Haridwar....

This last weekend we did something we never did before (Also continuing with my trysts with the photgraphy weekends ). Me and my parents went to Meerut on a day trip for some personal work and on finding Haridwar only 135 Km far from there, we decided to go there for weekend. And apart from our car, wallets and my beloved camera, we din't have anything else with us.  But still we went there and decided we will buy everything including toothbrush over there.

Luckily I carried my camera with me , although I din't carry the charger so I had to use it judiciously, but still it was quite a memorable trip.

Nevertheless...Before proceeding to share the pictures and some stories let me first share the significance of Haridwar.

River Ganga at Haridwar

Haridwar or Hardwar is city in Uttarakhand state of India. Its one of the most religious place in India and is the first city in plains where river Ganga or Ganges touches on its descent from its birth place of Gangotri, till it travels the breadth of India and enters the Bay of Bengal.
It is around 205 Kms from New Delhi and there are numerous trains that connect it with the Capital of India. Apart from that there are many bus services that ply too but honestly the roads are quite narrow for the last 80 odd Kms.

Haridwar and Hardwar, both name has different significance. Hari means Vishnu and Dwar means gate, so Haridwar stands for Gateway to Lord Vishnu and thus also considered to be the point from where one starts the ascent to Badrinath, one of the Char Dhams,which has a temple of Lord Vishnu. Similarly Har means Shiva, so Hardwar stands for the Gateway of Lord Shiva, as similar to Badrinath, the ascent to Kedarnath, one of the Chota Char Dhams which contains a temple of Lord Shiva ,also starts from this place.

River Ganga

Haridwar is one of the four places in India where according to Hindu Mythology , the drops of Amrit or Immortal Nectar were dropped while being transferred by celestial bird Garuda , who is also the vehicle of Lord Vishnu. The other three places are Allahabad, Nasik and Ujjain.

Bathing Ghat on the bank of River Ganga @ Haridwar

So at one of these four places Khumb Mela is celebrated after every three years thus after every 12 years at Haridwar. According to Hindu beliefs, taking a bath in river Ganges , relieves you of all the sins that you have done. Thus almost every day you can find people visiting here to take bath in the holy Ganges. At the time of Khumb , millions of people come to Haridwar to have a bath in Ganges and that spectacle is one of the biggest cultural festival celebrated anywhere in this world.

We reached Haridwar by evening and most of the evening was spent sitting at river bank followed by shopping for one day's stay.

Next day when we got up it was raining, so we had to wait for a while in the hotel room and then we proceeded to one of the Bathing ghats near the hotel. After bath ,we had breakfast at one of the Bengali restaurant. Apart from the holiness , another thing that attracts my parents to this place is the herd of Bengali restaurants which serve authetic Bengali cuisine at quite a nominal price.

After breakfast, since it had stopped raining, the weather was remarkably pleasant. So we three started walking on the river bank and it provided me with ample opportunities to click.

Kids asking to be clicked

While my folks found a tea shop on the bank and sat there , I started exploring the area , all the time clicking. So while I was busy clicking around, two beggar kids , most probably brother and sister approached me. Initially I thought they were just like numerous other beggars, who were pestering me for alms, but they just asked me to take one pic, to which I very happily obliged.

Mansa Devi at the hill top.

Apart from holy river Ganges, Haridwar also has two temples situated on the surrounding hilltops, one on the west side named Mansa Devi and other on the east side named Chandi Devi. Both are accessed through ropeways and apart from the holy temples they provide a bird's eye view of Haridwar city and river Ganga. Since I have been there many times we decided to give it a skip.

Wandering Sadhu

The place where the Amrit drops fell is called Har ki Pauri and every evening a wonderful Aarti is conducted on bank of river. More than thousands reach that place in the evening so we had to start quite early so that we can get good place to sit and watch the Aarti. Since the aarti was on the top of my list of moments to click, I was saving my camera battery for the same throughout the day.

Har Ki Pauri

At Har Ki Pauri apart from many other temples , of course there is the temple of Goddess Ganga.

Silver Palki of Goddess Ganga

The above silver palki was gifted by a businessman from Mumbai who was childless for years and soon after praying at Haridwar he was blessed by child.

One of the best things is the numerous Diya surrounded by flowers , which are floated by various devotees as an offering to Goddess Ganga.

Har Ki Pauri

While we were waiting for 2 hours for Aarti to start, it started raining and since we din't have any arrangements to counter the rain , we had enjoy getting drenched :). The rain pouring on the ghat provided a beautiful picture. I clicked some rainbows to but they are not worth sharing :(.

On the right side of the temple there was a crowd of people who were taking bath and the way they were enjoying, it looked more like Goa than a Holy place of worship .

Then came the moment which I wanted to click i.e. the Aarti but may be because of my camera's focal capability I couldn't get a better close up of the Aartis. But I liked what I clicked.

After having bath on Sunday Morning, we started on the trip back to our home.

The return trip was quite frustrating as first the car broke down and we had to wait 4 hours for it to be repaired , then a truck backed into our car with us almost getting hurt badly but luckily nothing happened and then we had a tyre puncture.

Despite of everything the trip was one of the best I ever had and more so because of the numerous photos that I could click. Although most of them were OK but still I enjoyed clicking them and hope some day when I will be better photographer I will revisit Hardwar and click some good pictures :)

In search of God....

Last to last week I went on , I want to call it pilgrimage , but will rather call a vacation to Shirdi and Nashik.

Procession of Shirdi Sai Baba

Shirdi  is the abode of Sai Baba, who was an Hindu saint and Muslim fakir, i.e. someone who is followed by both Hindus and Muslims alike. In fact there is a story that when he died , Hindu and Muslims started fighting for his body. Muslims said he is Muslim so they will bury him and Hindus said no he is Hindu so will have a funeral pyre for him. So in order to prevent the communal riots ,his dead body turned into roses. People call him an incarnation of God. My family is his ardent follower and had long wished to pay a visit to his holy land. I don't know whether he was an incarnation or God himself but at least what I really appreciate about him is the social work that he did for the poor people. The way he served and loved people irrespective of their caste ,creed or financial status is really commendable and worth following. 

The day after we reached was Ram Navami, the Birthday of Lord Ram, an incarnation of Lord Vishnu. This day is also auspicious for devotees of Sai Baba and is celebrated as Shirdi Divas. On this day there were close to 25 lakh devotees in Shirdi and everywhere we could see processions carrying Idols of Sai Baba like the one I clicked above.

The day we reached was comparatively less crowded and we could have darshan within an hour or two otherwise it almost takes 5-6 hours to have darshan.

On the evening of the day we reached we went to another pilgrimage nearby by the name of Shani Singhnapur (Pic shown below)

Shani Singhnapur

Shani Dev is also one of the 300 million Gods we worship and is the most feared of the Gods because of his anger. Shani Singhnapur is around 75 kms from Shirdi and it costs you around 100Rs for a round trip on the numerous taxis that ply between Shirdi and Singhnapur. The interesting thing about Singhnapur is that there are no doors on the houses and shops around the temple. In fact there is no door on the bank building thats nearby. Such is the ferocity of Shani Dev that no one can dare to do anything wrong.

So as I was saying, on Ram Navami day there were close to 2.5 million devotees in Shirdi so we knew that we can't do much at Shirdi , so we decided to go to Nashik, which is around 95 kms from Shirdi and costs you Rs 200 for a complete tour to Nashik and Trimbakeshwar Jyotirlinga which is further 35 Kms from Nashik.

Before going to Shirdi , I din't know much about Nashik and just thought of it as some important city of Maharashtra, but on reaching there I found out not only its one of the place where the Khumb happens every 12 years but mythologically its one of the most important city of India. Nashik is situated on the bank of Godavari and is also the place of Sangam of three rivers , Godavari, Aruna and Varuna. Below pics show the sangam point.

Sangam point

Godavari

Nashik is one of the most important place in Hindu mythological epic Ramyana. It contains the place named Panchavati where Lord Ram, Goddess Sita and Lakshman spend their exile as per the wish of Ram's step mother Kaekai. And this was from where Goddess Sita was kidnapped by Demon king Raavana and taken to his kingdom in Lanka (modern day Sri Lanka) and thus leading to Lord Rama attacking Raavana's kingdom to kill him and bring back his wife. Actually Nashik got its name from the fact that when Raavana's sister Surpanakha tried to force Lakshmana to marry him, he cut down his nose and it fell on the bank of river Godavari and thus the place was named Nashik (Nas coming from nasal or nose).

Krypaleshwar , Nashik

Above is the picture of another temple named Kripaleshwar at the same point, which got its name from the following story. Lord Brahma who is the creator of this earth according to Hindu mythology, had 4 heads in 4 directions and due to his lust for the lady who was born from his navel (hence was considered his daughter) he created a fifth head on the top. Lord Shiva then cut that head and as Brahma was God , it was still considered as a sin and thus was advised by his devotee Nandi Bull to seek solace and remittance at Nashik and the temple was named in honor of Nandi Bull as Kripaleshwar (Lord of Fore head as he gave that good advice.)

KaleRam Mandir , Nashik

Above is the picture of Kale Ram mandir (Lord Rama in black marble) at Panchavati and there was a similar temple named Gore Ram and that was from where Goddess Sita was kidnapped. Also at Panchavati there was a cave in which the real Goddess Sita was hidden and Raavan only took an illusion of her along with him.

Trimbakeshwar Temple

From there we went to Trimbakeshwar(pic above) which is a Jyotirling. Jyotirlinga is a shrine of Lord Shiva where he exists as linga of light which is attained as the highest form of spiritualism. There are total of 12 Jyotirlinga in India. And I have been to 5 of these already.

All in all a very spiritual and enlightening trip and truly recommended to all. Although I was little disappointed by the commercialization of Shirdi but nevertheless a nice place to visit to experience various aspects of faith that people have in this world.