My usual Monday morning tizzy came to a brief halt
when I thought there was something out of sync. The girl at the door to pick up
the laundry was particularly well-dressed for a work day morning. Then the
house help remarked in passing that her teenage daughters are doing ‘vrat’
today. Suddenly it dawned upon me that it’s a holiday due to Janmashtami and
that I can actually recalibrate my pace of work—no classes or work meetings. Amidst
these thoughts, I suddenly felt that surge of joy one feels when one knows it’s
a holiday. That feeling reminded me of the days of early youth when one could genuinely
enjoy a sudden break to the week’s routine.
Close to two decades ago, as a young adult in a
college hostel in Delhi, I sauntered down for lunch to the hostel mess one
Janmashtami day. Spotting two of my friends tucking in the Janmashtami feast, I
joined them and remarked on the special fare that day. I also added that I had
heard it was an established practice in student hostels in Delhi to serve a
feast on a day when most of the country is fasting to mark the birth of
Krishna. None of us minded that we were feasting when many were fasting. After
all we were young people living on mess fare.
The conversation suddenly became interesting when my
friend remarked that it would be wonderful to be in Mathura on Janmashtami day.
Being young, energetic, curious and mildly adventurous I suggested that we
could attempt that. Within minutes we managed to convince each other that we
should actually set out to find out what it would be like in Mathura that day.
We bolted down the food on our plates and rushed to our rooms to check whether
we had sufficient money to travel out of Delhi. This was the pre-ATM era in
India. To our dismay, our combined resources was less than two hundred rupees
but that would not stop us. We started knocking on the doors of our friends to
borrow some money for our plan to work out. Most of them dismissed us as crazy
creatures who are asking them to finance the risky venture of dashing down to a
pilgrim town on the day when it’s likely to be hosting millions of people. Finally,
a sister soul decided to lend us around three hundred rupees but politely
refused our offer of turning it into a three women adventure.
And we set out for the New Delhi station, armed with
the knowledge that most south bound trains are likely to stop at Mathura. All
we needed to do was get tickets for one and we will be in Mathura by late
afternoon. That was not to be. We managed to get tickets for a train called Janta Express, which took close to six hours to finally release us around
dusk on the milling platform of Mathura station. Although it was chock-a-block with people looking for vehicles to go the main temples in Vrindaavan
and Mathura, probably we stuck out in the crowd—two young women in khadi
kurtas, cotton pants, and flat sandals with tiny knapsacks on our backs. If I
were a tour guide or a tout or a tempo driver who wanted to make some good
money without the hassle of haggling with the regulars to the temple town, I
would definitely have picked that pair of young women who seemed to be calmly checking out the scene. It was not at all astonishing
that a young autorickshaw driver made a beeline for us and told us that he
could take us for darshan to the Baanke Behari temple and deposit us at the
Krishna Janmabhoomi temple within two hours if we agreed to pay him Rs.200/- We definitely did not want to spend that princely sum on a ride into Vrindaavan from Mathura and got into a crowded open rickshaw that should seat seven people but already had nine people sitting on three seats. Along with the driver, we made a neat dozen dashing through the crowded streets.
Not for a second did we
feel any apprehension or anxiety as women travellers. It wasn’t that those were safer times.
However, I feel we were sure about two things—we had no expensive goods on our
person or in our knapsacks and that no one would dare commit a crime in a pilgrim
place on the most important day for the worship of the reigning deity of the
place.
We were hurled through the town to reach the Baanke Behari
temple in Vrindavaan while our driver-cum-tour operator told us the story of
Krishna’s miraculous birth. I silently wondered why he thought travellers to Mathura on Janmashtami day would not know that tale. But it’s always fun to
listen to a local burst with pride about their town and its history. I am yet
to figure out how our guide managed to lead us to the temple, through the
milling crowds and how we got out within half an hour of joining that ocean of human beings inside the huge hall of the temple. I have no memory of how we got back to Mathura and found ourselves outside the Krishna Janambhoomi temple. It's highly likely we rattled through the roads in another overcrowded autorickshaw.
It was utterly impossible to do anything but follow
the crowds into the main hall and bow our heads in the general direction where
the idol was placed in the temple. I am not sure whether I managed to get a glimpse of the
idol but the devotion in the hall was palpable. After exiting the temple, we
followed the crowds to the Dwarkadhish temple, to watch the enactment of the
birth of Krishna being performed in the large inner courtyard of the temple.
The midnight hour when the baby Krishna was declared to be have been born was
the high point of the trip for me. Amidst the celebratory cries and appeals by
the management committee to not crowd the stage to pay respects to the new-born
infant god, I sat spellbound. I was trying to comprehend this experience of
being a witness to guileless bhakti—a moment when the performance is forgotten
by thousands of people and they unite in a mass suspension of disbelief.
While I was wrapping my head around this magical experience, my friend whispered
that we should be heading out towards the railway station before the thousands
of pilgrims around decide to head in that direction.
Stepping out of that zone into the biggest annual fair
of the temple town reminded me that we hadn’t had a bite since we gobbled down
the Janmashtami feast in our hostel’s mess. We walked among the sparsely
populated shops, had thick creamy milk and the famous Mathura ka peda for
dinner and took a tonga through the dimly lit lanes to the railway station. We managed
to buy sleeping berths for a train to Delhi which was scheduled to arrive at
Mathura station around 3.30 AM. Being among the early ones reaching the station
that night, we managed to plonk ourselves on one of two unoccupied benches to wait for our train. While my friend nodded beside me, I held on to a book
and watched the station master working really hard to ensure that there were
no squatters on the platform that night. I quietly wondered why we were allowed undisturbed
access to that bench.
A couple of years after that trip my friend got
married and left the country. The global uncertainty of 2020 brought her back
into my life. When I reminded her of that Janmashtami trip on Janmashtami day
of 2020, she remarked that the trip and those times now seem like they were
from a different janam. This morning I was reminded of her remark and wondered
whether it was possible to travel back in time by jotting down a memory of an
impulsive trip.
