Ghashiram Kotwal - A Vijay Tendulkar Play

The biggest peril of education is that it teaches you that there is a lot that you don't know. Leaving home at the age of 16 of course had its advantages. I probably know the bathroom proclivities of Jenna Jameson and Chasy Lane like no other in this great world of ours. But I fear that this single minded pursuit of mine has rather blinded myself to the pursuits of the higher arts. The arts in which instead of putting in coins in a slot and waiting for a glass panel to open, you actually get to sit in a chair and clap.

To make amends to that oversight, I picked up "Understanding Drama" as one of my subjects. Of great interest i have found it to be. A pleasant surprise was to find nestled in between Macbeth and Arms and the man was the play Ghashiram Kotwal , by Vijay Tendulkar .

Vijay Tendulakr has written a huge load of literature of which some of his most famous plays are "Sakharam binder" and "Kanyadan". Girish karnard actually commented on his play "Shantata! Court Chalu Ahe!" as "the best play written in the last thousand years". How do you top something like that?

The play Ghashiram Kotwal debated in 1972 and was played at the Bharat Natya Mandir at Pune. It actually ran for 19 performances after which it was banned because it was perceived as Anti-Brahmin and showed Nana Phadnavis (the Prime minister of the Peshwa) in a bad light. Sounds like things haven't changed much since then.

The play revolves around a North Indian Brahmin called Ghasiram who comes to Pune to make his fortune. But is falsely implicated as a thief by the Brahmins and thus decides to make pune a "city fit for dogs". To do that, he rather callously barters his underage daughter Gauri to the lustful Nana Phadnavis, in exchange for becoming the Kotwal of Pune. He then unleashes a reign of terror on the city and its Brahmins. These includes pulling off the nails of people and then chopping off their hands. Pretty gruesome.
Ghasirams downfall begins when gauri goes missing. When he confronts nana about his daughters whereabouts, he comes to know that she passed away when she had gone to the midwife. A distraught Ghasiram then Packs up thirty Brahmins in a cell which results in the death of about twenty of them. When peshwa gets the news of this, the wily politican Nana, dumps the kotwal to the crowd.

Tendulkar has used the "Tamasha" Genre in the play so you have a lot of singing and dancing used here to good effect. For example, we actually have the "abhangas" (devotional songs) mixed in with the "Lavnis" (Love songs). These actually highlight the moral corruption of the Brahmins as they try to hide their lust behind the respectability of religion. The use of the Tamasha also ensures the presence of some colourful language. For example, when they are talking about the barter of Gauri for the kotwal-ship, Nana says,
"You bastard. you have got me stuck in a narrow pass."
to this Ghasiram replies, "Yes the narrow pass of my daughters."

Also the use of the "Sutradhar" or narrator and the human wall of 12 brahmins as a curtain are some very interesting adaptations used for the theater. This actualy means that this play can be performed anywhere from the NCPA in mumbai to the Ram-lila ground in nagpur.

Sadly I have yet to see the play. It is very sad. Hence the use of the word "sadly". I think it is immensely sad that there are so many neat things to do out there and see for ourself that there is no possible way that we could ever do even a minuscule fraction of them. I think there is something poetically sad about that. Why I wonder, do people like Vijay tendulkar not come out of "pop up windows" demanding my credit card information, with the same frequency as Jenna Jameson?

The Correct Spelling Of Sensationalisation

I am extremely sorry. I do not look for sensationalisation. I can't even spell it. But people don't believe me. They allege that for a few lousy clicks, I lace my titles with racy material like, " The milk factories of Netherland" or some such stuff. Very untrue. In fact to refrain all immoral and libidinous (I expect that this word has negative connotations) persons from opening this, I am determined to use a misleading title. But the fact remains, that some of the news most worth listening to seems to be the ones that you don't want your children to listen to.

Speaking of News, Yesterday was a watershed in Indian News History. This is Rakhi Sawant . I know that these pictures tell an otherwise story, but people in India actually have been known to form lines to kiss her. Apparently yesterday somebody did. As I was doing my regular flick through ESPN on Ch 9 to Star Sports on Ch 32, I saw breaking news on Aaj Tak : "Mika Kisses Rakhi Sawant!" I naturally stopped what I was doing, tried to focus on what was going, and resigned myself to a long watch of the News channel.

For some strange reason, while you had captions flying across the screen that "Mika had kissed Rakhi Sawant", on the screen you had Rakhi Sawant who was kissing the weird looking guy, who was later identified as Mika. Now who the hell is Mika? This fact was not touched upon. Evidently I was one of the only people in the world who had to Google to find out, that Mika is actually the brother of the pop singer Daler Mahendi. On the screen, a teary eyed Rakhi gave the teary eyed explanation, " Well I only kissed him on his cheeks, but then he forcibly kissed me on my lips. Look what the conditions of my lips has become." The camera dutifully zooms-in on Rakhi Sawants bountiful lips, that frankly don't look much worse then they always looked.

Remember that zombie movie in which this guy is flicking channels and he keeps seeing zombies in the network and then it all turns out to be true? This was that sort of a twilight zone. I was hoping that either someone would wake me up, or at least someone, even the news reporter would kiss someone else.

But then if wondering if things could get any more extreme, Aaj Tak took us Live to Ms Rakhi. She was standing in a Modestly see-through outfit, mouthing drab statements like, "I look hot in anything. I think I look more hot and sexy in a sari then in a Mini skirt. I am hot sexness godess personified." Sadly She was interrupted in this tirade of her good looks by the Interviewer, as he informed her that her tormentor, the greatly lip attacker, person of unshaven countenance, Mika, was on the line. Rakhi boldly puckers her lips and shouts out "Hello? hello?" On the other side, this voice that assures us that the term "Highly disfigured" can apply to a sound, says, "hello? Hello?"

This goes on for some time. Before the Interviewer tells us that we sadly have to take a break while they restore connection. On the bottom the news ticker keeps telling us other minor news items like people dying, and earthquakes shaking and volcanoes exploding and that usual chatter.

I am sadly not going to tell you how it all ended. I am sure that they are going to make a tear jerker , pressing-your-fingers-in-tension-till-they-turn-white type of movie, and I don't want to be a spoilsport. But the fact is that they did talk and reach a sort of an understanding. I think this is revolutionary. Not only was Aaj Tak reporting the news, but it was also making it and shaping it. Imagine the implications. If only kargil had happened today, Mushy and Atal ji would be slogging it out live on the news shouting at each other.

AtalJi would muster up his breath and shout, "Hello? Hello? Musharaf Ji, you will have to say say sorry. Hello? Hello?"

Token blog for the Indian Postal Service

I have always been a great fan of the Indian Postal service. Probably because I never use them for anything important. But it’s not as if a person like me does too many important things anyway. So I doubt some executive in the “Daak Bhawan” is staying up late at night worried why I haven’t mailed any letter in the past few months.
What actually fascinates me is the sheer vastness of this system. And the fact that it actually works. Did you know that the Postal department has come out with postcards called “Meghdooth postcards”? I think postcards were designed for a very special section of the society. You know people deeply in love with one another, who then had nothing really to say to each other. So naturally postcards were ideal for them.

But somewhere along the line, poor people hijacked the system and started sending these postcards to programs like “Surabhi” or any other TV programs in a Get-Rich-Quick Scheme. This raised the price of the humble postcards. Now the postal department has come up with these Meghdooth Postcards. You can basically use only one side of these postcards. The other side actually has advertisements. These are ideal for the “Soul mates series”. You see, if you select the Advert carefully, then you basically have nothing more to say. And whatever emotions that might be required, may be displayed by the slant of the alphabets in the address.
These postcards sell for 25 paisa. Just imagine, you might be sitting on a bench at Beach No 7, Havelock Island, in the Andamans, and yet for a mere 25 paisa, convey something extremely uncomplimentary about somebody’s sister in Doda district of J& K. Spectacular!
Then there was the post that I already did about the holiest post office in the world. Some amazing people working in the postal Dept.
Today I went to the GPO for my infrequent round of collecting whatever stamps might have come out. Miniature sheets are my new found love. Last year they came out with a stunning miniature sheet of the Dandi march on its 75th anniversary.
There is a scheme out there now by which you can open an account in any GPO in India (with a minimum or Rs 200) and these guys will send to your house once a month, all the stamps that come out. You can even decide on which sort of stuff you want like first day covers, miniature sheets, etc.

Today I got a miniature sheet of a flower called the Kurinji. These are flowers that bloom once in twelve years. Apparently this is the lucky year and they actually came out with a miniature sheet for that.
Extremely cool and exciting it was.
Sometime I’m afraid that absolute strangers will approach me on the road and ask me if living life on the edge like this, all the time, doesn’t wear me off.
Dad of course does not share this wild adulation of mine, but rather tempers it with some sage annual advice about the procedural loopholes to our postman. The postman very patiently (and politely I might add) hears him out before reminding dad that he was actually waiting for the Diwali Baksheesh. So then both go on their ways, eagerly, I’m sure, awaiting their next annual date.

We're keeping the bomb

Today I gave my English exam. Going back to studies after a long hiatus has its own drawbacks. You start viewing your past academics through an extremely red rosy eye-shades. You forget that the main reason that you left studying was because you sucked at it. You convince yourself that you left studies to attain higher goals and to do some other stuff. Then as you are busy attaining higher goals and doing other stuff, you find images of people going off to Goa in an convertible Merc ( Dil Chahata Hai) of generally getting drunk on walls and falling in the water ( Rang de basanti), and the thought creeps in your mind that there might just be some chance that college might be a bit of fun.
Which brings us back, albeit reluctantly, to the English exam. English has sadly become tougher. Not the language, but the language for me. Even facts like “if” English should be written with a capital “E” or a small “e” or “weather” English should be written with a capital “E” or a small “e” and if it is “weather” or “whether” (which is also an spell check option).
So now I am stuck in a college education which refuses to teach me handwriting, basic grammar and spellings, but insists on my explaining Milton with the exquisite grace and eloquence of RK Narayan. I am just not sure who to blame for the whole fiasco.
Back to the English Exam. It wasn’t so bad. But it was way too long for the amount they expected me to write. In one question, those rascals asked me to write a speech on the motion of “India needs to keep the bomb.” Then in the next Question, they ask me to write a speech against the motion. Finally they also ask me to judge the speeches and the deliver the judge’s speech.
Now as the judge, I was pretty impressed by my argument for the bomb. I mean I had made some really soul stirring statements, irrefutable arguments and rhetorical questions into the whole affair. We are talking about a position where we still have an hour left with us. And I must say that inspite of the fact that there was not much time, I did put up a rock solid opposition to the Bomb. Used the logic-chain-argument to some pretty smashing effect if I may bashfully admit.
Judging the whole thing was going to be a bit of a bitch. Especially if you have only tem minutes left and your arse is frozen solid from sitting on the wooden chair in the humid heat for the last three and half hours.
It was finally decided to build the bomb and keep it unassembled. What a crappy sheeskabab. Good thing the judgment was only for 4 marks.

Flat Chested Mermaids and the sun

There is simply no question about it. Sunrise and sunsets are meant to be seen at sea. I always find it truly remarkable. I mean, you have the same bloody sun. Agreed, depending on the orbit of the earth, its size might increase or decrease a bit. But for all practical purposes, it is a circle the width of your thumb.
And this circle sets on the sea’s horizon. Which for all practical purposes is simply flat water. Sure there are some waves now and again, that with some constructive wishful thinking, can be converted into topless mermaids. Depending on the distance of the waves, they either turn out to be very flatchested Mermaids seen up close, or very un-flatchested mermaids seen from very far. So essentially it’s just a flat horizon over which the sun sets.
And yet, the sheer tireless beauty that the sunset consistently provides you with, never fails to surprise me. Now the sunrise at Tungnath was stunning. But you have to agree, that even a snap of someone like me naked, in that setting, would look halfway decent. I mean the snow would have to be really fluffy, the birds would have to swoop and loop and do those things that they seem to keep doing and the wind would have to do that rustling and all that, but on the whole, I think we could just about pull it off.
The disadvantage of being a chief officer is that you keep the four to eight watches. But the good part is of course that unless you are in the Polar Regions, the sun crosses the horizon in your watch. My second Officer, Pawan Duggirala, flatly refused to take pictures of the sunsets. Apparently he had taken so many pictures of the sunsets that he had strict instructions to desist from any such further actions. Apparently his family preferred to have his snaps over the sun.

Let her roll

So I am finally back. The good thing as far as the blog is concerned is that I can finally put in some snaps out here. This was after all intended to be a travel based blog and what use is that if I don’t put in some snaps?

The first thing I did do was to put in a snap of a ship that is sort of the ship that I was on. The sad part is that it doesn’t give a reference size to us sitting out in the open sea. But it is a size of a ship called a “suezmax” and should suffice.
One of the things that people ask me constantly is if these ships roll. The answer is yes. In seas like the ones here, they do. And my ship particularly liked to do so in a ballast condition. Would have explained the concept of GM and GZ curves to you in greater detail, but I flunked Ship Stability – 3.
This particular sea state is about beaufort wind scale 9, which is pretty bad, or as Captain Haddock would say, a bracing Breeze.

The turkish files - 1

Because I have no burning desire to be struck off my inheritance, I shall not say much about my parents’ house except this. It does not seem to be a place, to inspire people wishing to possess it, to go on sprees of wars, murders & random killings to achieve their ends. I did not find this to be the case with Turkey.

I am sure that there must be places in Turkey, which must be oasis of peace & love. Places where poets & lovers converge to indulge in the others profession without much success. Places where the sun shines through the morning mist on the diamonds of the dewdrops floating on the ocean of green grass. Places, which I have simply not seen. Not with my own eyes, not on TV, not in the movies. As far as I can categorically say, like rendition, it simply does not exist.

My deep research over the past month, through the above-mentioned media, have led me to have much greater insight into this fascinating country that I never had. Simply said, Turkey is one angry country. Few places probably other then those like India, Jerusalem, and the sets of Terminator have seen more bloodshed then that of Turkey. You have but to look at the world map, nay, simply give it a bare glance, to know that if you want to go anywhere in this world, you have to kill a few people in Turkey. And that precisely is the reason for the resentment out here. Throughout history, people have fought, died, killed, pillaged, plundered, looted, razed, murdered, plotted and all that, in Turkey, simply so that they could go to some other place. Unless you have had a life like mine, where women constantly mob you, so that they can get your pals phone number, you can barely grasp the deep trauma that this nation has gone through in its tumultuous history.

Whether you were a young Greek upstart who wanted to rule the world, or some wizened Pope, who wanted a flag to fly over Jerusalem, or a sailor who wanted to fill up his ship in the Black sea, you had to cross Turkey. We shall concern ourselves with the latter.

The US Navy refers to the Mediterranean as ‘The Lagoon’. But for some reason, some of the worst weather I have experienced, has been in the Med. The problem is exacerbated by the fact that in the confines of the Med, you find yourself unable to even alter your course & dodge the meandering lows. So it was with a sense of relief that I left the relatively open waters and entered the Aegean Sea. To get from the Aegean Sea to the Black sea, one needs to pass through two very narrow straits in Turkey with a small mass of water between them, about a hundred miles wide, called ‘the Marmara Sea’ Tired of ships making a mess of matters in their territorial waters, just to get to the other side, the Turkish authorities have taken the managing of the maritime traffic into their own hands & made pilotage compulsory for large ships. Inspite of that, mess-ups do happen. Take for instance the fact that for the last five days, traffic in the Canakkale straits is blocked because one of the ships ran aground at a tricky bend. Thus causing the rest of us to wait at the mouth of the channel. Something like a huge truck breaking down in the middle of a narrow bridge, piling up traffic on either side. So while the Turks sip their tea & pull with their tugs, the ships keep piling up in their coastal seas, spewing up sewage & category five garbage, waiting so that they can go some place else.

You know, sometimes I really feel for these people.

The absence explained

 

Sorry for the inconvenience. Before I go any further I must confess that I have not logged on the internet for more then a month, and even now I'm not really logged on to the net, but am only sending this through the mail.

 

So you will all forgive me if in my fervent imagination I see millions of clicks on the blog & thousands dropping messages wondering if I was dead in some winding road in the himalayas & if they could finally open the Bubbly & start the party.

 

I am here to tell those people that sadly they shall have to wait. But they can take solace in the fact that my event less journey continued in rather the same manner till Delhi & from there to my house in Nagpur. It shall please me to great extents to go into that episode of my life in great detail at some later time & place. But not now.

 

Now, I’m in the middle of the Atlantic & I doubt that there is an internet café closer then a thousand miles in any direction. I am stuck here in the middle of the Atlantic because this is what I do. When I say that this is what I do, I don’t mean that I generally get stuck in the middle of the Atlantic on an arbitrary Wednesday evening. It is my job. I work on ships. So I get stuck in the middle of the Atlantic because they pay me to.

 

Actually over the last month or so since I dipped off the Radar, I've been over to a couple of places in the US, to Venezuela & am on the way to Turkey, Russia & then a couple of ports in Europe. So I figure I'll just tell you about them until I can make it back to the Himalayas.

 

So I'll keep dropping a mail or two a week & see how it goes. You all keep floating & I'll try to do the same over here.

 

And keep that bubbly on the ice a little longer.

The fat man & the river

Finally the river rafting did happen. I went over to rdz position called the Marine drive, the first thing in the morning. The first thing in the morning, was not 7 as I had supposed it to be, but rather sometime closer to ten. It turned out that my partners for the raft were four French. One lady & three other chaps. Right besides us another team was busy getting themselves ready, so we waited for them to get in the water.

Those guys spent at least 15 min on land itself, learning the theory of river rafting & how to dig into the water with your paddles & such stuff. In fact the way that instructor was going, you would be forgiven for thinking that he was intent on covering everything between wearing a condom to the basics of astro-physics.
So when my guide asked me to get in the boat, I was a bit apprehensive. But then the minute we were in the boat, he pushed off & we were actually rafting. This caused much panic & what the French call an “ au-something”. I think they call it a lot of things, because we suddenly had a lot of French people shouting a lot of things in French. A guy, who later turned out to be a chap called “Marcus” finally identified the problem as being that we still did not have our paddles.
The consequent hunt for paddles resulted in bringing to light that fact that we were one paddle short. The French have an extensive vocabulary for this sort of thing as well.

Being the native, the guide reasoned with me in Hindi to give up my paddle & assured me that sitting in the middle of the boat, doing nothing, while the others sweated themselves was much more satisfying.
I have always considered myself a very rational person & I must admit that there were very few flaws in his logic chain. So I very graciously gave my paddle to the French lady, an action which I am sure has many French words for it.
One of the immediate advantages of this, as I found later was the fact that I could take photographs. Did I mention that I dive? Well two major advantages I had because of that, was that I was wearing my wet-suit shorties & I had my camera in its underwater casing. Very thankful I was of both. By the end of the day the French had loosened up a bit too & Marcus even met up with me & had a beer back in Delhi.

All in all, I enjoyed rafting a lot, but I doubt that I will be doing much of it in the future. Firstly the water is cold. For some reason ice insists on melting at a temperature that I consider ridiculously low. Secondly I doubt that I will always be fortunate enough to be stuck in a boat with a paddle short.
And rafting just seems to much work to remain fun after a couple of years. But it does seem a fun place to learn some French.

The floating prayers

One of the neat things about Ganga & especially the Rishikesh is the tradition of sending lighted diya’s down the river. Throughout the day you find these riverside shops selling the small lamps. At nightfall, they light them up & send them floating downriver with a small prayer.

On some nights (and I have seen the pictures) thousands of these lamps are sent down the river & the sight of these things floating downriver is like a whole river of fire. Very impressive to say the least.

Things like these seem to have an innate “Indianness” about them. I mean a year from now if someone asks me to mention a peculiarly Indian custom, this would probably be one of them.

In Rishikesh, there are essentially two images that stick with me.
The first one was of this huge bull standing in the middle of the market. And it was REALLY huge. And looked so mean that almost the whole market had stopped, waiting till the bull ambled along. I was myself stuck right in front of it & was wondering how I would get across, when out walked a calf & started nuzzling the bull.

Here you had this forbearing, brooding sullen bull, which no one seemed to be willing to touch with a ten foot pole, & this calf was nuzzling his neck. My mind was flooded with all sorts of similes & metaphors & stuff, but in the end I just enjoyed the scene for what it was.

The second scene is that of the lit lamps being sent down the river. This young girl of about 14 years took a lit lamp & put it in the river, the second it left her hand, the flame extinguished. & the poor girl wanted to get back the lamp, but it was already drifting away. She looked back at her mom, but no one was looking at her then. So she silently turned back to her extinguished diya floating away in the darkening scene.

Rishikesh

We moved out of Karnaprayag before the clouds died their gruesome deaths. We were going back over the same road we had taken while going so there were no real surprises waiting for us. Just crazy bus drivers who would run us off the road in a cloud of dust & honks.
I had briefly played around with the idea of venturing into new roads by heading south to Almora & stuff. But probably the only reason that I decided to make it back via Rishikesh was for the river rafting.
I have been diving for the last couple of years , but somehow, never got around to river rafting, which is just about 5 hours from Delhi. Something like procrastinating some work in your back yard.

On the way to the hills, we had passed Rishikesh a bit early in the morning. We had had breakfast early in the morning & been out of the town in 15 min. Now we were finding a place to stay there early in the evening. Now it seemed to be more of the type of Indian city I had expected to find here. Cow’s, Israeli’s, assorted white people in Indian clothes & assorted Indian people in Western clothes. All with a generous sprinkling of Sadhu’s & other unshaven fat people who were busy commenting on all of the above.

Because the GMVN accommodation was so neat at Karnaprayag, we moved into the GMVN place out there too, bit more expensive then the other places on offer, but the place was nice.

Since it was dark already, there wasn’t much to do. Went down to the Ram jhula. It’s a bridge across the Ganga, that actually moves as you walk along it. I read somewhere that marching on bridges is banned because of the harmonic vibrations that are set in & stuff. Reminded me of that.
Across the bridge, is where the actual old Rishikesh is. Here you have small streets, more cows & of course more white tourists. I whiled away the time a bit by taking photographs of tourists. I figured that might give them something to talk about. :)

Also found an internet café there & sat on line for a while. A few people had replied to my queries about rafting that I had put out before I had left on the trip, so I took down the numbers & made a few calls. The programme set for the next day, I went back & dropped off to sleep. Tomorrow, I was to river raft. And I still had my reservations about the cold water.

The river and the others

Stayed for the night at a GMVN guest house at Karnaprayag. The resort was right besides the Alaknanda river. She is a river still in its youth. Sloshing & gurgling its way over the rocks, hurrying on its way, forthy & ever changing. Its not even very deep here & rocks keep jutting out of its surface at odd places. Around these rocks, the river lodges a protest with a eddy & a few bubbles. The birds insist on hopping from one rock to the other, as if unequal to the task of crossing over to in one jump. To strengthen this feeling, they pump their tails up & down , pumping themselves for the next big hop. There are lush green mountains on either side of us & in the morning the fog came down the valley but dared not come to more then a meter or two above the rivers surface. Mocking & admiring it alternatively. As the sun came up, the fog went to the top of the mountain, where it currently resides, desperately trying to stay hidden in the folds & shadows of the peaks, pig-headedly ignoring its true calling.

The water is very cold.

 

Day 5 - The way back

Badrinath was the end of our trip. Though none of us said it, I doubt any of us wanted to go further then the last tea shop in India.
So after Mana we backtracked over the NH 58. For some reason, the route back always seems to be the shorter then when you are first going there. On the way back, we stopped at a place called Gobindghat to check out the trek to Valley of flowers & Hemkund Sahib.
The valley of flowers, now a national park was "discovered" by an Englishman sometime early this century. I think before he wrote about it, it was some black hole or something. But its supposed to have all these wild flowers & butterflies & all. very nice if you are into that sort of a thing. At Hemkund sahib, you have a lake. Besides this lake, i read somewhere that the tenth guru of the Sikhs has meditated inan earlier life. I found this "in his earlier life" concept very confusing, because i'm sure we all do a lot of things in our earlier lives & it just doesn't seem practical to make piligrimages to all the things your guru did in all his earlier lives. So I was looking forward to sorting that out. These are beautiful treks, but my body was one painful mass of muscles. I must admit a sneaking sense of relief when we found out that the Whole place had already shut down for the winter. I made loud groaning noises of disappointment, but left before someone decide to open the trail again.

We made it past Rudraprayag and reached a place called Karnaprayag by nightfall, where we decided to put up for the night.

Day 5 - The last tea stall in India

 
The only place left to go before we returned was up to Mana, where the road ends. There were a few interesting things up there that I wanted to tick off before I left. Firstly was the Vyas gufa (cave), where the Maharishi Vyas sat down to write the Epic “Mahabharata” . It is a smallish cave and I doubt that the scene has changed much in the last 5113 years that have passed.
Also of note were the Ganesh Gufa. I don’t think Ganesh would have been too happy about his Dad, Shiva being tricked out of the home. Part of his legacy & ancestral property I suppose. It’s a nice little cave & sat there for a little while.
And finally, the thing that no one told me about, the last tea shop in India. Mana is a village that remains open only six months in a year. As such it is the last village on the trail.
After mana, you only have wild trails passing through wild & inhospitable climates up to the China border. As a result, this is apparently the last tea shop this side of the Border. After this you’ll find only snow lemurs & penguins till the China border, crossing which I am sure you will find at least a stall selling pirated DVD’s.

Day 5 - The oldest Land grab in History

Well after the meeting with Guddu, there really wasn’t much to do in Badrinath. I took a thali of Prasad from him & went for the Darshan. I had already been to the Aarti the last evening & this thousands of year old temple had not changed much overnight.


There is a nice bit of trivia associated with this temple. Apparently one time, long time ago, Badrinath was the abode of Lord Shiva. It is even named so because of the Badri berries that grow here that are a favorite of Shiva. Now one day Vishnu came upon this place & liked it so much that he wanted to move in. As the place was already occupied, he transformed himself into a child & went up to Parvati (Shiva’s wife). Parvati, being a mother & all, let Vishnu into the house inspite of Shiva’s reluctance. Now the next time, shiv & Parvati went out of the house, probably for shopping or whatever they would do out here, Vishnu turned to his real form & occupied Badrinath. This is probably the oldest recorded case of an illegal occupation of a house. Even to this day, the Shiv temple is located outside the temple complex near the river.
As a owner of a new house myself, I sought out the place & offered my respects & sympathies.

A sadhu out there