The common man's ordeal

Madhuranthakam Narendra gives us the insiders view of the recent Godavari Pushkaralu, which was celebrated with pomp and gaiety.

At the very outset let me confess that I was not so particular of going to Rajahmundry to have the Pushkaralu bath. But I travelled along with a group of friends to Kashmir and our arrangements for that began nearly six months back. Then our friends added the Pushkaralu trip in our Kashmir tour. They felt that it would be better to include the trip to Rajahmundry in the itinerary and we planned to proceed to the Pushkaralu from Chennai; from there we took a flight to Delhi to reach Srinagar and came back, as we believed that we might get slackened if we return to our homes and we might even drop that idea. So we booked railway tickets well in advance exactly four months before the schedule.

But many unforeseen things happened during those four months. First of all, all the Telugu Bhakthi channels, which were deadly in need of some stuff to fill their slots began to telecast umpteen number of discourses by every possible person on the various issues – some were directly related to Pushkaralu and others which didn’t have even a remote association with them and some newspapers made use of the forthcoming event for sensation. Then the governments of recently bifurcated Telugu states were alarmed and began to plan the arrangements for them meticulously. Slowly it became a prestigious issue for the two governments and they took it up as a matter of competition, considered each other their rivals, and they geared their entire mechanism to conduct the Pushkaralu better than the other.

When we were in Kashmir we heard that the Pushkaralu began with all pomp and grandeur and by the evening we learnt that 27 pilgrims were dead in a stampede in Rajahmundry on the first day. That was the beginning of our disturbance. Many of our well wishers telephoned us informing the terrible rush at the Ghats of Rajahmundry and some suggested canceling that trip and return to our homes. Whenever, we had an opportunity we watched the Telugu TV channels and the clippings of the Pushkaralu accounts more baffled us than luring us.

After reaching Chennai we gave a serious thought to that again and some of our group suggested that it was sensible to proceed to Rajahmundry as we had reserved train tickets, then to go the Ghats if they were accessible and manageable. And to get into the train by the evening without a Pushkaralu bath if it was otherwise. The electronic notice board at the railway station greeted us with the news that Howrah Mail would start three hours late on that day. We learnt that it came late from Howrah due to Pushkaralu at Rajahmundry in the midway and so it would start at 2 am instead of 11.30 pm. By the morning 9 am our train reached Eluru and then it began to halt regularly and unexpectedly at many places, not merely at the minor railway stations but also in the midway and whenever it moved it crawled like a snail. We bought the newspapers, and the photographs of the large crowds at the Ghats and the accounts of traffic jams and crowded railway stations disheartened our spirits. We had a non-detail wash in the rail toilets and ate some stuff to avoid hunger. By the time the train reached Rajahmundry it was 3 pm. When we saw manageable crowd in Pushkaralu Ghat from the rail, we got down at Godavari station and rushed to the Ghat along with our bags and baggage. When we entered the multi-twisted and lengthy queue we heard people saying that it was dangerous to be in the river water for more than 3 minutes and we should take care to avoid river water entering into our bodies in every possible way. Some people were distributing water and butter milk sachets to the pilgrims and then we remembered that we skipped our lunch by then. After reaching the steps, which lead to the river we decided to take a dip in the river in batches. While the other group took care of the baggage the other batch had a dip. The water of the river near the Ghats, in spite of the care taken by the sanitary workers, was terribly grubby but the people dipped themselves into it with devotional fervour. Our Pushkaralu bath, luckily, got completed within an hour. Somebody was telling to his companion that he came there late in the afternoon as his bus was halted in the outskirts of the town in the morning but he realised that it was a stroke of luck that made him reach the Ghat late and he would have been in trouble had he come there in the morning, when it was heavily crowded. With a lot of effort we got ourselves extricated from the crowds and searched for a hotel to pacify our hunger.

The old town of Rajahmundry, with its narrow streets and old houses was jammed with crowds everywhere. We couldn’t locate a hotel easily and finally a friend who had some prior acquaintance with the place took us to a ramshackle wayside stall where we ate some snacks and coffee. We requested the stall owner to allow us to change our wet clothes and he generously allowed the women of our group to change the dress behind a wooden plank. By then the time was 5 pm.

We remembered that we had to catch the train at 6.30 pm. But all the autos fled away when we asked them to take us to the railway station saying that they were afraid of being caught in a traffic jam. We requested many of them to oblige us even for a higher charge. Finally an auto driver ventured to go to the station and when we reached there around 6 pm, it was very much like war camp. The three platforms were jam packed with the people and every train that arrived there poured wagons of men on to them and the police were pushing people into every train to dispatch them off. The electronic notice board made the situation worse confounded by ignoring our train. I met the station master for the help and he, who appeared like a traveler lost in wilderness, enquired the person in charge of it and he told him that they couldn’t find place for every god forsaken train in the electronic displayer.

I went to a police officer and told him that it was not justifiable to force the passengers into the reservation compartments and pathetically added that we made the reservations four months back. He glanced at me blindly and replied that it was the only way to clear the crowds and those people would get into the coupes but they wouldn’t disturb the reservation-passengers.

Our train came two hours late but once again we thanked it for the delay as half a dozen trains, which arrived before it and carried away hordes of pilgrims towards the two directions. We had to fight through the mobs to get into our reservation compartments but soon they were jammed with sundry people. Some of them occupied the ends of the berths on which we laid on. They argued that the authorities had already declared that the reservations won’t count at a time like this. A young pilgrim looked daggers at us and said that he was a poor person who couldn’t afford to buy the ticket also. He showed us a small packet of popcorn and told that he could afford it as it cost him only 10 rupees. He questioned whether people like him can seek a Pushkaralu bath or not. I realised that his anger, like the muddled waters of the river Godavari, was disorganised. Till now his looks were haunting me and I found lot of solace not in the Pushkaralu dip but in his anger though it was misdirected.

- The writer is a bilingual short story writer, novelist and poet, writing in Telugu and English.