the on goings of the ceremony. Blue smoke rose from within the woodpile while the next body was being prepared by the water’s edge.
Nearby, three kids were playing catch with a ball made of rubbish wrapped up with string, and a dog sniffed around the remains of a skull and half a spinal column attached from a previous burning. A good burning will leave nothing left so the complete body can be released from the continuous cycle of rebirths. This unfortunate sole may have been the victim of an unsupervised burning or just the family couldn’t afford the last bit of wood to finish the job.
The secondary ghat is the poorer ghat, it’s cheaper to have the cremation here, but less prestigious in grubby surroundings. The water level being so high leaves very little room for manoeuvring and only 2 or 3 wood stacks can be built at one time. Another body arrives, again in the ceremonial dressing of shiny clothes and tinsel, another body is set alight and the smell on the ghat becomes suffocating. Similar to ammonia it assaults your nostrils and waters your eyes. It was a strange feeling sitting at a high up vantage point looking down on a scene that portrayed the grief of some and the every day lives of others within feet of each other, even a cow had entered stage right and was rummaging around the ghat for food.
The first pile was burning down now and the “supervisor” (if that’s what you call him) dug around the pile with a long pole trying to refresh the flames. Being unsuccessful he dug around again and fished out a shrivelled, charred mass, twisted and contorted, carefully and skilfully balanced on the end of his pole which he laid down beside the embers. After consulting the grieving family he put more wood on the pile and stoked it up, replacing the blacked remains of the half burnt body, burying it in a couple more logs. Three fires were now lit and a small backlog was growing. Normally they have the entire steps of the ghat to burn on when the water is low. At this time of year a build up of bodies is common, our guy from the Hotel said.
On another brief visit to the ghat, maybe from morbid fascination, Eddie and I both agreed that after awhile the pungent smells desist and rather horribly the burning remains reminded us of BBQ pork spare ribs like we used to have at home. This made me feel kind of weird inside, and I haven’t eaten pork since. However, I am sure I will in the future.
Our man from the hotel showed us the back streets of the Muslim area in Bhelpura, a labyrinth of alleys that twist and turn, fork and merge till you can become thoroughly disorientated and lost. The area is famous for its silk manufacturing and the clacking of hand looms come from most houses. If you peek through the windows you will often see very cramped work areas, poorly lit by a single lamp. The air is stale and hot, the hand looms are old but functional, and the operators mechanically go on with their tedious work, 10 hours a day each day for a maximum of 60Rs per shift for the skilled workers creating masterpieces of patterned silk cloth.
Unsurprisingly the tour ended at a silk emporium, where we were sat on huge cushions, offered cold drinks (that never came) and shown a plethora of amazing silk bed covers and wall hangings that shimmered with changing colours in the light. Ranging from just £5 to £450 (for he prices them in either US$ or £ Sterling) for a beautiful patchwork bed cover with matching pillows, we were sorely tempted by one eye catching piece that he came down to £270 for. However, after careful consideration we decided to think on it as we weren’t returning home for a long time.
They have you enamoured whilst you are in their presence, and it’s easy to buy something you might regret. To take a step back and to think about it for a day is a sensible course of action. If you still really want the piece then it’s a good buy, but I think almost everybody has gone and bought something on impulse that they really didn’t need or want, it just seemed like a good idea at the time.
We had two trips on the Ganges by boat, the first by the cook at our hotel at sundown, which casts a shadow upon the ghats, but is very impressive when the lights come on. Evening bathers perform their rituals, kids just play splashing and ducking each other with screams of glee. Some people set up little temporary shrines on pillars and sit behind them in meditation. Sadhus gather in groups and discuss whatever they discuss, some smoking the obligatory chillum, others just laid out on the mats trying for a spot of shuteye. When the sun finally sets, the yellow lights that illuminate the ghats shimmer in reflection off the water, and even for a non believer I felt a special spiritual feeling about the place, it was one of calm and quietness, rare in a city so loud and brash.
The second trip was an early morning attempt for sunrise. However, we only managed to drag ourselves out of our crib about 05:00, and it was already light outside. Walking through the back alleys towards the main Dasaswamedh Ghat we again passed the Hunaman ghat where boatmen accosted us, after the early morning business that travellers brought. After a brief negotiation, from 300Rs down to 50Rs each for the hour (which by the way is the government recommended rate, although you will have a hard time trying to convince the boatmen of this) we headed down to the now well known secondary burning ghat to step gingerly through the ash remains of the previous days cook up. Luckily there were no half burnt corpses and no signs of anything gross otherwise it would have been a hard job to get Eddie through there to the boat.
After a few minutes of messing around, we set off with three young chaps eager to please but, as it turned out, very inexperienced. The river flow was with us so they set about placing the boat in a slow current downstream. This is the most pleasant way to see the ghats, just drifting slowly by watching the activities on each of the ghats as they pass. All the ghats are different, some built by states, some by Mahrajas, they all have a different identity. Some house temples, some are simple and private, small, large, busy, deserted, they all have their own character and appearance.
As we drifted down the silted Ganges, past logs and branches swept down from hard rains and landslides, past a bloated dead body of what I can only imagine to be a portly woman by the saree she was still wearing (those who die dishonourably by suicide or in disgrace will not be burnt but just discarded in the river in the clothes they die in for the crows to pick at), the flow grew faster, and by my own suggestion we oared our way closer to the shore.
Our last stop was the main burning Ghat, a large, soot blackened building on the upper steps of the Ghat. Huge piles of logs dominated each side of the ghat as high as 40 feet, enough wood to fuel a thousand cremations I thought. Crowds of boats were gathered around this spectacle as plumes of the blue smoke rose from many fires. Work started early here as it was only 06:30 by this time.
It was time to return to whence we came. Easier said than done, these three young lads had not brought a steering oar which proved to be essential to control the boat going upstream. The boys fought frantically but the current kept spinning the boat. We made headway slowly and painfully, and more experienced oarsmen with more loaded boats passed us. After 20 minutes of unsuccessfully getting anywhere fast, we asked to be put ashore, the relief on their faces was measurable.
Spending a few hours sitting on the side of the main Dasaswamedh Ghat watching the coming and goings for a couple of hours in the early morning is an easy way to pass time. Occasionally someone will ask you if you want a boat? No, a massage? No, some postcards? No, maybe you like silk? No! Then the children come to talk and play in front of you, and holy men want to paint spots on your forehead. It’s all part of Varanasi. A brightly coloured city with many things
