Flashback of a Janmashtami in Mathura

 

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.