4-hour train ride north to Haridwar. Fecundity everywhere. Swamps and forests and acres of fetid slums surrounded by colorful garbage. Haridwar itself is a holy city (no alcohol, huge ceremonies on the river every night) in the foothills where the sacred river, Ma Ganga, first leaves the Himalayas. We glimpsed the chai-colored waters from a lovely cable-car ride up to a shrine. It is a beautiful river made swollen and roiling by the monsoon (heaviest rain in 30 years, we were told this morning). The mountains, too, are beautiful; Jungly, steep-sloped, peppered with red-faced/arsed macaque monkeys, and given incredible depth by the ubiquitous mists. Below, the river bank supports a 100ft. tall statue of Shiva which is far more disarming (ha) than I expected. There is also a human-size statue of the figure Mother Ganga on the bank which, due to the floods, is neck-deep and cutting a white wake in the dun water. Utterly startling. And a surreal parallel to the dead, white hog which had run aground in the center of the creek that feeds the Ganges.
When I wrote poems more regularly, I remember longing for such intense imagery in the world around me. Now it's overwhelming. On walking back to our hotel from the evening's riverside fire ceremonies (Aarti), I experienced sensory overload to a degree I never thought possible. Imagine thousands of people streaming down a narrow, shit-paved street in the rain. The street lights go out for minutes at a time and there are cars, scooters, moto-and-bike rickshaws, buses and trucks (many with no lights) blaring their horns at you as they speed through the crowd. Hawkers on their stalls calling for you to buy this bag of decorated coconuts or this glow-in-the-dark helicopter (it really flies!). Dozens and dozens of men stopping in their tracks to ogle your lovely, rain-soaked girlfriend. A group of men restraining a screaming woman and then dragging her down the street and forcing her into a rickshaw. Begging children and begging holy men and mosquitoes and the crowd pushing you through the area where you saw people defecating this morning and you are wearing sandals. Sleep comes easily.
