Praise Shiva! In Pilgrims Footsteps
Trip Start
Sep 29, 2007
1
172
221
Trip End
Ongoing
Nasik,
Maharashtra,
India
Thursday, December 18, 2008
The central bus station was a hive of activity with snack food spanning the whole gamut of India's finest junk being paraded down the aisles and thrust up into the windows. Along with newspaper vendors there were things like candies, hot peanuts with shells on, squeezed lemon juice, supari, ice block lollies, pappadoms and apples along with all the deep fried goodies like battered chillis and samosas. Good to see the bus food business thriving once again. The bus was a perfect rattler and we happened to score the front seats with full frontal, in the crash zone, windshield view, gold. Our packs were squashed in with us into the already limited foot space and we sat on top of them. Once on the move the driver turned out to be a complete kamikaze extremist using the floor it as rapido as you possibly can then dodge and weave method to swerve and narrowly avoid any motorbikes, rickshaws, people, cows, goats, skanky dogs and chickens (in that order) that were in the path of the bus
weighing up my sultanas
. Never mind the terrorist threats, bus travel is a far superior source of terror here, but we still love it. It's India and we love it all. With protective coat now envisioned around the entire bus we could sit back, enjoy the jolts from the potholes and watch the world go by in the rural villages. The bus made many stops allowing us a good insight into the farming lifestyle in Northern Maharashtra. Bright pink turbans are the choice out here. There were mature cotton crops that ladies were picking with babies hitched onto their backs and many women in coloured saris transporting loads of produce, flour, fabric or rocks in bowls or baskets on their heads as they walked on the side of the road. Some of the ladies walked with machete knives, large bundles of sticks or water pots balanced on their heads too. Strong salt of the earth people are these extremely hard workers. First we shared out bench seat with a tiny Mother Teresa type character dressed all in white and whose little weathered face peered at us from behind a veil and then a disabled girl who did a wee on our seat. Joy. It was a great site to see lots of families of colourful, nomadic gypsies with all their children and belongings including water pots, cooking gear and blankets piled high up on top of huge bullocks and caravaning along the roadside probably making their way to their next camp.
Nasik stands on one of India's holiest rivers, the Godivari, the secong holiest to the Ganges and the town has many associations with Ramayana so it has many temples
local bus frenzy
. Near where we stay is a cool pirate statue on a roundabout. We went straight out to Ramkund which is a large bathing tank that the holy river runs through. There were hundreds of pilgrims bathing and praying there and hoping that the waters would provide them with moksha (liberation of the soul). There was a fountain where people were drinking the water, splashing around, washing their babies and offering flowers and candles on leaf plates and floating them down the river. The waters were definitely not clean but we washed our feet and both performed an important prayer for Kelly who is just beginning cancer treatment then washed all our crystals from Egypt. On the edges of the river people were chilling out draped over temples and shrines. Some people were eating bhuja, flying kites, enjoying bathing or washing laundry and crews of Sadhus were mixing Bhang up in bowls on the steps. Nasik is a major Sadhu hot spot and many of them chased us around asking if we wanted ganja or asking for money for their begging bowls. There was a giant, orange Hanuman diety statue that people were having the photograph taken with using their mobile phones and posing with him as though he were an animal mascot at Disneyland. No foreigners here which was nice. Some people were sifting the dirt and water from the river in bowls in the hope of scoring a reward of some jewellery or money that people might have lost in the lake while swimming (they swim in their full clothes). We thought we saw a human hand floating in the holy river but decided it couldn't have been, or, could it? We are not sure.We checked out the Kala Rama and Gumpha Panchivadi temples
Hanuman statue
. On dusk we visited the vibrant market next to the tank. I ended up with about a kilo of sultanas for 10rupees. Great for handing out to children. Some of the vendors were having a laugh at our expense because as we wandered around chatting with vendors we came across a lady selling onions who made signs at us of pretending to brush her teeth with her fingers then flashed a rotten and betel-nut-stained, with teeth missing smile at us before producing betel nut mix from her bag and motioning for us to take them (and you could look like this too!). Laughter erupted all around us from all the other ladies sitting on the ground selling vegetables. I bought some costume jewellery and we both stocked up on packets of bindis for New Years. One guy had a set of normal bathroom scales for measuring human weight only he had it hooked up to a flashing neon tube of lights and then a talking portable TV read you your weight, total stitch up but worth parting with three rupees for. After the sun had goner down, the beggars appeared from every dark nook and cranny asking us for money and food. It was like attack of the killer zombies at one time as they all crowded around us. We ended up giving away all the fruit we had bought and ate hotel room service fiercely spicy thalis that were worthy of rings of fire.The Godavari River flows through Nashik from its source, which lies to the southwest of the city, in Trimbakeshwar or Trimbak for short. Another reason people pilgrimage to these parts is to go to Shirdi where the original Sai Baba was born
leaf plate offerings
. We took a local bus with a chitty chitty bang bang sounding horn to the quaint town of Trimbak where we drank good chai tea before visiting Trimbakeshwar Temple, one of India's most sacred and an important shrine to Shiva whose golden three pronged staff sits on top of the temple. Many friendly locals threw us namastes with their palms together in welcome to the town and a sadhu guy pointed us the way to the mountain behind the town where we would start the pilgrimage climb from. Local beggars, some blind, most with no shoes lined the streets hoping to catch some rupees from visiting pilgrims. Women were selling bundles of herbs for 5 rupees that you could feed to sacred cows they had gathered in the main square. We went to Gandgadwar bathing tank where pilgrims were bathing to wash away their sins, did some more Kelly prayers and offerings and then did the long, hot climb up Brahmagiri Hill behind the town to the source of the Godivari stopping to chat with families making the pilgrimage together. There were many sadhus with staffs and begging bowls and dressed in simple loin cloths, some of them chased us around for cash donations. It wasn't difficult to find our way, all we had to do was follow the trail of rugs laid out on the ground where people were selling rudraksha mala, seeds, gems, offering bowls, crystals, metal yantras, flowers, candies, coconuts, conch shells and other religious offering items. People in stores on the way up were selling lemon & ginger juice and sugar cane juice and CDs of Hindu chanting "namah shivay" blared out from speakers providing a soundtrack to the adventure
Rudraksha and conch for sale
. Children ran out to greet us on the path we shared with goats, chickens and cows. We met a most handsome, young Sadhu who lives in a cave at the top and looks after a shrine to Shiva, we were able to go into his cave and have a look for a small donation. Families were entering the shrines doing puja prayers. The mountain is a big deal beacuse the climb was not easy in the midday sun and lots of people carried their children too young to walk up to the top for blessings.We also met many monkey friends along the way who were getting a little to close for comfort until we threatened them with a bamboo stick. One of the little blighters nicked our water bottle, took the lid of it and downed the lot. Mono Loco was too scared to come out of his bag. You were supposed to do the walk with bare feet but many had shoes on, the ground was sketchy. The view over the town was good and the landscape quite pretty. I've thought about renting a sadhu cave for Xmas but then i remembered we were going to Goa and changed my mind. The lure of decent trance music and other worldy desires won out. Once down the hill we hit the religious stores where i purchased some peacock feathers used for smudge ceremony, a little photograph of Shiva on his leopard skin for my kombi van and some rudraksha mala beads. I also bought a natural seed pod that has a mysterious engraving of a serpent and Shiva's staff on it. I tried to get a deal on some red mountain coral because the palm reader in Jaisalmer said i should wear some for confidence
bus window vendor action
. The guy was starting his price too high, when i refused the deal he tried to put a dried cow's testicle in my hand, nice one. Rudraksha (Rudra means Shiva and Aksha means eye- eye of Shiva) are important because they are considered to be Lord Shiva himself and there's many Hindu stories about this. Rudraksha is worshipped, worn in rosary like mine and also used as medicine. By wearing the beads i am free of evil powers and ghosts and the powers will get stronger the more i wear them. It is also said to destroy the diseases of blood and improves stamina. The rosary is regarded as the best of all types of rosaries for chanting the mantras. The problem is that to purify the rosary i must wash it in cow dung, cow urine, cow milk, cow curd and cow ghee, honey and sugar in a copper bowl on a Monday morning then wash it with unboiled milk and Ganges water, dry it with a clean cloth then worship it with scent, candles and flowers and give it a sandlewood spot whilst chanting "Om Namah Shivay" 5 times multiplied by 108 beads, so 540 chants all to be done in my worship room or in a temple of Lord Shiva, impossible. Does anybody really go through with that purification process? Honestly. I have cheaper beads but there are rarer ones with 14 faces to the seed. I like them as a kind of Shiva lover's fashion accessory and choose to chant with them how and when i feel like it. I love Shiva. Bom Shankar! Praise Shiva! There was a popular treat sold in the street that we've never seen elsewhere and it was called something like penah and made from sugary paste like a fudge, we both gobbled up quite a lot of it because people kept giving us taste tests from their stalls even though each recipe tasted the same to us.
Nasik was a fantastic spiritual place to visit.
Every 12 years Nasik hosts the Kumbh Mela, a mass Hindu pilgrimage of monks, saints and sadhus and the largest religious gathering on Earth (70million in attendance in 2003). The other sites for the festival are Allahabad (Prayag) at the confluence of the Ganga and Yamuna and mythical Saraswati river, Haridwar along Ganga river and Ujjain along the Kshipra river. Would be wortha return journey just to see thousands of naked Sadhus jump into the water for the ceremonial bath. Yay! Naked sadhus!
Now, back to the city of Bombay
