Wednesday, June 1
Jammu
We are in the town of Jammu, our second night here in three days. In between we traveled through the foothills of the Himalayas to make pilgrimage to the shrine of Vaishno Devi. Amidst the myriad of sacred sites in India, there are two primary pilgrimage sites devoted to the three manifestations of the divine Mother. A Hindu site, pilgrims to Vaishno Devi, known as Yatris, come to receive the blessings of health, wealth, contentment, and 'Moksha' - liberation from the wheel of life, death and rebirth. Religious practice is intrinsic to life in India and pilgrimage sites are prolific. We have been now to several of the most significant. Our experiences at Vaishno Devi and the Ghats of Varanassi have been especially powerful to our journey in India.
Vaishno Devi is located at Katra, a small town which draws it's livelihood from the massive numbers of Vaishno Devi Yatris, eight million annually. Work the math on that and you can imagine the daily average, and the size of the crowd in which we found ourselves, After waking in Jammu and traveling to Katra, eating and waiting for the peak heat of the day to pass, it was 2 pm when we set out to begin the 13 km hike up the mountain to the shrine at the top. Our goal was to reach the top at dusk to take in the view at sunset. Descending in the dark was not a concern, the broad, concrete block path is lined by light poles. Shops and food vendors, check points, first aid, and some sections of covered path are dotted throughout the route. Enthusiastic for the rigor of the hike and this new adventure, little did we know what lay ahead.
Never on the hike were we out of sight of other pilgrims and never in the course of the day did we encounter other westerners. While we have seen only a handful of folks like us since India, our presence in this place was a particular curiosity. As has happened frequently through the trip, members of our group were asked to have their picture taken, brave children who knew some English ventured " hello," and Shelley was targeted with multiple offers of marriage. Several times we were asked how we had learned about this place. Whatever reason our odd crowd had had dropped into their world, they made us welcome and shouted to us the chant that was the mantra of this hike 'Jai Mata Di, ' and we joined in.
I am not sure what was more perplexing, our startling presence to those around us or our startled awareness of the complex scene. The path was thick with pilgrims of every age, on multiple modes of transport. While most were on foot, many ascended the mountain on one of the multitude of festively adorned horses, the horse's handler scrambling behind, fervently hanging on to the animal's tail. Women dressed in blue swept fervently to clear the path of the copious amounts of horse dung. For those too infirmed or privileged for foot or horse, there was the regal option of being borne in a litter, carried on the shoulders of three or four men. The cost of this option, David discovered, was per pound weight of the passenger. Finally, for those truly above it all and with the means to do so, a helicopter made deliveries to the top complete with a VIP resting area apart from the teeming masses. Class difference and the gap between rich and poor is deeply pronounced in this country.
As anticipated, our sweaty selves arrived at the top just before dusk, around 6:30pm (still wondering why the locals don't seem to sweat in this daunting heat.) Entrance to the shrine was a long and complicated wait. The pilgrimage itself having been our goal, we decided to forego the wait and began our descent. The view across the rugged landscape was itself worth the hike. Looking at the emerging stars, we couldn't miss the dark clouds in the distance, but we were confident as the sky above us was clear. Rapidly, however, the clouds scuttled in and lightening in the distance moved closer. An admitted phobic about lightening, Amy began tutoring us in the proper crouch to assume in a thunderstorm. A quarter of the way down the mountain, the occasional raindrop suddenly turned to a torrent and the sky opened with an onslaught of hail like I have never seen, all just as we dodged into one of the shelters. For the next forty-five minutes, we were refugees with a mass of fellow pilgrims, numerous horses and a goat that nudged its way into our huddle The ringing of hail on the tin roof was deafening and the temperature turned quickly frigid. As water began pouring down our side of the path we climbed across a railing to the other side,, just as the path turned into a raging stream. Now pressed into half the space, groups circled to fend off the cold, dodging spots where the shelter leaked. Tarps emerged from the groups of resourceful Indians, more wise and prepared about the elements than we. Seemingly non-pulsed, they squatted beneath their tarps and above the roar of the storm and crash of lightening (which by now had knocked out all the lights) occasionally shouted out the reassuring 'Jai Mata Di.'. Dreaming of the rain poncho and headlamp I had foolishly left in our hotel room, we circled our group up tight to retain body heat, taking turns with bodies in the middle. We watched the path grow smaller as the rushing stream widened, imagining what might be ahead. Secretly I recalled media images of people swimming through areas flooded by India monsoons. Despite what seemed a worst case scenario, what pervaded our circle was a transcendent calm. The power of community kept us humorful and comforted. The goat nudged closer into our circle as the path continued to narrow, and then just as it had begun, the storm suddenly took a turn and the torrent began to subside. At this point, Nate (the former Army veteran in our group) wisely declared, "On the scale of danger to discomfort, I think we have moved to majority discomfort." And so we ventured out of the shelter.
Leaving the calm refuge of the shelter, we now faced a dark and slippery path and 5 kilometers to the bottom. Enthused rather than dampened by the storm, the night was now filled with even more shouts of pilgrims. Nighttime, we now learned, being the favored time to hike, we found ourselves pressed between growing hoards coming towards us and equal numbers behind us. In the dark (all lights on the path still out) we held hands and linked arms feeling our way along, occasionally jerking each other from the paths of fast moving horses and the poles of litters which made the dark path a surreal obstacle course. Serendipitously in the chaos, we rounded one corner and in a glimpse of rare light ran smack into Jonathan Kramer who taking his own pace up the mountain had been separated from the group since the hike began. We added him to our human chain and by midnight we gratefully reached our starting place.
The post-apocalyptic scene of Old Delhi, had just been matched and trumped by the added elements of nature's torrent and physical survival. What has become the most memorable chapter of this trip, over breakfast the next morning, we all declared was also our finest hour. As pilgrimages ideally give us, what we discovered was our own better selves. Rarely have I been as proud of a group, or as admiring and grateful for such fine company.
Jai Mata Di!
