Day 2, 30 Sep 2019

After a comfortable, though short night at Godwin Hotel we were up and about at 04:30AM for the morning prayers and yoga practice which were held in the hotel’s convention centre from 05:30AM. Thereafter we had a leisurely  buffet breakfast which was cooked and served by the hotel and not by our travel partners Subh Yatra Hospitality, Haridwar (about whom I had mentioned in Part 1). The breakfast spread had to cater to our vastely diverse group not only from all parts of India but also from abroad. This luxury of variety of meals also withered away at this hotel itself !!

We finally departed from the hotel around 9AM  in our designated buses. It was a long journey of  almost 12 hours. The Isha Foundation has evolved a very distinct style of verbal communication whereby salutaions are always ‘namaskaram’, males are addressed as ‘anna’ and females as ‘akka’. As we all settled down for our long bus ride, Gayatri akka who was one of the organisers, asked us to introduce ourselves with a proviso that the name should be prefixed with one word which describes us or our name. For example Mr Naveen became Old Naveen anna since he was advanced in age and the second younger Naveen in the bus became New Naveen anna. Sunita in her inimitable style became Seeker Sunita akka and the mundane me became Fauji Surinder anna!

After crossing Rishikesh all tourist have to obtain a Registration & Tracking  Access Card from UTDB. The office for obtaining the Card is conveniently located inside the premised of the Bus Stand. The process which involved producing a ID and smiling into a camera, though very simple, took a very very long time given that not only a hundred of us but also 5 buses, their drivers & cleaners needed the permits. It all took about two hours and then we were  finally off.

Goes without saying that I was still in a touristy frame of mind though the morning prayers, Sadhguru’s address  and general conduct of  co-traveller’s was gradually inclining me towards ‘pilgrim’.

As the buses entered the mountainous section, the bus driver promptly switched off the bus aircondtioning and issued a curt diktat “No AC in hill driving. Open your windows & switch on the fans.” So from then till we reached back Rishikesh on 8th Oct, the buses became non AC deluxe buses with the dust, vehicle fumes and noise pollution as our constant companion. Add to that the fact that the condition of the roads all through the journey was very bad as a result of delayed and heavy monsoons this year. All in all we had nine days of a very bumpy ride!!

Today we covered a total distance of 183 kms in 12 hours. Around 3 PM after covering 75 kms we had a lunch break of an hour at Chamba and finally arrived at Hotel Akash Ganga Uttarkashi at 8:30PM.

Throughout the journey  of nine days I was impressed by the silent efficiency of the tour operator Subhyatra Hospitality Services, the way they would upstick from our last halt, rush ahead & be waiting for us with the meal cooked and laidout all ready to be served.

At the hotel, dinner was again  cooked and served by our very own tour operator. .

 

I have done the first pilgrimage of my life!

As a matter of practise I visit Vaishnu Devi every alternate year and have visited numerous  holy cities, temples, churches,  gompas, mosques etc but still say that I have done my first pilgrimage only now from 29^th Sep to 9^th Oct 2019. And there is a reason for that.

My journey on this holy pilgrimage started way back in June 2019. There was an ad by  the Isha Foundation inviting  interested parties to join Himalaya Sacred walks 2019 into the Gharwal region of Uttarakhand . The Brochure had a captivating quote:-

“Many spiritual Masters chose the Himalayas as their abode and have  illuminated the place with their energies.” -Sadhguru 

Visiting these places was anyway on my bucket list and the quote intrigued me a lot, so we decided to join this group. As a prerequisite to Undertaking this tour we had to undergo a four day ‘Inner Engineering course’ of Isha Foundation, which we (My wife & me) did in mid June, thus launching me on this journey.  The course was followed by a flurry of form filling, money transfers, medical examinations including Exercise Stress(TMT) Test for me and procurement of clothing items from  Decathlon.

 

We were issued detailed instructions for preparing for the journey. These instructions were obviously prepared keeping in mind the international demography of the travel group and made very interesting reading.  The instructions were none-the- less, a great help in packing our bags for the journey. An interesting trivia. I purchased a waterproof over-pant (as instructed) for the first time in my life and while at Kedarnath thanked my stars for having done so!!

Day 1, 29 Sep 2019

We all got together at Delhi Airport Terminal 1C at 9 a.m. on 29^th Sep and it was a big group — 98 of us tourists plus organisers added up to 105. All of us piled into five dedicated air-conditioned deluxe buses and started on our sacred Himalaya Walks! We covered a distance of 1514 kms over a period of 11 days travelling from Delhi to Uttarkashi to Gangotri to Guptkashi to Kedarnath (by walk/helicopter) to Badrinath to Rudraprayag to Devprayag to Haridwar and back to Delhi.

I was still in a touristy frame of mind and the conversion from a tourist to a pilgrim happened sometime into the second day of the journey. But we will come back to that later.

The bus journey to Haridwar was uneventful except for a lunch break around noon which we  had at Big Bite Resort on the Meerut bypass road. There I learnt that ‘Subh Yatra Hospitality, Haridwar’ are providing us the administrative support including freshly cooked meals throughout the 11 days trip. They were leap-frogging ahead of us in light vehicles and would have the meals ready by the time our buses reached. We were served ‘sattvic’ meals throughout the journey. As defined by Wikipedia a sattvic diet is meant to include foods and eating habits that are pure, essential, natural, vital, energy-containing, clean, conscious, true, honest, wise. Did this food sow the seeds of my conversion from a tourist to a pilgrim?.

We reached Godwin Hotel, Haridwar around 5 pm and after completing the formalities of checking in, were served an early dinner and at 8 pm assembled in the hotel’s convention hall for  ‘Satsang’. After invocation of Sadhguru, he addressed us through a video recording. Three interesting takeaways were:

1.    Himalayas are the youngest mountains which are still growing & there is             tremendous upheaval (landslides, avalanches, earthquakes etc) when one tries to     reach greater heights. Be sensible and respect these mountains.
2.   We should allow ourselves the possibility to experience the mystical  dimensions    of these mountains by opening our minds, hearts & souls to their energies.
3.   The amenities in the present hotel are the best you are going to get in the next 10 days. Amenities will become progressively bare, so gradually you must make yourself smaller by watering down your expectations.

For our journey on consequent days we were allotted buses and thence onwards the passengers in that bus become our cocoon of friends with whom we would spend the major portion of our waking hours. There was a designated bus leader who was responsible for the group of 21 pilgrims. Our bus (Bus No2) leader was Mr Sathis Kumar Vishwanath who had come from Abu Dhabi. He was a soft spoken & effective leader who kept his flock of 21 on a tight leash!!

We headed for Uttarkashi next day ie on 30 Sep 2019 but more of that in my next Blog.

On Sunday 29 Sep 1918, the Allied Forces of World War 1 scored a decisive breakthrough of the Hindenburg Line which was the beginning of the end of Germany. On the very same day in an unrelated event thousands of mile away a boy was born in a small village Kharouth of Palampur , Himachal Pradesh in the house of the village purohit (the Padas as the family was called).

Today is the birth centenary of my father, (Late) Shri Ram Prasad Sharma and I could not help but pen down a few random musings about him.

This baby boy of Kharouth, grew up in the village, took school education in neighbouring towns (the village had no school) and subsequently moved to Lahore in 1939-40 in search of a job. After trying his hand at various jobs including clerical, Air Force & HAL he joined Indian National Airways as an aircraft technician, subsequently switching over to the Dept. of Aeronautical Inspection. He had an early marriage, in fact a child marriage, and at 36 years of age fathered me the second youngest of his seven children.

Thinking of him always leaves me in awe of the sacrifices & privations he underwent for his siblings & children. Not only was he head of a large family but, being the first born, simultaneously shouldered the responsibility of nurturing his five siblings through their childhood and marriage. An upright, plain speaking & honest to a fault person he deprived himself of all indulgences to ensure that all his children were broughtup and educated in the best traditions.  He retired as Controller of Aeronautical Inspection and it is a wonder of financial management that with the salary of a middle level Central Govt Employee, he afforded to send all five of us to convent/public schools till we reached Higher Secondary classes and thereafter ensured that all had professional qualifications, be it B.Ed, MBBS or B.Tech, before even thinking of our marriage.

He was a chip of the old block, the strict patriarch who had all the love and care for his children but did not believe in pampering his children with overt affection or appreciation.  We never felt wanting of necessities and life essentials regardless of what the cost. He would never tolerate any complaint or criticism of his kids from friends or neighbours, regardless of who was to blame. However when he was convinced that punishment was warranted he never hesitated to do justice to that either. My memories of conversations with him are of only saying ‘Yes, No or Okay’ to his questions or listening to his monologues.  He was a passionate Chess and Bridge player and the best part of my weekends used to be when he was busy playing either of these games.

A patriot and nationalist to the core, he never failed to hoist the National Flag at our home on Republic & Independence days. He very fondly used to narrate about the period 1943-44 when in the pre- independence days he was sent to UK for training. The Quit India movement was gathering momentum and had not left him untouched. In London my father had his housekeeping services including shoe polishing done by white men and the sight of them working for him, an Indian, gave him acute pleasure and national pride. It was my father who taught us all to stand ram-rod straight when the National Anthem is played and never to criticise our motherland.  Terms like ‘India is going to dogs’ or ‘There is no redemption for India’ are to this day anathema to me, all thanks to the values my father inculcated in all of us.

My dad was a deeply spiritual and religious person but had no patience for people steeped in rituals and tantric practices. At the same time, his nature being what it was he never conveyed his displeasure to the ritual practitioners and gave it philosophical shrug as if to say “Everyone to his own. You believe it you do it, just don’t ask me to do it”

Dad knew only struggle throughout life. First it was looking after his siblings and my grand father which was followed by looking after his wife and children. In fact when he retired I still did not have a job and my younger sister was still studying. Add to that the fact that he did not have even a roof over his head.  So after retirement he took employment with Bharat Air and was still serving with them when he died at a relatively young age of 66 years due to a heart attack. We were enroute to see the movie ‘Hip Hip Hurray’ on 4^th Oct 1984 which was a holiday for Dussehra.  As we reached Sangam Cinema in RK Puram, he complained of chest pain and was evacuated by us to Safdarjung  Hospital where he breathed his last. As in life so in death, he was a burden to no one and had a swift end to his journey on earth while in full control of his mental and physical faculties.

God be with you daddy!

Thanks for joining me!

Good company in a journey makes the way seem shorter. — Izaak Walton