The Cochin saree that accompanied me on all my Pilgrimage temple pujas throughout 2020
I arrived into Delhi on 19th November 2019 and spent a few days there adjusting to the immense change in my circumstances. The last time I had been in the country was back in March of that year, and that was in the south, based around Bangalore. Finishing my three year project with the University of York had taken an immense personal toll on me, particularly the final weeks of wrapping it all up. Then I had to close down all that had represented my life in the UK until then and prepare myself for this sea change in my life: embarking on my Pilgrimage! It felt immensely scary and I felt very strange, challenged and acutely aware of all I had given up, to commit myself to the unknown.
From Delhi I took a car to Rishikesh, having researched it online, the first I had ever heard of this place and all that it was said to signify. I had relatively little knowledge about the whole Eastern philosophy and more especially the new age yoga scene then and was curious about what I would find in the self styled yoga capital of the world and place where the icons of my teenage years – the Beatles – had spent time with the Transcendental Meditation scene, introducing it to the wider world.
It was already getting distinctly colder in these first foothills of the Uttarakhand mountains, necessitating winter woolies at night, and having perambulated the whole Laxman Jhula quarter and crossed the river a few times, I decided it was time to move on, though initially where to I was still unsure. In these earliest days of the pilgrimage I had no clear plan and there was definitely a sense of being guided by some unconscious instinct that manifested outwardly as just making it up as I went along. Little did I know then how long I would end up spending in this town later the following year.
Having long been a fan of tigers and wildlife documentaries about them, I decided to move onto Ranthambore, location of the famous tiger reserve, and take a little time to visit some of the famous Rajasthan heritage destinations of Jaipur and Udaipur as well. I saw many interesting sights at Ranthambore, but sadly not a tiger in sight, despite hearing many tales of their sighting from other guests staying at the same hotel. Evidently it wasn’t to be, so eventually I took the night train to the city of lakes, Udaipur and spent several days there visiting some of the famous sites, like the lakes and the Monsoon palace and even dancing at someone’s wedding party procession through the streets!
As December advanced, it became distinctly colder at nights and the early morning, something noticeable when I had first gone to Rishikesh at the end of November. I never do cold well, particularly in a land you associate with heat, so I decided it was time to remove myself to the south and to Fort Cochin in Kerala, a place that has long had a special place in my heart. Here it’s lush, green and spicy, with a fascinating history. Sephardic Jewish people fleeing from Spain settled here in the 16th century, and the Portuguese explorer Vasco de Gama was buried here at the old cathedral, before being removed back to Portugal. The Dutch established an important colony here from the 17th century, part of their significant trading influence in the East Indies, and two centuries later the British attempted (and happily failed) to blow it up during their period of rule. So here I overwintered across a hot sunny Christmas and New Year using it as a base for wider exploration, as well as my first formal temple pujas wearing my new saree.
I eventually returned to Rishikesh in the first week of March when the pandemic was already becoming more serious, although before any of the later travel restrictions closed down the possibility of inter-regional travel for several months. Here an unexpected idea emerged out of that same deep Unconscious. In all my travels through India up to this time I had never felt any interest in going to Varanasi whatever and had firmly set my mind against it, despite it featuring so importantly in many recommended travel destinations. So it was with some surprise that I found myself suddenly drawn to the idea of going there. It was easily accomplished and I was able to get a direct flight from Dehradun and had booked a nice hotel in a converted quarter of the 17th century Royal palace right on the Ghats of the Ganges. From Rishikesh, where the Ganges is still quite young, it was interesting to see what an immense river it had become by the time it flowed through this most sacred of cities, which legend says Lord Shiva Himself founded, and said to be the first city.
My first night in Varanasi there was a spectacular thunder storm with immense forks of lightning striking the opposite bank of the river repeatedly, and intense overhead claps of thunder, which I could watch lying in bed, as the window and balcony directly overlooked the river. There were also beautiful golden sunrises at dawn (see Home page image). I felt the storm, which in Hindu traditions is understood as a manifestation of Shiva Rudra, the Storm or wrathful aspect of God, in some way heralded a significant time for me ahead. It did. Shortly afterwards, the two brothers who ran the hotel, upon learning of my calling to Shiva and that I wanted to make a special puja at a Shiva temple there, arranged for me to see their priest who organised a full Rudrabhishek puja (a puja dedicated to the worship of Shiva) at the Shooltankeshwar temple dedicated to Shiva and where the legend said He had first come to earth.
The puja was on the 16th March, and significantly a Monday, the day sacred to Shiva and also the day of my birth. I spent another full day here wandering along the Ghats where people come to perform the sacred Hindu rites of cremation. It’s a fascinating area, although the main part of old Varanasi with its labyrinthine streets and market areas was rather a shock. There is much I felt could be improved through more effective waste disposal and simple renovation of some of the one time beautiful but now sadly dilapidated heritage buildings. Never more clearly could you see the awkward superposition of modernity upon an otherwise unevolved medieval base.
The sight of so many cremations taking place directly on the river’s edge and the elaborate rituals surrounding them was particularly moving. I was careful to keep a respectful distance and not in any way attempt to take direct photos of these very private ceremonies of the last rites honouring the body of what once had once been a living human being, as their soul was consigned to Eternity. There is a belief here that to die and be cremated at Varanasi, with your ashes cast into the Ganges waters, is to guarantee Moksha – Liberation – (much as visiting the Chota Char Dham Pilgrimage destinations and also Muktinath in Mustang, Nepal). All along the Ghats you see many aged Sadhus who have found their way here and stay until they die.
Then I returned to Rishikesh and three days later the Uttarkhand state imposed a regional lockdown followed by the countrywide lockdown imposed by the government of India and there I stayed, based at the Hotel Sixties Greenhills, for the next eight months.
Here, during a time when I couldn’t have been more supremely physically inactive, fixed literally in place by the lockdown rules, the most critical work of the whole period took place, a long dark journey into the depths of my own self that part of the work of yoga is all about. This together with an in depth study of the several Eastern theological and Yogic schools and philosophies, as well as the Western Mystic traditions, which together later gave the informed context for my own personal explorations of the transcendental spiritual.
Occasional discrete excursions to the river, or the road back into the hills afforded the only diversion. Here, too, I heard many stories of life in the yogi and hippie communities amongst folk also stranded during lockdown and some of the strange sad fates that befell some of them who had clearly become lost on their own journeys of self discovery. It was the time when I first formed the view that some basic guidance and advice might benefit the many people who are drawn to places like India, looking for ‘something’ and uncertain what, or how to go about looking for it even. The larger established ashrams closed down in this period, although some of those functioning as cheap hostels for the itinerant western tourists who stayed on were still offering basic board. Impromptu raves on the Ganges beaches were harshly punished by the local constabulary.
As summer wore on and the month by month gratis visa extensions continued to be issued, the country began to open up a little and allow inter-regional travel again. Until, finally, at the end of September, I saw the first inflatable rafts appear on the river, that had for so many months been quite free, and knew that, sadly, the older oder was slowly re establishing itself.
And then I was able to travel myself, a strange experience after so long fixed in one place. So it was that I made three separate trips to three of the four most sacred Chota Char Dham pilgrimage destinations in this area: Gangotri, Badrinath and Kedarnath. I felt completely travel deskilled at that point and wondered if I would have the stamina to stand what would be long arduous drives up into the higher mountains.
My experiences in these places felt like the culmination of that long strange and challenging journey into myself I had made across the earlier summer, and following them I made one final puja of thanksgiving at the Virbhadra Temple to Shiva in Rishikesh, burned my saree and threw the ashes into the Ganges from the Laxman Jhula bridge and then prepared to returned the UK and end my formal period of pilgrimage.
What happened afterwards, and the time I spent in Nepal the following year, until now, returning once more to India, have all been recorded in my new website and the associated travel blog. They represent very different stages, the significance of which yet remain unclear, except, perhaps, to have broadened and deepened the experiences, insights and understandings gained during the first year.
Throughout the year of my formal Indian Pilgrimage, from November 2019 to November 2020, I had never recorded any of my experiences or adventures in the way that I was able to later in Nepal, Sri Lanka and now, aside from occasional Facebook posts during the earliest stages. The website and travel blog were only conceived of and developed during the first months I spent in the coincidentally named Greenhills guest house in Lakeside, Pokhara during the long monsoon months I spent there, waiting for the weather to clear so I could travel into the mountains. So here, for the first time, in ‘Pilgrim’s progress. Highlights from the Road to Salvation’ is a summary account of that first year in India, which for me closes the book.
