Haridwar as a tourist

Haridwar (Door to Hari, Lord Vishnu), there is something familiar about this city where the abundant northern plains meet the giant Himalayas. The city has always been there, not as mystifying as Banaras, or as touristy as Agra, or as religious as Shirdi, but all those features combined together in one neighborhood. I’ve always been through (yes, through) Haridwar, touched it on the surface many a times. Be it for last rites of a neighbor or relative, or on the way to my college in the hills of Garhwal, or just to take a dip in Ganga. All these peripheral trips were way before the realization that travel is not about source and destination. It was way before the joy of sitting through an entire sunset dawned upon me. It was way way before that I wouldn’t call those trips, travel anymore.

A marriage ceremony, a dying airline and a spring-summer school break gave a chance to feel the city in my new normal, slow and easy way. Witnessed the famous Ganga Arti a few times in different positions and elevations, did a lot of temple hopping (even temple rop-waying), gorged on a lot of desi dishes (Puri-aloo, aloo-tikki, kanji-wada, kadhai-milk to name a few) and walked through the bazaars a lot. 

This is my new fetish, walking through the old bazaars of a city selling everything under the sun and the moon. These bazaars have peculiar features; they look chaotic but are organized in their own way. You just have to name the thing and people will tell the shop and name of the shopkeeper too. Unlike big cities, there is a feeling of intimacy rather than competition. You look around, like a few things, ask for price, do some friendly bargaining and ultimately allow yourself to be charmed by the shopkeeper. And during all of this, try to get the worth of your money by asking some hidden secrets about the city, like the best aloo-tikki, the best ‘faluda’ or the best place to sit and view Ganga Arti. You come out richer than you were before.

And you meet people, a lot of them. Some are here for tourism, some are making a living out of it and some are simply astonished by it. Most of them are so interesting, that every interactions opens up a new dimension. Imagine a taxi driver who doesn’t like tourists because the ‘sanctity of the place’ is being compromised. A restaurant manager who doubles up as tourist guide and promise an ‘authentic experience of the city’. A rajasthani waiter with a huge frame and a booming voice but such mild manners, you can’t resist getting curious about his family back home.

But the best experience of Haridwar was to be able to take multiple dips in the refreshing but extremely cold water in the privacy of a small ghat within our hotel premises. And observing masses of people, young-old, Indian-foreigners, commoners-celebrities along the bank of ever-flowing life-line of this city.

The memory is forever imprinted with my dia-flower 'dona' somehow managing to stay afloatsimilar to this city around the river.