Shiva’s Essence
The early-morning train, scudding across the flat dawn landscape, was something out of a latter-day Raj. Patches of green, fields of cane and rice in all stages of growth, alternating with the drab dun and ochre colours of the huts and shacks, combined in a complex and exotic mosaic. The train containing the time-travellers passed through an alien landscape for which no travel yet experienced had prepared us. The sight of multitudes of individuals squatting beside the tracks voiding their bowels made one query whether the country had been given a collective purgative. Our family group was en route to three days and two nights at a whitewater rafting camp on the upper Ganga (Ganges) River. I was a officer of the Canadian Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, working as Senior Systems Administrator at the Canadian High Commission in New Delhi. My wife, Terry, was Personal Assistant to the Economics Counsellor. Our son, Geoffrey, was seven and our daughter, Siobhan, was three. Our friend and ayah, Venus, whom we brought from Guyana for our tour in India, was with us to keep an eye on Geoff and Siobhan, while mummy and daddy do crazy things in a rubber raft.
Geoff’s questions punctuated the visual tapestry. My neck was sore from its’ constant bias toward the window, and I had discovered that I was keeping my breathing shallow in an unconscious tribute to the majesty and timelessness of the scenes outside. Dusty country roads are populated by water buffalo and Gandhi impersonators wearing longhis and riding ancient bicycles that seem as old as the time-worn landscape. Women, in colours as bright and surreal as a Ken Kesey acid flashback, spot the rice paddies and the cane fields, gathering an eternal harvest untouched by northern seasons. Small handmade clay smokestacks belch clouds of grey smoke, while within their warm wombs simple bricks bake and dream of reincarnation as yet another hovel. Trestles cross rivers whose banks are alive with yet more butterfly saris, their wearers pounding piles of laundry washed in mud-brown waters against the patient rocks. Scabrous stray dogs fight, forage, and procreate oblivious to their surroundings. Happy children play naked amongst the filth, with their future sex not yet determined: only later would they assume their preordained roles and take their places in the eternal struggle (or is it perhaps the eternal celebration?) that is India.
That afternoon we were introduced to the holy Ganga River where it flows through the sacred town of Haridwar. Hindu mythology has it that the Ganga springs from Shiva’s head while he sleeps in the Himalayas. Outside of the railway station at Haridwar, a fountain depicts this. Geoff wonders why Shiva is blue. Reflecting upon this variation on the Daddy-why-is-the-sky-blue? theme, I answer that it was to distinguish him from mortals. Shiva’s dreams would later transform, for us, into a nightmarish cascading maelstrom into which we would be voluntarily swept. Not just once, but many times!
The first day started with our young guide, Clayton, a 23-year-old New Zealander, giving us our briefing (caveat emptor!) And training us on survival techniques and what to do while IN the water! Our raft group is diverse, not to say eclectic, ranging from a British banker to an Indian university student. With the exception of the banker and his 14-year-old son, none of us had any rafting experience. At this point I had absolutely no intimation of what was to come. Sure, I reasoned, it’s whitewater rafting, but the “white” part surely must refer to several sets of rather small rapids picked out especially to give each raftload of novices a shiver of excitement and anticipation without any actual danger! So much for my flawed and naive reasoning.
The rapids over the first day’s thirteen kilometre stretch from our campsite to Rishikesh, were frightening, but we all managed to cling tenuously to our existence, personified by a 12-foot patch of feeble blue rubber. Joy at safely transiting one stretch of insane water quickly gave way to full realization that our collective folly was not yet complete. The soles of my feet developed a Crazy-Glue-like substance that kept me bonded with the bottom of the raft. My mind constantly reviewed my life, and I believe I entered a state of fear-induced Nirvana, becoming one mentally with the river with which I was certain of becoming one physically. Geoff joined us for the gentler bits, and I rejoiced at seeing my son again after our trial by water.
Rishikesh (Hrishikesh) is a holy town on the Ganga, populated by guesthouse owners, pilgrims, neo-hippies, and holy men (sadhus). It is perched upon the sides of Himalayan foothills, and is a cacophony of sight, sound, and scents. The sweet smell of hashish and incense hung over the town like a benediction. This was where the Beatles and Donovan came to study with the Maharishi. As is my custom, I perused the faces of those denizens of Rishikesh whom we passed in our diesel-fume-filled carriage, and tried to imagine what strange vistas their insane and staring eyes beheld! Were their mental universes populated by the gods on whom the garish temple images were modelled? If that were the case, little wonder that they dedicate their lives to serving these gods! As an aside, I do muse on the fact that, unlike Christian artists depicting the different and varied faces of Christ, ALL the millions of images and statues of Shiva, Krishna, Hanuman, Vishnu et al, are constant in their representations. Is this meant to divulge to us some universal truth? Who, in fact, are the pagans?
The second day on the river we started by busing twenty kilometres up the river. We had been told that we would be going through such ordeals as Daniel’s Dip, and the Wall. Oh good. What strange, wondrous and distant drums could prompt a man of 55 well-lived years to do this testosterone motivated, male-ego building, death-wish fulfilling river thing! Feeling that his crew was experienced enough, our guide decided to take us through each set of rapids the hard way. Although we appreciated his confidence in us, I suspected that his decision was based on wanting a bit of excitement himself, rather than feeling complete trust in the virtuosity of his crew. We paddled on.
The feeling of approaching a geographic feature that roars and leaps high into the air while passing in a dizzying foam-drenched rush through cliffs of granite, and is possessed of hidden eddies that can suck one down to the jagged rocks just beneath the surface, can only be described as a controlled terror. First the noise, then the increasing speed of the river, and then the rapids, hidden from view until it is too late to scream “noooo!,”suddenly are before and below us, tossing spumes of white water three metres into the air! When you are committed (a word I use advisedly) to the rapids, thought is suspended and placed into a wet, white, noisy place where the taste of fear is the taste of the Ganga. Paddling furiously in response to the fervent exhortations of our guide, we are tossed into a washing machine from hell. The stern of the raft goes down and suddenly is at a 45-degree angle behind and below me. The entire raft rushes toward a rock wall while we assume a tilt of 40 degrees on our axis: nothing exists but the mad, fear-induced digging of the paddles, while the psychotic river attempts to wrench them from our puny grasps.
Daniel’s Dip claims two casualties. Terry gets hit in the nose by something unseen (a river sprite!), causing a brief nosebleed, while Clayton bashes himself in the mouth with his paddle, which does nothing to enhance our faith in him as the omnipotent guide: if this can happen to him, what, pray, might happen to lesser mortals?
A peaceful hiatus while our puerile comrades in the two other rafts enjoy themselves by splashing each other! A return to the safety of childhood prompted by the trauma of water psychoses. We feel smugly superior to them, as we took the more difficult routes through Daniel’s Dip and the preceding rapids, while they took the easy way. In our raft each of us is quiet and contemplative, reflecting on our feelings as we went through Daniel’s Dip. A certain inner peace descends upon each of us, perhaps as a result of the incredible adrenaline rush we had all experienced just minutes ago.
Like a visit from psychic forerunner, the Pink Floyd tune “The Wall” gives me mental goose bumps, and plays non-stop in my head. In the distance the sound of the Wall dominates all, reducing the mountains to insignificance, dulling the sunlight into insane rainbows, and forcing us all to see the river as though for the first time. Our senses focus, awareness is heightened, and our hearts provide the sluggish yet pervasive bass beat demanded by the Wall’s psychopathic symphony. We round a bend, and there, in front of us and dropping rapidly as it rushes by a solid rock face, is our Nemesis, the Wall.
The controlled terror that I feel shifts into high gear, and my entire existence to this point is focussed upon Clayton’s voice, screaming at us to “paddle, paddle, paddle!” Time stops. The feeling possesses me that an oar has broken the right lens from my sun glasses, will the river suck the moccasins from my feet as a token tithe demanded by the unforgiving river gods? I MUST start swimming to the shore, else be shredded against the cliff face. I am on my back looking UP at the surface of the water. My oar, still in my hand, is being buffeted by the angry river. Surfacing, I see an oar handle stretched toward me and I fight to reach it. Success! With no grace and a distinct lack of elegance, I am pulled aboard. Stunned and disoriented, I say to Terry, who was thrown across the raft into my seat, that I think I lost my sunglasses. They are still safe in my anorak pocket, and I have been through the Wall.
At night, the stars are only 10 feet overhead. The year is 1997, and the Hale-Bopp comet hovers slowly above the mountains, and all of us are affected by the cosmic majesty. Unseen trucks labour around the dark mountain roads high above our camp. The monkeys come down to explore the edges of the camp, while the children are afraid to pee in case they encounter a monkey while visiting the camp toilets. The campfire offers an ancient and symbolic protection against the forces of darkness, against the intrusion of the unknown, against the forces of Chaos. I feel strangely reborn, whether from surviving, or from drinking of Shiva’s essence from his holy river, I do not know. Yousef, the camp manager, plays an excellent guitar rendition of Pink Floyd’s “Shine on, You Crazy Diamond,” and Cat Steven’s “Moon Shadow”: he breaks into an old Robert Johnson-style blues number, and the spirit to the river moves me to sing my own ad hoc words for the riff, which the ranks of the river-initiated around the fire receive in kind approbation. I am alive. I am well. My long-quested state of peace and tranquillity is as near to me now as it will ever be.
Geoff talks to Venus all the way home. The excitement of living a childhood adventure drama has animated him as only video and computer games have done previously. From Haridwar to New Delhi railway station he stops only to swallow his train meals. Siobhan is tired, and is prevented from becoming cranky solely by the presence of her “blankie,” a faithful, if somewhat tattered blanket, and loyal companion and confidant since birth. Terry, Venus, and I continue to be impressed by the meals we receive on the train. It is fairly simple fare, but with exotic flavours and textures that enhance the experience for us. Excitement has found a fertile home in a young boy who has rafted on the holy Ganga. Exhaustion has wrapped in compelling arms a young girl who has played in sand ground by a sacred river from the Himalayas.
A midnight rain has polished the dusty streets of New Delhi as we drive home from the station. The children fall asleep quickly without the usual stories and songs. Terry saves her diary entry for the morrow. I do not sleep immediately, but savour an inner contentment that will stay with me as long as the memory of this experience lasts. I have drunk of Shiva’s essence. Part of the wonder and mystery that is India has become part of me, and I feel that I have gained something intangible that will enhance the remainder of my life.
