Rishikesh, India

PART I

Here we are after two months of living in Rishikesh. We have completely switched out of the tourist sightseeing mentality with which we saw so much of Nepal, and have settled into a nice, domestic routine. We are no longer tourists… we are dwellers. Rishikesh feels like a home away from home.

There is a sharp contrast between being a traveler and being a dweller.
As a tourist, I got to see many places, but in each place I felt like I just barely skimmed the surface. No sooner had I arrived somewhere, that it was already time to move on to the next place, and then to the next. You are always en route between where you have just been and where you are just now going. Tourism consists of an itinerary, and a checklist of the “must-see” destinations. You get so focused on checking things off the list, that you sometimes you forget to stop and take it all in and just enjoy. Tourism is a mile wide but only an inch deep.

There are many tourists here in Rishikesh, but they are easy to spot. They are the ones buried nose-deep in a thick guidebook of India, or else hidden behind the lens of their camera. They are always in a rush, and seem somehow detached from their immediate surroundings. The dwellers are also east to spot. They have long ago dropped the thick Lonely Planet, and put away their cameras. They walk slowly. No rush. Or they just sit around in once place and observe the life around them.

My time as a dweller is less action-packed and may seem less exciting, but it has allowed me to form a deep connection with one place, and this has felt much more satisfying than having a casual connection with many places.

Being a dweller allows you to develop certain domestic routines.
We have made an arrangement with a local family so that every morning we are delivered fresh milk right to our door. When I say “fresh”, I really mean it! A young boy comes to us with a pail of milk after just milking his family’s cow. This milk is so creamy, it still has a bit of yellowishness in it. I am no fan of milk, but this stuff tastes like nectar, and every day Misha and I treat ourselves to a warm glass of milk.

Being a dweller also allows you to just stop and observe.
I have been able to observe the ever-changing shades of the Ganga. I have seen its deep turquoise in the early morning, at sunset when the light just grazes the top of the water, and at night, when it reflects the moon and the streetlights. We sit on our balcony and observe the beautiful, majestic birds with a huge wingspan circling around overhead. Once in a while a flock of smaller birds starts to chase them through the air and bully them around. They are fighting for their turf, and surprisingly enough, the smaller birds usually win.

Being a dweller also allows you to form certain relationships. Some of them may be brief and superficial, yet somehow they combine to make a meaningful experience that makes it feel like home.

For example, we have developed daily relationships with particular vendors. We always buy our fruit from our favorite “fruit guy” who has a special knack for always picking out the best papayas (how did I ever live without papayas!?). Then there is the boy who makes us pomegranate juice, who can get all the seeds out of a pomegranate in about 30 seconds. We always buy our vegetables from two skinny, lanky boys with huge smiles and shining white teeth. They are brothers, and in the evening, after a day spent in school, they wheel around their father’s vegetable cart while he rests after a long day’s work. You can see the pride with which they do their father’s job.

PART II

In order to get around Rishikesh, one must learn how to weave through a maze of cows, monkeys, street dogs, beggars, fugitive mules, and eager entrepreneurs and shop owners trying to sell anything from spices to jewelry, from postcards to sugarcane juice, or just simply offering a good ear-cleaning (really!).

Cows are everywhere! And that of course means one thing: lots of manure. You have not been initiated into Rishikesh life until you have at least once (or if you are like me, then many many times) stepped ankle deep into a pile of cow manure. We’ve learned that the cows are docile creature who will eat just about anything. We have begun to gather all the waste left from fruits and vegetables after we cook and offer them to our favorite cows, especially the calfs, who swallow everything out of our hands with their rough tongues that feels like sandpaper against the skin. They are serene animals, never in a rush. They chew everything slowly and thoroughly, in a manner similar to someone who is chewing a large quantity of gum.

Each cow has its very own and quite unique set of horns, almost like fingerprints. After living in Rishikesh for a while you start to recognize familiar faces. There is the cow with only one horn, the pregnant cow, and the belching cow (she has some serious indegestion issues). And then there is my favorite, who I have lovingly christened “Holy Cow” because her large, round horns stand perfectly erect and look like a halo over her head. Besides, its just fun to say “Holy Cow!” whenever I see her.

Then there are the monkeys. In stark comparison to the cows, they are energetic and crafty and always on the move. They seem to spend most of their time just “monkeying around”: jumping from tree to tree, from building to building, grooming themselves and each other, and demonstrating to the public the various positions of the Kama-Sutra. I woke up this morning to the sounds of someone knocking gently on the window next to our bed. I opened my eyes and found myself face to face with a monkey, with only the glass separating us. Mr. Monkey was just chilling on our balcony with his entire monkey family… perhaps he recognized me as one of his own.

Unlike the cows, the monkeys don’t wait to be fed, but prefer to snatch food right out of your hands. If you have something of value, hold it tight, or else. Another right of passage into Rishikesh life is to be the victim of a food snatching by one of the eager monkeys. They are very observant and are always on the lookout for inattentive tourists carrying plastic bags full of goodies. In a flash they jump down from their perch, rip open the plastic and snatch the food of their liking right out of the bag (we are still mourning the loss of a pricey pomegranate at the hands of an enterprising monkey). Once, I saw a monkey who had just stolen a plastic bottle of coke from an unsuspecting pedestrian, and was sitting on a branch trying to figure out exactly how to open it. It was somehow able to bite a hole through the bottom and drink some tasty coke. It was quite an entertaining sight, and I am sure it would have made an excellent Coca-Cola commercial.

And then there are the street dogs. They are all similar looking mutts, probably all interrelated with long and lean bodies and short fur. If you see them in the daytime, you would be under the impression that these were the calmest, most serene creatures on the planet. Most of them are sleeping peacefully or strolling languidly from one corner to another. But in the nighttime, they show their true nature. We often fall asleep to the noises of intense and passionate barking that sounds like gang warfare.

It is a common sight to see a newly-born litter of pups (6 or 7 in total) all sleeping in a pile in their mother’s lap and suckling on her for milk. I have watched a particular litter of puppies, which were born around the time we arrived in Rishikesh. I saw them when they were still fluffy and goofy little balls, which could barely take two steps without toppling over. Now they are more than two months old and are full of energy… running around independently and getting into all sorts of trouble, while Mom finally has a chance to rest quietly by the side of the road.

We have formed a special relationship with one particular dog, which, one day, just showed up at our door. When we first met her she had a ragged coat, and was limping and lethargic. She goes from door to door in our building and gets a little treat from every room, and when she comes to us, she usually gets a few bowls of milk, some bread and butter. We have allocated a special bowl just for her. She is looking much healthier nowadays, with a thick, healthy coat. A few days ago, she showed up with fully-grown puppies (4 in total), and so now we are feeding the entire family!

PART III

Since Rishikesh is a major pilgrimage destination, there is a constant influx of Indian tourists coming to visit the holy city, stay in one of the numerous ashrams, take a bath in the Ganga, and visit the local holy shrines. An ashram is a very curious concoction of temple, hotel, and retirement home. First and foremost it is, of course, a holy temple filled with religious icons, paintings, and altars, and with its own swamis (religious teachers) who daily perform pujas (religious ceremonies). These are the places where people gather to pray on a daily basis and especially on the holiest days of the year (and there seems to be no shortage of holy days in India). In that sense it is very similar to temples familiar to us in the West. But these temples also function as hotels. Most of them have hundreds of rooms where visitors and pilgrims can stay during their visit to the ashram. In addition, at least some of these rooms are permanently occupied by aging seniors. Many Indians, at some point in time in their lives, can choose an ashram to their liking and pay that ashram in small installments for a certain number of years. When these people decide to retire, they can come to the ashram and a room will be provided for them. It’s a type of social security. So, instead of being cooped up and forgotten in some lonely retirement home, these seniors live out the last of their days in these thriving and lively ashrams, which are not only full of spirituality and religion, but also constantly full of visitors of all ages. I think it’s a nice system.

The Indian visitors to Rishikesh are an interesting bunch. Many of them come on pilgrimage tours from distant, remote parts of the country, and some have never (or perhaps, rarely) encountered a Westerner. It often seems that we are more interesting to them than they are to us. Indians have no concept of personal space or distance and they have no qualms about coming very close and just staring, pointing and commenting. Many of them want to take a picture. One day, Misha and I were walking along a narrow road in the mountains here in Rishikesh, and a car zoomed past us. We heard it come to an abrupt stop dangerously on the side of this narrow road and watched as a huge family piled out of a compact hedge-back. We thought something was wrong with their car, but no… this large family (uncles, aunts, cousins) just wanted to take a picture with the two funny looking Westerners.

For a lot of the Indians (especially the young Indian men) taking these types of pictures with a Westerner (especially a female Westerner) seems to be quite a hobby. We live in an age when everyone has a cell-phone (I swear I have seen homeless men on the street with one) and that means that everyone also has a handy camera at their disposal. Many Indian men like to take pictures of Western girls especially while pretending that they are searching for something on their cell phones. I can’t count the number of types I have been stopped and asked to “please please please one picture one picture”. I have often wondered what they do with these pictures, and have come up with a theory that they must collect them and then trade them like baseball cards. “I’ll trade ya two brunettes from Mexico for one tall blonde from Sweeden”. Of course it feels kind of nice and flattering at first… wow, its almost like being a celebrity…. I must really look nice for all these men to want a picture with me. But soon it just becomes a nuisance. It once took me 10 minutes to cross a 100-foot suspension bridge because I was accosted by a group of excited Indian men who wouldn’t let me go without at least one picture with every one of them.

In general, Rishikesh is a very special and holy place and I can’t really begin to do justice to it with my words. I will end this entry with one short story that to me encapsulates the spirit of Rishikesh. It is customary for the ashrams to have early-morning prayer services that start before the sunrise, sometime around 5 or 5:30. The time right before the rising of the sun, before nature has woken up, is considered a specially holy and peaceful time. At around 5am, you start to hear the ringing of the bells and then choruses of people praying and singing. Some time ago, I started hearing the most beautiful and peaceful singing and was surprised at just how early it was starting (around 4am). I would often wake up for a few minutes at this early hour and enjoy the sound of this singing. One time I woke up at 4am, heard the familiar voice and decided to find out just who it belonged to. I left our room all bundled up in three layers and multiple scarves (its quite cold and extremely windy here in the nighttime), and started crossing the long suspension bridge over the Ganga river since I thought the sound was coming from the opposite shore. The bridge was swaying in the powerful gusts of wind and I was surprised to see another figure on the bridge. This man was standing in the intense wind and cold wearing nothing more than a holy-man’s loincloth covered by a thin orange cotton sheet. He was standing all by himself in the exact center of the bridge, singing to the river Ganga. He was praying to her like she was his beloved lover, in the most passionate and tender way, with his arms outstretched as if he was trying to merge his soul with her waves. It was obvious that the bitter cold wind was not affecting him in the least because in his mind he was in another plane. He was not there to put on a show, or for a handout or for anyone to notice him, it was just a selfless act of sincere devotion. His voice echoed beautifully back and forth across the river and made it sound like there was a whole chorus of singers. It was so surreal and yet so beautiful. Where else but in India, and Rishikesh especially, could this happen?