The literati has coined a snazzy name for my travel category. They refer to it as 'spiritual tourism' !
For me its simple. It always has been. Get to a spot where you can easily enjoy the Creator's romance with His creation. A cozy corner where the only sound that you can hear is of nature; sweet chirping of himalayan birds, loud roar of the wind, chuckle of the restless river or even silence. I believe you can 'hear silence' when you get to that cozy spot.
Rishikesh, has always been the doorway to most of my travel destinations. In itself, some parts of the town also 'make the cut' to my strict criteria. I was resuming my journeys into the hills after a long break and very naturally, the choice of my destination came to be Rishikesh (again). We (Saurabh & I) have visited Rishikesh about 5 times before, but this years experience was quite unique and calls for a short blog.
So, like always we headed out of Delhi without a hotel booking & without even being sure of our itinerary... even though all books advise new parents to be extra cautious while taking their infants out for the first time. Yes ! It was Arjun's first trip out of Delhi. And at age 4 months...he could hardly share his opinion/rebellion :) We hope by the time he gets an opinion, he would have been properly inducted into his parents way of travelling.
So, we reached Rishikesh after a 6.5 hour drive ! The first 100 kms ex-Delhi are good and speedy. The next 150 kms are excruciatingly slow. Someone had mentioned to us about an ashram by the Ganga ji before we were leaving. We decided to give it a shot...lets see what its like ! We got directions to reach the opposite side of the famous Laxman Jhula, by road. This was the first high point of our holiday. The road to our ashram took us through the Rajaji National Park and it was up and down a mountain side. Yippee ! Why ? Well you dont get to drive on such a road(curvy, hilly) so early on this route. We have always seen the rush of tempos and buses and cars and bikes and rickshaws, everytime we have visited this town. So, this was a wow moment.
After an 8 km hilly drive, we reached the other side of the Ganges and got into this clean and huge ashram campus. Vedic chanting greeted us and a very hospitable staff, all dressed in white showed us our rooms. The room was ok-clean and basic. We were tired and our defences were a little down...so we hesitatingly decided to stay the night there. But, that was the best thing we did for ourselves :) (in hindsight). Suddenly, with God's grace, the weather changed from extreme heat (since we were travelling in May) to cool and rainy ! Cool mountain breeze sliding over the ganges and softly hittingour faces (too flowery !) Our tiredness started leaving us. After settling Arjun into the room, I got to step out for a bit...courtesy Saurabh. I was feeling very tired, but Saurabh coaxed me into stepping out of the room.
As I stepped out ... I heard loud bhajan singing amidst the breeze that was serenading the whole place. It was sun down and the light was just about changing its brightness....I followed the music and in 20-30 steps or so I got to the river side. Behold... the place was filled with about 100 devotees, all singing along the famous 'Parmart ganga aarti' that happens every evening(since 1937 !). With a tall, majestic statue of Shiva, towering over all of us, Ganga ji flowing rapidly and lots of us devotionally singing and calling out to Lord Krishna...."Sabse oonchi prem sagaai" ...Awesome....heavenly...exhilarating. The vibrations were something else...the ambience gets 10/10..the mood completely uplifted. I was thanking God again and again :)
Parmarth Niketan - is the new way of experiencing Rishikesh !!! Thank you for getting us there.
