KANWAR YATRA : A UNIQUE EXPERIENCE

There comes a time each year during monsoon when seeing devotees of Lord Shiva walking down the highways and roads is normal.

It is pretty common in every part of the country. Name any
direction, and you will find a kanwar there. They can be spotted with bright orange clothes and a long, highly decorated stick on their shoulders having two pots tied at each end.

Me and my uncle.

The Kanwar Yatra of Saavan has a very high holy significance in India.

There are Two Major Mythologies of Kanwar Yatra which makes it very crucial from a Hindu's point of view.

• The first one says that, during the churning of the ocean of milk, the Samudra Manthan. The ocean first spilled out a lot of poison before giving out the elixir of life. It is said that the entire poison was kept by Lord Shiva in his throat, due to which His throat became blue, giving him a new name as, 'Neelkanth'. Looking at that, The Gods poured the entire water of The Ganges into Shiva's throat to minimize it's effect.

•  The second one is quite controversial stating that, it was Ravan, an ardent devotee of Lord Shiva, brought the holy water of Ganga on a Kanwar and poured it on Shiva's temple during the month of Saavan, thus releasing the negative energy of poison from Shiva.

 In the Northern India, from where I belong, the kanwarias  use to follow a single route which starts from Ghaziabad and end up in Rishikesh. Not to mention, Rishikesh is very famous for it's temples and pilgrimage sites.

As I mentioned earlier, name a direction and you will find a Kanwar.

  So, how does this happen ? 

  

The major logic behind the yatra (journey) is that you have to pour water of the Ganges from a starting point and then you have to deposit the same water in one of the renowned Shiva Temple. But as I say, the far the distance the more fruitful is the journey. So, most of the pilgrims choose the far location which is painful enough to give the desired fruit of the journey.

 

  OUR JOURNEY :

Birupa Ghat, Mahanadi River.

We started our journey as a kanwaria from the very famous Birupa Ghat of Mahanadi River. We poured the holy water of Mahanadi and dropped few drops of Ganga Jal into one of the pot and in the other one we put honey and ghee. 

My group consisted all of Rajasthani Marwari people and myself being a Rajput I didn't feel any difficulties to connect with the people there.

I had to dip myself into the water thrice along with the clothes. This was my second time I had dipped myself into a river, the first time being in the Narmada river in Ujjain.

I was struck by the cold water of the Ghat and after that we had our breakfast followed by a long aarti. 

We held our Kanwars and started the long journey all barefoot. 

THE TURMOIL:

For the first few kilometers I didn't feel much pain in my legs or feet, but as the distance passes, the road started to show its real side, which was definitely not the best one.

I found it difficult to walk as the small pieces of stones and gravel was already piercing through my feet. Our group also consisted of people who were only involved in the seva and didn't pick up the kanwar with us. Their work was to provide water pouches, toffees, cigarettes, tobacco etc. during the journey. 

I had to accept that the group was highly in discipline and well maintained. This was because our leader was a very old man who was strict and equally flexible too.

Our Leader.

We used to call him Brahma Ji. 

We were a part of Lord Shiva's baarat and the adults of the group were allowed to consume chilam. It is basically a cigar in which they put up Marijuana and burn it and suck it as a cigarette.

Uncle having Chilam

We continued to walk till the evening and then we stopped at our first stop to have the evening snacks with chai.

This was us, resting.

 Actually, along with us, there were two huge trucks and 6 other cars for the support. One of the truck was the pantry car and the other was for the Puja essentials.

After having our snacks we again continued to walk and by that time it was dark enough to lose our ways. We were advised by our Brahma Ji to not to get away from the group and at least two Bam (We call our fellow Kanwarias as Bam)

would always remain together.

Even when any of the two Bam used to get away from the group, one of the car would go and find them on the road, and bring them up to the group by moving behind the leftover Bams, showing them the way through its headlights. 

When we reached at our first stay, which was a farm house in the middle of the road, I discovered that my feet are already having bruises but fortunately they were not bleeding. 

I was scared whether I would be able to walk down the next day or not. My feet were about to produce the boils through the endings which was constantly taking my breaths away.

DAY-2:

 The next morning I was awaken by a loud voice of drum piercing whistle which was blown by our Brahma ji. I was immediately awaken. I saw that there were no boils on my feet, but there was definitely pain which was running all around my gluteus and peroneus muscles.

We always used to have aarti before our journey and it was mandatory for all of us to attend it. I hurriedly woke up, brushed, bathed and worn the same clothes again, and successfully attended the aarti.

We were again on the road with our kanwars on our shoulders, chanting and reciting mantras.

THE BEST PART:

The best part of the journey was awaiting for me on the second day. I can't describe the kind of joy that I had received on that particular day.

We had donated a lot of things to the poor people of the village where we had stayed for a night.

The elder people of the group told me that they used to do this ceremony every year.

Look at these children, how merrily they are standing in a queue to receive the food.

Along with the food, we'd also donated the clothes, saris and umbrella to the other people of the village.

This was me, selecting the clothes according to the sizes of the children.

A picture can speak a thousand words, but this time no picture was able to describe the feelings and pride that we all had at those moments.

This was us,celebrating.

Let me tell you a very interesting story that actually occurred behind the scenes. There was this man down in the photo and he had never worn a kurta in his entire life. He was 78 years old and literally had tears in his eyes when we not only made him to wear a kurta, but also celebrated along with him.

Man with the Kurta.

As I say that the happiness can never be described through words, and it felt so overwhelmed that I would just thank Lord Shiva to make us reach at a position where we can give things to others and bring happiness in their lives.
  

DAY-3:

We stayed in a government school in the previous night and woke up in the middle of the mountains.

Again we had the same things done in the morning, and we continued to walk. This time a small stop that we had was on the road, where we had our breakfast and sundarkand path. It was usually done in the river, but this time there was no water in the river, so we have to adjust by doing it on  the road.

  

 THE FINAL DAY:

It was the toughest day and the final one too. As we started to reach near the temple, the crowd of fellow kanwariyas also started piling up. In no time the roads were covered with kanwariyas and police vans.

At that time I started thinking that how big the event was. How massive was the entire movement and how huge the real crowd was.

Now comes the most daring part of the entire journey and that was to climb the mountains through stairs. Yes, it was going to be tiring when you know that there were 1352 stairs to reach the temple.

The faces were washed away when we actually started climbing the stairs.

Stairs.

We did not climbed the entire stairs in a single stretch, but we stopped at three stops in the middle and finally reached the temple.

In the middle spots where we stopped, we had the water and required refreshments.

 While I was carrying my kanwar, there were others too who were having kanwar which were way too heavy to be imagined.

This weighted 15 kgs.

We reached the temple in the noon time and waited for our turn to come.

Kapilash Temple.

In the fraction of seconds we stood up and took our pots for the  jal visarjan  and reached inside the temple. Inside, it was way too congested and huge crowd was seen. But, we were successful in jal visarjan and had a great time in the temple.

Finally, after all the necessary ceremonies we greeted each other by hugging and promised to come once again in the upcoming year. 

WATCH DOWN A VIDEO BASED ON THIS KANWAR YATRA ON MY YOUTUBE CHANNEL

Everyone was emotional at that moment. The bond that we had created in the past five days, was difficult to forget and thinking that the journey has finally ended left all of us in a deep emotional stage.