Lost into the forests, Walk along tha Narmada river

indiantraveller (60)in #travel • 7 years ago

I woke out of the bed at 7 AM. We left at 9 from the ashram room, 3 people eating 2 poha, 2 uttapam, 4 milk coffee and 2 chai only for 100 rupees. We walked to a place called "mai ki bagiya (mother's garden). Many people start their walking pilgrimage from the same place. Almost 40-50 people were doing the final praying and taking blessing from the pundits and putting money as a offering to pandit. You pay and get the blessing as we say "Nothing is really free in this world." The most of the pilgrims were in their old age and some of them, really old. People donate their old cloths and wear white or saffron colour. They take a kamandal or thali for the food, Narmada goddess picture to pray and they get many instructions about the rituals one has to follow e.g. no smoking, no crossing the river, no swimming in Narmada, celibacy etc. 3 of us are not going by the prescribed rituals although we plan to be guided by our own individual intuition. 2 rules we follow: one is to walk and the other is not to cross the river.
We drank our 3rd chai of the day and finally our walk began at 10:11 AM.
The path: we crossed amarkantak and walked 7 km until kapilhara and the river is almost next to us. I noticed the first small dam which makes no electricity. Kapildhara is a tourist spot where river makes its first waterfall.
To walk our path we had to cross the fences and a minute before that Catalina got her first selfie clicked by a young 20 year old guy. 5 minutes later we are completely into the forest. Only sound we could hear was the sound of the rivers and spiders. Next few kms we saw no humans. We took occasional breaks to pee, to take photos or just to look at the trees. In middle of forest we found a small village where we met an old woman walking barefoot and she was also going to the river. She showed us way to the river. Her heel looked in bad shape and yet she walked elegantly. Her husband died long time ago and her son works in a hotel nearby. There is a sliver mine in the village where many people work. She can't hear properly but she has no money to buy the ear machine. She said "one shall not disrespect the mother river as it will bring harm to people. River is happy with her community people but it will create harm to the people who are making dam and trying to stop the flow of the river."
There are all kinds of animal here in the forest and few days ago circus people left a tiger here. Animals don't harm people she said.
AGAIN we are alone and the forest is getting dense and denser. The river is only 5 feet wide here and no one will think this river is home to the one of the biggest dams. I hate big dams.
I do not have many thoughts and still adjusting to the rhythm of my feet. Meanwhile a wave of past thoughts is coming and going. My left shoulder is giving me little bit of concern once in an hour and tree are tall and green. Hitesh is playing flute occasionally. He is learning very fast. Only one week and he can make some sound. I like his passion and I want to enjoy the silence of the forest as well.
It's 3 in the afternoon and we saw one concrete house in middle of the forest and a small clean temple near the river. The baba staying there has spent almost 30 years there and he offered us to stay there for the night which we agreed on after little bit of group discussion.
So, first night we had room of our own, all the essentials to cook and I think we cooked nice food. Shane on us, we totally forgot to give the food to the dog outside. As hitesh rightly said " We would have not forgotten if it would be a nice clean beautiful dog." We tend to take care of things which are already beautiful and clean. The moment we see ugly; we run away.
Last two hours, we spend in the dark in front of hot and comforting bonfire. We talked for a while about writers and the day and few other things, enjoyed the collective unforced silence for some whiles while the dog was sleeping next to us to get some warmth reminding us all the time that we are making her sleep hungry.
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