Photo Essay: Babas of Rishikesh
Auli -> Rishikesh -> Corbett National Park -> Varanasi -> Agra
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A walk around Swargashram, Ram Jhoola and Laxman Jhoola has many interesting things to offer. The most prominent are the Babas(mendicants) who are seen everywhere. You notice them sitting quietly in a corner doing nothing, reading a book or watching the people walking past, or silently meditating. A few may ask you for a small donation or a cuppa chai. And some of them would be selling odd things that might interest the strolling tourist. Come evening and you are likely to see them studying some scriptures or sitting on the bank of Ganges chatting. I kept seeing them everyday and they looked the same and seemed to do the same thing everyday. Sometimes it is difficult to say if a person is indeed a Baba or not, but they all look the same and they are almost always called as Baba, so it would not really matter.
And some of them seemed to be special. You could feel an aura of peace around them. This Baba would sit here everyday, a little ahead of Ramjhoola, selling a few odd things and with a weighing machine, for using which he would charge a rupee. In my few days of stay Rishikesh, I might have passed him a hundred times, but I never saw him lift his head out of the book and look around to see what is going on in the world. And even when I took his photograph, I am fairly sure he never noticed. I decided to get myself weighed, and when I gave him a Rs.10 bill, he spoke to me softly and slowly asking for a smaller denomination. As soon as our transaction was over, he was back to being buried in his book.
He had a greater variety of gear to sell. Plastic toys, flutes, a few interesting stones in his box, and more.
A few of them seem to be more active. I see them making a conversation with a fruit vendor or the chai shop guy, or sometime smoking away to glory, cigarette after cigarette and breaking occasionally only for a conversation or to sip his chai.
Afternoons are for a siesta!
Some of the Babas turn up at the Ganga aarti and watch silently, standing from behind. It is interesting to catch them in the warm light of the Aarti after sunset.
This is an image that has stayed in my memory. As the baba looks, the sign with the arrow mark above him reads ‘dharma marga’ or ‘divine path'(roughly translated, for th e lack of better words). As I was taking this image, it reminded me the oft-repeated words of Krishna in the Gita – To walk in dharma marga!
More on Rishikesh at paintedstork.com
* Rishikesh photo gallery
* Arriving at Rishikesh.
* Walking around Laxman Jhula
* Ganga Aarthi at Rishikesh
* Photo Essay: Babas of Rishikesh
* Rishikesh to Kaudiyala
* About Rishikesh