Many years ago, I came across the song ‘Brother John’ by Chris de Burgh. Chris de Burgh sings the song with a lot of passion, like he usually does. The lyrics narrates the story of a brother in a seminary who is attracted to a woman. One day she sees him spying on her and asks him “Brother John, it’s hard to be holy; would you like to be a man?” Chris sings this line with a lot of oomph with the word ‘man’ sung in a whisper. Towards the end of the song, Chris announces “the devil laughed, and the angels cried for the soul of Brother John”. Chris de Burgh’s singing makes the song visual. This song was very popular in the hostel and for a few months we used to listen to it regularly. Many years later, for absolutely no reason, I played this song to a Christian colleague. Being a patient and nice person, he listened to the song quietly. At the end, he turned to me and asked, “you are a rebel, isn’t it?” I was shocked and could not respond. I have never considered myself to be a rebel. If anything, I was just the opposite. I tried to fit in and keep a low profile. That night, I lay on my bed with the question “am I a rebel?” running around my head. The thought of being a rebel thrilled me, but the pragmatic part of my brain had no doubts about my not being a rebel. On further exploration I had to accept that my colleague had got it wrong. I was not a rebel. He had misunderstood the display of my contempt for most aspects of life as rebellion. Without doubt, religion stood at the head of my list of aspects in life that need to be mocked and yet, on many occasions, I call out to God for help.
“Oh God! Please let us board the flight without any issues”. I had spent many minutes during the previous three days visiting the Indigo website and checking in the passengers (us) and their luggage, loading information about their health and promising the airlines that the corona virus has not possessed them during the past few days and that they were perfectly sane. I had taken print outs of some fifteen documents. Still, I was not sure, if we will be able to board the flight. So, I called out to whichever God would listen for help.
As I approached the security person at the entrance of the airport, I felt an initial relief run through me as I observed that he only verified each person’s boarding pass and the identification card. Soon we crossed the different checks points and found ourselves inside the flight. Much to our surprise, our body temperature was not measured even once. It is tougher to get into a mall than to fly to another city in the country.
Unexpected rains had brought down the temperature of Chennai by around 10 ͦ C. So, the heat that welcomed us in Chandigarh came as a shock. For a second, we considered cancelling the trip and going back to Chennai. But we laughed at the ridiculous thought and walked bravely into the Chandigarhi heat. We spent the next ten hours with my cousin whom I met after twenty years. When we started the trip, we only expected to have an occasional dose-a and sambrrrrrr during the next three weeks. But my cousin’s mother-in-law had prepared a fantastic Thanjavurian lunch for us. I will never forget the taste of her puliyodare.
We were supposed to get into a Volvo bus from outside the Sohana Gurudwara in Mohali at 1 AM. When I booked the ticket in the Redbus application, I expected the place to be a bus stand with a beautiful Volvo bus with the words ‘National Travels’ written on its side waiting for us to board. My expectations were far from reality. The bus did not start from Mohali but from Delhi and this was only a stop enroute to the destination. Also, there was no bus stand with chairs. Instead, we were expected to stand besides a signal in front of the gurudwara. We reached the spot at 12:30 AM. The Redbus application had promised to give us a mechanism to track the bus’ location, but it did not fulfill this promise. So, I called the helper on the bus and asked him about the bus’ arrival time. He said that the bus was stuck in traffic, and he had no idea when it will reach the stop. The best estimate that I could get was that it would reach after 1:30 AM. So, the three of us were stuck by a signal in front of a gurudwara at Mohali with two large suitcases in the middle of the night.
Earlier, my cousin had mentioned that we could wait inside the gurudwara if we had to. The large and open gates of the gurudwara seemed a welcoming sight for us. We had never been to a gurudwara earlier. So, we tentatively walked into the gurudwara dragging our large suitcases behind us. Soon, we saw two elderly men with flowing white beards sitting in a shed. They observed us silently. We approached them and one of us asked “We are waiting for a bus. Can we spend some time inside the Gurudwara?” One of them responded “Sure. Wear a scarf over your head and go in. Do you want some tea?” We did not want ‘some tea’, but it seemed impolite to say so and so we said “Sure”. He responded, “ask someone near the gurudwara”. I picked up a saffron scarf and tied it around my head. The man who had not spoken so far looked at me disapprovingly and said, “not that way”. I took off the scarf and tied it again. The look of disapproval did not go away. He was about to say something when, the other man said, “it’s ok; go ahead”.
Though it was past midnight, we found several men, women and children in the gurudwara and its grounds. We sat on chairs in a shed by the stairs of the main structure. After a few moments, we decided to take turns to go into the gurudwara. As I waited for the other two to come back, I decided to take a selfie. I opened the camera application on my phone, toggled it to the front camera and looked into the screen. Instantly, I realized that there was something wrong with the way I tied the scarf. The scarf was in the shape of a square and one had to fold it along the diagonal before tying it. When folded had two ends: one pointed and the other straight. One was expected to tie it such that the straight side was in the front, on one’s forehead, and the pointed side was at the back of one’s head. I had done the reverse. The pointed side was on my forehead and my headgear looked like Loki’s helmet without the metallic sideburns and horns. I quickly corrected the mistake.
The structure stood at a height and at the bottom of the stairs that led to it was a shallow pool of water. One had to walk through the water prior to climbing the stairs. This ensured that everyone washed their feet prior to entering the holy place. At the top of the stairs was a set of doors through which I walked into a large hall. The ceiling of the hall was decorated with coloured mirrors. I was reminded of the hall in the ‘pyar kiya tho darna kya’ scene of Mughal-e-azaam. To my left was a platform. A few men were folding large sheets of cloth on the platform as they chanted a verse repeatedly. I started circumambulating the platform. On one side of the platform, a set of weapons were placed on a wooden cot. The only place I had seen weapons like these were in the glass cases of museums. I continued walking. At the end of one round, I stood by the weapons and wondered what to do next. I turned around and walked out of the holy place.
When I reached back to the seating area, I found that the people at the gurudwara were determined to make us consume tea. The tea was neither good nor bad. We waited for another thirty minutes. People continued to walk around the gurudwara. They busied themselves in cleaning the already clean place. Some arranged the already well-arranged shoes and slippers by the stairs. At 1:30 AM, I got a call from the bus. They informed that the bus would reach the stop in another ten minutes. We quickly picked our luggage and left the gurudwara.
The bus seemed flashy from the outside but quite ordinary inside. The seats that we had reserved were occupied by others but there were three other empty seats towards the front of the bus. As we tried to fit into our seats, we disturbed all the sleeping bodies around. The seats were cramped, and it felt like the person in the seat ahead was sleeping on my lap. I managed to find a reasonably comfortable position and started watching the road through the windshield in the front. We drove along the highway towards the mountains. Within an hour, the roads started twisting and turning around the mountains. I closed my eyes. I did not sleep well as the journey was not smooth.
At 6:30 AM, the bus stopped near a restaurant for a short break. We were a few hours from our destination. Ten Volvo buses were lined outside the restaurant and the passengers from the buses roamed about the large open space besides the restaurant. The open space overlooked a valley through which the river Beas flowed. As plain as my words are, I believe, it still enhances the beauty of the place, which was anything but beautiful. As in many places in north India, this one too was enveloped in fine dust. The river was not much more than a sliver of water flowing between the rocks. Too many vehicles plied on the road. The pile of people in the open space were increasing due to the constant flow of buses.
The remaining part of the journey was miserable. The roads were being expanded from two to four lanes. In many stretches, the road was reduced to rubble. To make matters worse, flow of vehicles from both sides was heavy. The dust due to the rubble on the road and construction was all around and though it did not get into the bus, the sight by itself was disturbing. By this time, the bus driver had lost his patience and was honking at everyone on the road. The road ran along the river and as we climbed higher, the river seemed more like a river. The water ran and jumped over the many rocks and pebbles that occupied the riverbed. The Volvo-ness of the bus blocked the sound of the rushing river though.
At 9:45 AM, the bus finally reached its destination, Manali.
Memorable journey.
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