Theory OF Settlement- Memory

Ok i confess. I love Delhi. A week spent in some dur-daraz ka ilaka is sufficient to make me yearn for all those horrible sounds that the vehicles here produce. But then when asked about the memory of a place that i cherish, i ended up with Rishikesh. Maybe those one week vacations are not a waste of time after all, lols. One thing that makes rishikesh special to me is the connect which we all must have with the place, the holy river of Ganges.
Now let’s leave the Ganges for angrezs and call it what it is, ganga.it is supposedly the holiest of all rivers and the mother of us Indians. But even thinking about is enough to make me reminiscence of its clear cold water standing in which one feels as if standing in heaven. The 6 hour journey is all but forgotten when one sees it meandering through the on-going mountains, a force of nature so powerful that it covers the entire north and north-east of this mighty country of ours. So coming back to the rishta we share, it’s more of a friendly thing for me. It cares, but if we do wrong, it wraths. It caresses and it forswears. So when i finally landed up in Rishikesh, i was per say, in a state of bliss (did i mention we went there in July, when Delhi summers were sucking the life out of people; what relief i tell you).
Now rishikesh is a holy town, meaning its major residents are the holy or not so holy sadhus; though one can always see thousands of foreign people milling about, trying to find a shortcut to nirvana. The belief is very much echoed in the architecture of the place. One can see the viharas of hundreds of temples from a distance. The colours are all in the shades of yellows, reds or oranges. The air itself smells of incense and shops harbouring holy items, namely Rudraksha’s, stones and mantra cds line the street. The city is along a street running parallel to ganga, one side accommodating the majority of holy shrines and ashrams, the other being the more commercial one, cashing in on the gullibility of the tourists. The Lakshman jhula and the newer Ram jhula are of course very prominent in the landscape as well as the movement of the city because of the only pedestrian link they provide across Ganga. The most prominent thing that distinguishes Rishikesh from other temple towns is its uncharacteristic neatness, lols. One can actually find dustbins to throw the waste or a hidden corner which is being used as a substitute for the plastic finesse. Maybe it’s all the foreign people lumbering about, but if it was so simple, one would wish for the government to do it in other holy places as well.
What really fills my mind when i remember my visit is the aarti we attended of the paramartha ashram. It took place on the bank of the where the “parmarth ashram gate” leads a stepped way to the river. The main sadhu, Pujya Swamiji sits in d middle of a large congregation of inmates of the ashram, the Indian and foreign tourist and the localities.
Maybe it is the power of the thousands standing there, chanting with the swamiji, trying to evoke the greater one; or maybe it is the rushing flow of the feet numbing cold water, in the midst of which therein lies a marble shiv murti, looking ethereal; or maybe it is in the calmness of the place, the gate towering over us all, reminding us of our ephemeralness, the scent of incense lingering in the air; or maybe it’s just the plain old me, but that experience is what comes to my mind when our faculty shouts there head off trying to explain us what it is meant to experience a space!!