RISHIKESH - for other reasons
I have to confess that i am not the overly religious type that hits the pilgrimage trail with every waxing and waning of the moon. But, inexplicably, i end up visiting places known primarily for temples and tirthas . Rishikesh was another such. I went because i wanted to meet Ganga. I definitely wasn't looking to make an advance booking for moksha or angling to earn brownie points from divine account keepers. Nor was my longstanding, intense yearning to dip in the Ganga nourished by any concept of purification or merit-making or self- realisation. The river Ganga has always fascinated me because it has been the base-camp of a civilization from its infancy to its present state of confused debility ; a civilization whose essences at a molecular level permeates my own stem cells. Its like wishing to see my DNA. The river has run through much. And is cheerfully running on. Its alluvium is composed of the detritus of a million sagas, both glorious and inglorious. The