Slowly Down the Ganges. Eric Newby

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      In spite of the simplicity of the arrangements at the dharmsala, we contrived to make a shambles of them with open trunks and unstrapped bedding rolls, their contents half-disgorged, over all of which hung a stench of kerosene which boded ill for life in the more restricted space of a rowing-boat; but to us it seemed like paradise, and we blessed the Bhata Bhawan family of Der Ismail Khan and all their descendants for ever, for their beneficence and the kindness of the warden of the dharmsala who allowed us to stay there – for, although we were not bona fide pilgrims, it was completely without charge.

      I was too tired and too excited to sleep much. Both nights I went out on to the platform above the river. It was very cold and clear and the moon was in the last quarter. It shone down on the waters which poured down past the ghat, like molten metal on an inclined plane. On either side of the dharmsala, so close that I felt that I could almost touch them, spires and pyramids of shrines and temples rose gleaming in the moonlight. On the other side of the gorge through which the river flowed, the continuation of the Siwalik Hills rose in a dark wall. The only sounds apart from the rushing noise of the river, were those made by the night-watchmen in the narrow streets far below, alternately groaning, and blowing their whistles, as if to prove to themselves that they still existed, for no one else was about. In one cell of the dharmsala, behind a window of red glass, a light still burned. I, too, wondered whether I existed, standing here on a roof-top on the banks of the Ganges, as incongruous as a Hindu on a pier on the south coast of England in the dead season, to which the dharmsala bore a remarkable resemblance.

      On the first night before he went to bed, G. said that he must have a ritual bathe the next morning.

      ‘We can bathe, here from dharmsala,’ he said. ‘If you wish to come I am bathing at five-thirty.’

      It was impossible to sleep after five a.m. anyway because of the sounds made by the other guests who already, at this early hour, were clearing their throats and wringing their noses out in preparation for another day. There were not many of them, but they made up for their weakness in numbers by an incredible volume of sounds that resembled massed bands of double bass and trombones with an occasional terrifying eruption of noise that obliterated all the others, the sort of noise small boys make when pretending to cut one another’s throats.

      When I went to his room at five-thirty, G. had finished clearing his passages. He was doing his Yogic exercises, alternately sucking in huge gouts of air and then releasing them with a hissing noise like a gaggle of angry geese. Together we went down the staircase, across the court and under the archway to the ghat. The moon was down and it was very dark. All one could hear, standing on the steps, was the deep sighing of the river rushing past. It was bitterly cold. For some moments neither of us spoke.

      ‘I think,’ G. said at last, ‘that at this moment I am not bathing. In such circumstances there can be danger to health.’

      Silently we crept up the stairs and back to bed.

      When we rose again at seven, it was still very cold and we peeped round the front gate as apprehensively as mice. Wanda had decided to come with us. The sun had risen some ten minutes earlier but the streets were still in shadow and the wind whistled down them, raising little eddies of dust on the cobble-stones. The only other people who were up were two cha-wallahs, sitting by their smoking tea-engines on either side of the gateway, and we each drank a cup. It was hot, weak and milky and tasted of nutmegs. Then we set off up the road. It was a street of dharmsalas. Some of the more ancient ones with eyeless windows, protected by rusty iron gratings and doors bolted and barred and locked with corroded padlocks, seemed as if they were closed for ever, and one could imagine the interiors with room after shuttered room in which skeleton pilgrims slept for ever on charpoys of worm-eaten wood and rotting string; others dating back to the twenties were painted in faded blues. With their elephantine pilasters and heavy lintels they resembled the exhibition buildings at Wembley which I remembered as a child; while some, more modern still, were painted an indigestible sang de boeuf.

      We groped our way through the bazaar, at this hour as dark as the grave. Most of the shops were still bolted and barred. Only the food merchants were preparing for opening time, heaping up great mounds of sugar and rice which glowed luminously through the murk. Then, suddenly, we emerged from the darkness on to the waterfront and into the light of the sun that was shooting up across the river, blinding the Sivite sadhus who squatted, coated in ashes, in the alcoves below the temple of Gangadwara, still warming themselves before the smouldering tree-trunks with which they had seen the night through. Here we turned inland, away from the river, and began to climb a steep path at the back of the town which led to the temple of Manasa-Devi.

      At the temple, nearly 2,000 feet up, the air was gelid. G. asked the priest to recite the Lalita-sahasra-nama, the thousand names of Vishnu.⁸

      ‘I do not know the Lalita-sahasra-nama’, the priest said, equably and went back to his own protracted devotions.

      ‘It’s disgraceful,’ G. said. ‘He ought to know it. It’s like priest in Church of England not knowing the Lord’s Prayer.’

       CHAPTER FOUR Down the Ganges

      From the hills to Sookerthal on the Ganges, the navigation is restricted entirely to rafts of timber and to the passage of boats which, being built in the valley of Deyra, are with some difficulty and great danger floated, empty down the rapids.

      Col. Sir T. Proby Cautley: The Ganges Canal, Vol. 1

      A list of suggestive articles which are needed on the journey is given here but the pilgrims may have all or some of them as desired and needed.

       Religious

      Japalma

      Agarbattis

      Camphor

      Dhup Powder

      Kumkuma

      Sandalwood Powder

      Wicks soaked in ghee and kundi

      Asanam

      Bhagavad Gita or any religious book for daily use

      Bhajan Songs or Namavali

      Sri Ramakoti Book

       Cloths

      Rugs, Blanket

      Muffler

      Dhavali or Silk Dhoti

      Dhoties 2

      Shirts 4

      Baniyans 2

      Uppar clothe 3

      Towels 3

      Waterproff cloth (2 yards)

      Rotten cloth (pieces 4)

      Coupeens 2

      Cloth bag for money to keep round waist

      Bedding

      Mosquito Curtain

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