While My Sitar Gently Weeps

After a brief, comfortable respite in Delhi with the Mejo’s, we prepared to catch a puddle-jumper flight to Pantnagar in southeastern Uttaranchal, which became the newest of India’s 29th states when it was carved out of neighboring Uttar Pradesh earlier in the millennium.

Uttaranchal is ensconced in India’s mountaineous northeast on the Nepal border, making it an excellent entry point for seeing the Himalayas. Our best-laid plans were quickly dismantled, however, when our inbound flight was cancelled due to inclement weather. After spending a day with Mejomama in his office, we hatched a new gambit: rent a car and driver in Delhi to take us on an ambitious sweep, starting in southwestern Uttaranchal where the Ganges rushes out of the Himalayan foothills to make its inexorable eastern march to the Bay of Bengal and ending in the elevated southeast where the stark, white peaks demand immediate reverence.

The extra day also afforded us the opportunity to grapple with India’s infamous bureaucracy. The ever-fairminded Indian Customs, Delhi Bureau had levied a $400 import duty on the repaired camera sent to Kaberi from her cousin Shanku in Chicago on the grounds that the camera would be resold in India. Incredibly, Indian Customs refused to review the original bill of sale or the shipping manifest documentation with which Kaberi had originally sent her camera home for repair. And FedEx, citing its policy of seeking to cause maximum end-customer exasperation whenever possible, paid the duty unilaterally, leaving us with the unenviable task of prying money from the cold, dead fingers of the Indian government.

We drafted an obsequious letter of appeal, but resigned ourselves to having paid a $400 tuition fee in the School of Hard Knocks. This left Kaberi to watch ruefully as all of the money originally saved on her camera purchase flew out the window in the direction of Indira Gandhi International Airport. The only saving grace was her having the Nikon back in advance of our visiting the Himalayas.

Upon venturing out the next morning, we advanced on our eventual destination of Rishikkesh at a snail’s pace. Traffic congestion and road conditions conspired against us, and it took nearly five hours to reach Haridwar (which literally means “The Gates of God”), still one hour south of Rishikesh. We stopped briefly to observe the holy Ganges River (the view was underwhelming) and take some completely-superfluous high-resolution pictures of the mediocre scenery. Upon reaching Rishikesh at 4:30 pm, we scoured the left and right banks of a city bisected by the Ganges for reasonable overnight accommodation. We settled on a clean, 600 rupee ($14) room in the heart of the Left Bank, near a variety of ashrams.

With sunset approaching, we dropped off our bags and walked toward the riverbed. As we had arrived in Rishikesh before the monsoons, the mighty Ganges was a bit enervated; the ratio of rocky sediment to flowing water strongly favored the former category. We had hoped to see a parade of floating candles on the river from sunset aartis, but only managed to spot an occasional stray diya. As daylight faded from view and the mosquito presence intensified, we retreated east away from the river. Our evening stroll took us into the heart of the Left Bank and a surprising buzz of activity.

Unbeknownst to us, we had arrived in Rishikesh in the midst of the International Yoga Festival. Unwittingly, we managed to happen upon a huge riverside congregation boasting hundreds of saffron-robed devotees. Sitting before them on a stage parallel to the river were several simultaneously-chanting-and-clapping, cross-legged dignitaries, presumably from the international yoga community. We only recognized the most central figure, a man by the name of Sri Ravi Ravi Shankar (not to be confused with the sitar-playing father of Norah Jones by the same name).

Sri Ravi Ravi is to transcendental Hinduism as the Reverend Jerry Falwell is to evangelical Christianity, and engenders a similarly-consuming effect on his multinational (and often Western) devotees. There was something charming about the scene, and the rhythmic chanting of hundreds of voices in unison was nicely atmospheric. It wasn’t until about 20 minutes later (when we heard a group of American and French disciples -- with dirty blonde dreadlocks and Birkenstocks -- loudly evaluating each other’s auras and dirty energies) that we were reminded of the innate charlatanry of the moment. Auras aside, this was nothing more than a business-minded cult of personality preying on the naïve sensibilities of a group of foreigners all too willing to exotify India.

Well, live and let live. At least we got a couple of decent George Harrison tunes out of it all.