A moment to think in Paraganj

So I've landed in a few hours in Paraganj, the hub of Indian backpacking, in Delhi. I'm going up to Haridwar this afternoon to meet up with the Ganga. Paraganj is, perhaps, the sole reason that India has a reputation as a dirty place. It's the dirtiest place I've ever been, and almost every westerner who comes to India goes through Paraganj, and gets sick on old food and repackaged tap water in the shitty resturants here. So I try to get in and out as quickly as possible.

Orchha was an absolutely gorgeous peaceful place, with breathtaking forts and palaces and temples. It was a small town, and wisely markets itself to tourists as a place free of touts and scams, and it was. There was a river with water in it, so I got to spend the hot part of the day sitting in it, like a water buffallo. This is where the Queen of Jhansi single handedly defeated the British in 1857. It was the capital of the Rajput state of Jhansi since the 1600's, and the Rajputs left behind lots of gorgeous forts and temples, which I could have spent weeks exploring. But I had already made plans to get up to Haridwar, and I don't regret only spending one day there.

This next portion of my journey, the last one, has been on my mind since early in my time in Banaras. It's really meaningful to me, and I hope it will bring resolution, purity, and clarity to my trip before I return home. Haridwar located right where the Ganga comes rushing out of the Himalayas, it is second only to Varanasi in it's holiness, and far surpasses it in natural beauty, or so I have heard. It's an hour away from Rishikesh, which is the local tourist city where the Beatles lived for a time while they wrote the White Album. I hope to avoid rishikesh completely. I will spend a week in an ashram there on the banks of the ganga, and then I hope to go up to the head of the Ganga, at Gangotri and Gomouk. Gangotri is where the temple at the head of the ganga is, where it comes leaping out of Gomouk glacier, but I hope to also hire a guide and trek up to the glacier itself.

I want to tell the story of the ganga here, because it's been really important to my trip so far, and it is really important to the citizens of Varanasi and Haridwar.

Ancient india was devided into thousands of princely states, who often warred with each other. There was no political unity. A powerful and just new king ascended to the throne in Ayodia (later, the kingdom of Ram himself). The ancient tradition is, when a new king ascends to the throne, they send a horse with his flag galloping through all of India. As the horse passes through the various kingdoms, the kings decide if they will be allys or enemies with the new king; if they will be ally, they let the horse pass through their territory, if they be enemy, they capture the horse and wait for the King's army to come. As the horse was galloping though the kingdom of the Kysrias (translated, of course, as "demons"), the king had his minions capture the horse. Immediatly they became afraid of the just king's wrathful army, and so they hid the horse, tying it to a tree next to the spot where an ancient and divine sage was deep in mediatation. This sage had made a solemn vow that if anyone was to disturb his meditation, he would immediatly burn them upon waking. This was not a malevolent vow, it was just to ensure peace. After being in India, I understand that this is the extreme you have to go to to get a little bit of peace, a bit of personal space. So the demons quietly tied the horse to the tree near the sage, and quietly left. In the mean time, the King of Ayodia realized the horse had not returned, so he sent out his hundred brothers (of course he had a hundred brothers, as any good king does), to find the horse. After much searching, the brothers finally found the horse under the tree near the sadhu. In their igorance, they assumed that the sadhu had stolen the horse, and roughly awakened him. As they awakened him, he opened his eyes and immediatly burnt them all into a hundred piles of ash with his karmic energy. After a time, the king realized his brothers had not returned, and went out himself to search for them. He came across the sadhu, and the piles of ashes. As he was wise, he did not blame or find anger with the sadhu, he instead repented for his brothers' ignorance and begged the sadhu to tell him how his brothers might find salvation in death and be released from the karmic cycle. The saddhu told him that only the river ganga could clease their sins and grant enlightenment. At this time, the ganga was not on earth, it was in the domain of Vishnu in heaven. For the rest of his life, the king did deep penance to Vishnu and begged him to bring the Ganga on to the earth. He was unsuccsessful. His son, the next king, did the same thing, tried despritly to get the ganga to come on earth and cleanse the sins of his forefathers. Again he failed. Only the third generation, the king's grandson, did penance severe enough for Vishnu to pay attention. Vishnu granted him his boon, and the river ganga came on earth, flowing from the feet of Vishnu. But the ganga had so much divine energy, it was so powerful, that it washed over all of creation. It could not be contained, it flooded everywhere. Seeing the dire situation, Siva immediatly lept to the rescue and caught up the entire ganga in his dreadlocks, keeping it firmly there. And so again, the king had to pray deeply to Siva, to get him to let the ganga out of his dreadlocks and on to the earth. After he prayed enough, siva said "I will let this ganga out of my hair, but how will we then control it?" the king said "I will control it" and siva began to slowly slowly let the ganga out of his dreadlocks, creating a divine, powerful, and very skinny waterfall (high water pressure, low diameter, you understand). The king lept in his chariot and began to ride, and the ganga followed behind him dutifully where he rode in his chariot. He rode all down the Himalayas, the ganga crashing behind him, over the ashes of his forefathers, granting them salvation, through all of current day Utteranchal and Uttar Pradesh, by Kashi (varanasi, land of salvation, ancient city of shiva) and eventually all the way out to the bay of Bengal.

So I am going ot go to the the place where Shiva let the ganga out of his dreadlocks, creating a waterfall which purifies the water right out of the himalayas, churning it with many natural herbs, and we'll see what is there.