Even though we were mentally prepared to go through this long walk, the 2½-hour standing bus journey had left us a little less match fit physically. Then there was this lack of practice to add to our miseries. Even team India with all the practice is falling you see, so who are we to go into the field without training. Oh! I forgot, these were not miseries; these were our tests, the semester exams. Well in that case, I thought, what lay ahead in front of us must be the practical exams. My brain was asking me many questions, ‘how long will it take to complete the parikrama?’, ‘will it hurt?’, ‘will I be able to complete the parikrama?’ After all it was more than 22 kms and that too barefoot with people like my brother and me, who lose half their faith depending upon what we need to do to make god happy. We are more of the mutual give and take loving people. “Agar aap mera kaam kar do toh 101 rupye ka Prasad chadhaoonga bhagwan.” We fall into that category who ask god to do something first and then we show our gratitude in whatever way we had promised.
All this crossed my mind in a matter of seconds, and then I came back to the real world because someone had pushed me out of his way chanting the holy names, “Shyam Mila De, Radhe Radhe!” All of a sudden, I found myself surrounded with people again. Some walking, some travelling in rickshaws, and the remainder were either carrying plastic or jute bags, or were lying down directly on the road then getting up, marking the distance their body had covered while lying down. Then they stood up, walked up to the marker (a stone), and then continued the same thing repeatedly. Almost as if it were telepathy, my brother and I thought of the same thing and being the more active one, my brother was quicker to respond. He asked, “Yaar pitaji, yeh log poora rasta aise hi jaayenge?” Again, a test of our faith, and we both had obviously been marked red I guess.
For those of you thinking, did my brother call our father ‘PITAJI’, yes he did. We were watching some show long ago, and asked our father, “Papa aaj ke time mein kaun PITAJI kehta hai?” and ended up calling him Pitaji forever.
So… he asked the question and my father (just like his usual calm self) replied, “Haan… time lagega par poora to karenge hi.” We couldn’t believe our eyes, but we had to, because a lot many others were doing the same thing. And then, we continued our journey, moving ahead of others as we were full of energy, for that moment at least. After 45 minutes or so, we came across the first signboard. It said we were on the 5th km of the path. It felt great. I told my father that if we continue with this rate we would be free in a little more than 4 hours. He approved the thought and started walking with even more enthusiasm. I felt the same enthusiasm rushing through my veins and looked at my brother. He was expressionless. I repeated the same statement to him and he said, “Just keep walking, let’s not discuss this right now.” He was right. I shouldn’t have thought of that because after next one hour I was searching for the next signboard. ‘Where is the 10th km mark?’ I thought to myself, but I didn’t express this feeling openly. After a while, we crossed it. However, the feeling was not that amazing. It took us more than an hour to cover the next 5kms. Then I thought, why worry about that. We are almost halfway through. And that thought kept us going for some more time. But the pace was decreasing gradually. And the songs about Radha-Krishna were growing loud and more and more senseless. I mean I believe in god. I can sing prayers. But a complete song about Radha’s green coloured stole and Kanha’s yellow coloured handkerchief is just not that, I must say, encouraging. So the songs were adding to the noise pollution and then there were those people with Shital Balm, which had been curing pain since the Dwapar Yuga itself. And the loudspeaker had the announcement repeated again and again with the voice of a person who sounds even worse than Himesh. Wait, they weren’t that bad.
Anyways, we continued walking with faith and then was the moment we reached the point where you are supposed to rest your butt. Actually, asked to do so. It took me more than a minute to believe my eyes what I just read. The board just before had said that only 9kms were left, which made me happy. But this new board had the name of the place which we were crossing at that point of time and I swear to god I am not lying. The board read, “CHUTAD TEKA” How could you write such a thing in the premises of a holy pilgrimage. I couldn’t keep myself from laughing and then all the people around me observed the same thing and everyone started laughing. Some started discussing the term.
We sat there and had some food, there were all kinds of stalls for tikki, chat and stuff. Then we continued walking and reached the main temple, did all the puja and then left for completing the parikrama. There were the pools where Radha and Krishna used to take bath. We washed our feet there and the water felt so good. Heading for the final destination we continued, and completed the parikrama in about 5 hours. But the test wasn’t over yet.
The final test remained, ‘Going back home’. My brother boarded a bus for Mathura and left. The bus got stuck somewhere in the middle of the road for some time and then reached Mathura eventually. On the other hand, my father and I couldn’t find a bus to Bharatpur. The train was at 5.30 in the morning and it was almost 3 then. We roamed around for another half hour searching for the bus but couldn’t find any. Our feet were shouting for rest, but we couldn’t. Ultimately we got an auto rickshaw from there to bharatpur. I thought,’finally everything will be fine’. Too much thought too soon. Sometimes I feel god is just sitting up there, chillin’ and laughing at us mortals. May be he was saying at that moment, “This idiot thinks it’s over… hahahaha…” It wasn’t. It had poured just before we came to bharatpur and thus, the roads and the pits on the roads were filled with water. The auto stopped while crossing one of those pits and the water entered inside. I was about to tell the driver that he must not press the self start while we were still in water, but he had already done that and I knew that we were stuck for a long time now.
Have you ever watched Aahat? There are those empty long roads where someone is driving all alone at night and all of a sudden, a woman in white saree just appears out of nowhere. It felt just the same. The difference was that I was pushing the auto instead of sitting in it and enjoying the scene. If at that moment even if all the women in white sarees had magically appeared on the road I wouldn’t have paid attention because I was struggling with this auto rickshaw pushing task when every now and then my already-swollen-because-of-so-much-walking feet entered a pothole with lot of water and I couldn’t push it any further. After eons of pushing, finally the auto started and we reached Bharatpur station from where we got the train after a wait of some more ages. I could’ve slept there but my feet kept reminding me that I needed to lie down and sleep properly not just sit.
It was a dark night, probably the darkest for us in terms of physical exercise. But the sun was rising finally, bright and shiny over our heads, telling us that we had completed our epic journey. It was something I couldn’t forget ever. My father got the clutch wire fixed the moment we stepped out of the railway station and I thought, ‘Finally it is over. After all this, I will always remember that faith is the biggest power. And that if you believe then everything turns out to be good eventually.’ And everything was good indeed. Perfect weather, perfect breeze, perfect temperature of the surroundings and my father’s scooter fixed finally… I couldn’t even complete the statement in my mind when my father said, “Arey yaar, brakes theek karaana bhool gaya… gadbad ho gayi”………..
