Hypnotic Mayawati

Guess, what did I mean when I chose the title 'Hypnotic Mayawati' for this post? I am sure, the generation NOW is only aware about one Mayawati, the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh.

But this MAYAWATI is entirely different. It is a place in the Himalayas, in Champawat district of Uttarakhand. Only the regular readers of Ramakrishna - Vivekananda literature will be able to quickly recall the name Mayawati. If you are not one of them, read it now!

The beautifully landscaped garden around the Adwait Ashram adds to the serenity of the place

This is Adwait Ashram, the place where Swami Vivekananda spent few months in 1901 during his wanderings in the Himalayas.

Continued ...

Water Heritage

April issue of National Geographic tells us that we are draining the aquifers much more quickly than the natural recharge rate. This made me sit and think as to how and what will really be the future course for hundreds and thousands of those underprivilege people who do not even get a drop of water to drink.

This is Rajon Ki Baoli in Mehrauli Archaeological Park in south Delhi.   

It is a well known fact that 75 per cent of the Earth is water. Of this, even if we consider that 70 per cent of fresh water is locked in ice around the poles, till recently, there was never a crisis for something which has become the most essential commodity. At least, the scenario in India is dreadful.

And when I say, till recently, it is a relative term. For such a long span of human habitation vis-a-vis organised living, a time frame of around 50-60 years or at the most 100 years is a very short time.

India has had traditional wisdom by way of closed, underground step wells - locally known as Baolis or Baodis. These were one of the best practices, specially across North India's Rajasthan, arid Gujarat and several areas in Haryana and today's Delhi too.

As on date, this has been running dry for several years now but then, the custodian of this beautiful stone step well, the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) has claimed to have cleaned it after a court order to do so.     

Amaltas is King in Spring

Ah, the spring is here again. A nature lover like me enjoys all seasons with equal enthusiasm but then there is no denying that spring gives you something extra.

It offers sheer pleasure to the eye. The new leaves, the bloom of bright hued flowers, typical to this season, and all such things.



The Peepal tree - or for that matter any other ficus - shows the most promising coloured leaves. As in case of this photo, see the beautiful reddish pink neatly tucked between the two army greens. 

And what to say of the yellow danglers, the Amaltas. (Called the Indian Laburnum). Beautiful aren't they? But I must confess, this is not a very good photo. But I am waiting, for soon the Delhi streets would erupt in a riot of yellow. Flowers, flowers and more flowers at one point of time and no leaves at all. In fact, that is the USP of many a spring flowers, all flowers and no leaves. And as nature would have it, the flowers do not last more than half an hour if you pluck them away from the tree.  

If we just can learn to observe nature. The brighter the Amaltas, they tell us, the better the summer. And more the temperature during summers, the better the rains, the old people say. But we seem to be indulging in activities that induce climate change and take us more and more towards global warming.

For instance, since 2007, I myself have kept track of how the same Amaltas blooms in September too. Although the flowers bloom in lesser numbers and along with the leaves, the very fact that Amaltas is seen in September is alarming. That indicates some subtle change in the weather pattern. 

Will it happen this September?

Up Close And ...

Now I am sure you are going to think of the conventional phrase after reading the title. But it is very hard to associate 'conventional' with Nivedita. The heading couldn't have been anything else, because, it really reminds me of  something close and ... yes, personal when I see these photos. 

This is one flower, whose name I am not aware of, I have liked nevertheless. This was a cute little flower in a huge garden on a beautiful sea front. It is a garden on reclaimed land in south Mumbai. 

I had gone there in 2005 during one of the last months of my almost five years of stay in the financial capital. And then, there is this such a good cactus garden, rather a cactus enclosure in the middle of that garden.

This close up I like because of the shine on the skin of the plant. This plant has small thorns - which I call as designer thorns - on all three edges of the erect stem, nay it is the leaf. Full, juicy and lot of fibre.  





I associate cactus with lot of things. But one thing, and that is where the 'personal' part comes in, is my linking up of cactus with any person's nature. I link this with a person who looks 'crude' but is actually very beautiful inside. And unfortunately, humans fail to notice that often.

And then there is this third photo I chose because, as like in the above two photos, here too is a close up of something, which is generally looked at from far away, most of the times. This close up is that of the remains of harsingar (parijatak) flower, almost dried up. And there is this very thin cobweb on the dried up portions of the flower.   

Guess, we continue to take a look at things up, close and ...    

Elephantine Dust Bath

It was a balmy winter afternoon in December 2009. I had taken my sister's daughters to the Delhi Zoo. Although the girls had enjoyed most of the other cages too, this particular scene freaked them out completely.

Specially, the younger one, all of three, had never seen anything like this. Of course, thanks to exposure right from the 'E for Elephant' to the likes of Discovery and NatGeo channels, she could easily identify: "Ha ... elephant."


To which her elder sister quickly added, "No, it is a baby elephant."


At that time, the elephant was coming from the rear of the enclosure to the front, in full public glare. Lazily roaming, trying to trick its mahout or may be playing with him.  


The real fun began when the pachyderm actually reached a cement-concrete mushroom obviously erected as a shade for the animal. With its trunk, the elephant started clearing the ground below raising thick clouds of dust.

But the ultimate was when the elephant sprinkled liberal amounts of dust on itself with the upturned trunk. It was a scene straight out of the Discovery or Nat Geo channel for the girls. And, along with them, we too watched fascinated as the elephant continued to amuse onlookers with its antics. Not that it was aware of the enthusiastic public.

At times, it took similar dust showers in a row then it would scratch its back to the cement pole of the mushroom. Elephants are known to use the trunk for everything, be it picking up a blade of grass to drinking water to even plucking up a large tree.

So this was no exception. Here the baby was using its trunk to pick and blow dust on to themselves. Perhaps this dust coating helps them with something.   

Now, it is being said that the zoo elephants are slated to be sent to the wildlife sanctuaries following some government order. Wildlife enthusiasts say it is a proper step and organisations like PETA etc are just too happy with the thought.

But I feel, for the urban children, places like the zoo are the only getaways from the urbane jungles. The rate at which animals are being killed and poached by man, zoos could be the answers for those missing from the wild. So there has to be a debate, I guess: Do these elephants really need to be sent to the sanctuaries?

The Balloon Bridge

  

The title of this post - The Balloon Bridge - may sound funny. When I heard it for the first time, I thought, what has a balloon got to do with a bridge. But then, the name is right.

The photo of the Balloon Bridge seen here was taken in 2005 when I went to the Lohit district of Arunachal Pradesh. It was erected by the army to facilitate transport of vehicles on the mighty Lohit river - the same one which is called Brahmaputra the moment it enters Assam and joined by Dibang.

During monsoon months, and that is a long stretch for Arunachal and Assam, the Lohit, the Dibang and the Brahmaputra, all are in spate. The Balloon Bridge is impossible to be put up in such force. One of these days, I will also post the way people and vehicles used to travel in Arunachal in times of heavy rains and floods.

Coming back to Balloon Bridge, this was an annual exercise, rather a ritual, when the muddy grey floods of Lohit calmed down a bit and gave way to a prestine blue. The 'Balloons' are inflated rubber rafts tightened with each other with ropes. Aluminium rails become the smooth track for vehicles, sometimes as heavy as Army's Shaktimans.

And the army guys themselves made the pebbled river bed motorable. At times, the water would be crystal clear that you can see everything below it. I am sure,, one can go a little deeper inside the water and still see as clear as this photo shows the pebbles.     

Now-a-days there is an all weather bridge on the Lohit, some 30-40 kms upstream from this spot. So I really don't know if they are still erecting such bridges. These were once common in Arunachal Pradesh.       

But why just Arunachal? Many Delhiites, and for that matter, many people across the country living on the banks of rivers too must have seen it sometimes or the other.

In Delhi, till 2008, the authorities used to put up a similar bridge - here they call it as a pontoon bridge - on the Yamuna between the ITO Barrage bridge and the Old Yamuna Bridge. Now after the Geeta Colony-Shantivan bridge has come up, I think they have stopped putting up this bridge.

I agree, it is necessary for the local population, specially in remote areas like Arunachal, to have all weather bridges and roads. But for people like me, these are objects of sheer romanticism. Taking vagabonds like me to surreal surroundings. Almost.    

  

Oh my is this real ...?

A lake and a temple

Travelling on a deserted road in Rajasthan, we were looking forward to reaching Deegh, the summer palace of Bharatpur kings. Suddenly at a village oddly named Ghata, we came across a beatiful rock formation. 

The slope made a natural slide for rainwater. Possibly the water gathered in the foreground after streaming down the rocks.

Curiosity got the better of us and we deboarded the vehicle. The serene location took our breath away.

It had this little old temple on the banks of the lake. The temple was almost in ruins but it had a queer beauty to it. Amidst other green trees, there was a solitary dry tree, reflection of which gave the landscape an additional dimension.

The lake and the temple reminded me of hundreds of other places I had encountered through my travels across India. Once upon a time, every village, every city and literally every settlement of whatever size had its own fresh water source. And we had all this till recently. But all this is being lost and lost faster than we can imagine. 

However, exceptions do exist even today, by way of a few gems like this left untouched. The place is on the state highway towards Deegh when one travels from Delhi - Kosi Kalan - Deegh. It is some 25-30 kms before reaching Deegh.

We - myself and three other friends - had gone there on a beautiful winter morning. Although I remember the still lake waters and the quaint little temple on its bank, I ALSO remember the natural rock formation.

A hope and a prayer ...

The Narmada waters playfully cut through the rock bed, stretching from one bank to the other only to rush with a loud noise into the depression created by its own force.

This serene spot went under water in 2007, depriving future generations an opportunity to enjoy its beauty. It is unlikely that the people displaced from the villages near it will forget the place in this lifetime.

I recently read a beautiful book, a travelogue named 'Narmada Samagra: Rafting through a civilisation' by Anil Madhav Dave. The excellently written and presented book has a small yet touching paragraph about the author's sentiments about Dharaji. I identify with it entirely and hope against hope that some day, his words indeed come true.     

मैंने अनायास पीछे मुड कर धाराजी के अंतिम दर्शन किये, प्रणाम किया. मन ही मन निवेदन किया, "हे धाराजी! मेरी पीढ़ी अपने स्वार्थ के लिए तुम्हे डुबो रही है. हो सकता है, सदियों बाद तुम फिर बाहर आ जाओ, फिर तुममे घूम घूम कर कंकर शंकर बनने लग जाये."

(Roughly translated, it reads: I turned around and took a last darshan of Dharaji, offered my prayers and thought, "Hey Dharaji, My generation is submerging you for their selfish motives. It is possible, centuries later, you will be exposed again ... and every kankar (stone) rolls into your vortex to become a shankar again.")

The profound hope ends with a kshamayachna on behalf of the mankind. He says:

"अपनी पीढ़ी के इस अपराध के लिए हे धाराजी तुम मुझे माफ़ करना."

(Please forgive me for this sin of my generation.) 

AMEN

Unique tradition lost in history

This was the feature published in Hindustan Times on March 27, 2007 in the Indore edition. We had carried the story days before the authorities were set to start impounding Narmada waters for the Omkareshwar Hydel project in Madhya Pradesh. Here is part two of the two part series.

UNIQUE TRADITION WILL BE HISTORY SOON

Come April, when the 520-MW Omkareshwar project of Narmada Hydroelectric Development Corporation (NHDC) is expected to be functional, not only would the mersmerising waterfall at Dharaji be submerged under the project reservoir, it will also submerge a tradition unique to the Narmada banks.

Dharaji (Dist Dewas) March 26: Mansingh Devda is one of the two brothers famous for retrieving Baanling from the vortex - known as Dhawdi Kund - formed due to speeding water gushing down the nearly 50 feet roaring waterfall at this pilgrim spot on the banks of Narmada. But, it will soon be a thing of the past.

Sitting in his spartan hut playing with his youngest child, Mansingh is probably mulling that his son would not be able to continue with Bhagwan ki seva (worship of the Lord) like he and six generations before him, as the whole area would be submerged under the reservoir of the Omkareshwar dam sometime in April.

But he has no regrets. "This was destined. Long ago, a mahatma had predicted that we would be able to carry out this work (bringing out the Baanlings from underwater) only for seven generations. Mine is the seventh generation," Mansingh told Hindustan Times.

Mythology has it that demon Banasur, wanting to invoke Lord Shiva, prepared and worshipped one crore Shivlings at Dharaji. He immersed all of them in the Narmada after the Lord was pleased and hence the Shivlings are known as Baanling. Speciality of the Baanling, according to scriptures, is that it does not require any kind of pranpratishtha (installation rituals) and one can directly worship it.

Prod the 40-something Korku Thakur and he recalls a tale, short on reason but strong on faith. The head of the family six generations ago was fed up with animals destroying his crop every night. Once he decided to keep a vigil and saw to his amusement five cows in his farm. He caught hold of one of them by the tail, deciding to follow so as to reach the owner. The cow ran towards water and jumped straight into the Dhawadi Kund, the farmer in tow.

The cow reached a sage in a cave behind the waterfall. The saintly figure offered to compensate his loss. Not sure of what to ask, the farmer asked an assured fish catch daily and that every stone he retrieves from the place be treated as Lord Shiva (har kankar shankar ho). Pleased with his simplicity, the sage assured him a single fish every day round the year and also the boon to retrieve Baanling from the Kund for seven generations. 

Since then the family tradition has continued. And even though they could have charged a humoungous price for the precious Baanling, neither Mansingh nor his brother ask for money and instead accept whatever the devotees give. On an average, Mansingh and his brother take out about 15,000 Baanlings annually from the Kund. The Baanlings are either oval or perfect round and the size varies from a few inches to a few feet tall (some as big as 8-10 feet). "People come from all over India asking for it."

Mansingh claims he has neither been given compensation nor any notice about the status of his kuchcha house when water starts rising early next month. Ask him how he feels about not being able to bring out Baanlings in the future, Mansingh points to the river and sighs in his philosophical best, "Woh jaanti hai sab. (Narmada knows it all). If Dharaji was predicted to vanish, nothing can stop it."

(Concluded).

Submergence of a culture

This was the feature published in Hindustan Times on March 26, 2007 in the Indore edition. We had carried the story days before the authorities were set to start impounding Narmada waters for the Omkareshwar Hydel project in Madhya Pradesh. Here is part one of the two part series.

AT DHARAJI, DAM WATERS WILL SUBMERGE A CULTURE

Tucked away amidst hills with dense deciduous forest, Dharaji was in news in 2005 when a large number of devotees were swept away by the water released from the dam upstream. With the reservoir for Omkareshwar Hydel Project set to fill, leading to submergence of Dharaji, it would not be a mere physical loss of land mass going under water. With it would end congregations of lakhs for the Bhootadi Amavasya, a unique cultural heritage, and ultimately the submergence of a place endowed with spectacular beauty, writes Nivedita Khandekar in a two part series.

Dharaji (Dist Dewas), March 25: Here, the Narmada cuts its way with full force through volcanic rock formations on both banks. It crafts an array of towers - showing the horizontal marks cut over ages - which rise bang in the middle of the flow, one besides the other before forming 3-4 cascades spanning a distance of about a kilometre. And then surprisingly, a short distance away, the ever-in-hury' water gives way to a deep placid flow.

An unfortunate tragedy in 2005 saw many pilgrims being washed away by a huge tide on Bhootadi Amavasya. Ironically, the tragedy occured as there were very few lights at night and the pilgrims could not see the water released from the dam to generate electricity at the Indira Sagar Project.

Though lakhs of people visit every year, the place has remained unsullied due to the sheer lack of accessibility.

This being the last year before submergence, word spread like wildfire and drew even more crowds from across the country as a holy dip here on Bhootadi Amavasya (intervening night of March 18/19 this year) is believed to get rid of the problems of the mentally ill and those 'possessed.'

Waters of the Omkareshwar reservoir would engulf it from April this year when the 520 MW Omkareshwar project executed by Narmada Hydroelectric Development Corporation (NHDC) is expected to be functional. An inventory of loss due to submergence can be revealing. Loss of mounds on the bank having layers of geological and archaeological (and even palaentological)  importance in their bellies, cultural - including archaeological and architectural - loss, vanishing of serene spots and last but not the least, the voiceless flora and the fauna in the submergence area.

The first to change would be the very pillars of culture - way of life and way of thinking. "Change? Its a loss of cultural heritage. The unque culture of Narmada bank is changing and soon would be lost," says priest Uday Singh, whose family has been looking after the Shiv Temple here since the time it was constructed some 250 years ago.

For the people on the banks, it was never a mere river. Revered as maiyyaji (mother), the Narmada is part of their emotional mindspace. This concept may change too, with time.

Echoes Sadanand, a saffron-clad sanyasi from Punjab, who is doing Narmada parikrama (circumambulation), "These people are building chakravyooh (vicious circle) for themselves. They (dam builders) are displacing not just people but uprooting an entire culture."

Thousands of people undertake the Narmada parikrama every year, wherein they trek on both the banks clockwise. People living on the banks feed and take care of the well being of the parikammawasis (as these pilgrims are called). "When these people are sent to live in villages far away from the water edge, their attitude changes drastically. Who will look after the parikammawasis then?" asks Mahamurakhdasji, who has been staying at a dharmshala near the Shiv Temple for the past week.

There are several people fighting for the rights of displaced people, but few to speak on behalf of the rich flora and fauna that would go under water. Who will speak on behalf of natural wonders like Dharaji, symbols of manifestation of culture and religion?

It couldn't have been more telling. Dharaji which today reverberates with the sound of water speeding through the several small but crooked gorges to fall into a deep kund with defeaning noise, is headed towards silent submergence.

(To be continued)