on the way to rishikesh

6.feb 2010
Reach Delhi 11 am, get fleeced by auto to go to my aunts place, where shower lunch we go meet Kartik, Vivek in Haus Khaus, then Giti. Giti is a friend andc ollegue and she has been writing photographing understanding interpreting our past with the focus on feminist traditions. Her book Moebis was pbished by Penguin and is a personal journey of 30 years driving and visiting places, museums, all over India.

She talks to us about the significance of Kumbh. “The places are all related to cosmic geography” she says, “Where the mountains meet the plains, where the rives from the mountains ebters the plains. These are places of energy and our traditions have always brought us to places where the enrgy levels are high.”

“Yes, many traditions come to Kumbh, but there are many which have also died out. Our earlier scriptures talks about padukinis (Check) which means women who walk around as wanderers. Today we see little reference to this tradition.”

Then to VInayAditya, an astrologer friend. Who tells us that the Kumbh being when Jupiter is in Aries, is because Aries in Indian astrology is Kukbh, the vessel, the womb…. And Jupiter is Guru, so when Jupiter enters Aries… you have a constellation which is powerful.

The bus enters Hardwar, and there are no crowds…. The bus station is relatively quiet; we wait for a few minutes and leave for Rishikesh.


The first thing that hit me was that all the hoardings had to do with some sant, some guru , some message or the other. AS few about mobile connections, theres a company offering 25 paise per minute for local calls, ….. but nothing else… no toothpaste, washing powder, no lakme, no skin whitener.

There are tents all over, hundreds and hundreds of them, some pilgrims walking around… where are all the crowds that they talk about.

Find out later that they have created a new way so that we byepass all the crowds…….
Rishikesh is much quiter and we are on the other side of laksman Jhula, where autos are thankfully not allowed to come… so it is a quiet street….. the ashram overlooks the flowing ganga, so clean and green/. It is cold… weaing all our warm clothes we go out for dinner a small restaurant overlooking the ganga.

First meal, hot steaming khadi with pakora, dal (mixture, lots of garlic) , mutter aloo (peas and potatoes) in a thick tomato based sauce, hot tandori roti, and rice pickle…. Rs. 40/-. Followed by hot ginger lemon tea. Hotmilk in kullars (clay cups)

Tired, sleep at 930, and now its 8 in the morning. There is a breeze out, wicked, so am being good, sitting in my room, watching the birds and the water, with sockes, headgear and sweater on…not braving the winds and cold till get a little used to it.

Am having problems with loading up pix…plan to spend the day tom learning…. What a drag