Women on Ganga Ghat

It was early morning — around 5:10 am, I started from my hotel to witness the much talked about sunrise on Ganga. The Ganga was much bigger this November and it looked like an ocean. The guide told me that It was even bigger 3 days back. After walking down a few steps to Dashashwamedh Ghat I took a boat that goes to Assi Ghat.

It was also Chhath festival so a crowd of women and men most likely from Bihar were also taking dip in the river. At Assi Ghat with the help of the boatman I got down on the bank. Right next to where I had stepped, I noticed a middle aged women making small mud shivlinga’s and chanting.

She was unimportant to me so I started to walk past by her. However, as a curious NRI, I stopped and decided to see for a few moments what she was doing.

She was keeping each shivling that she made on a mud plate and at the same time chanting “Om namah sivaya “. She was totally focused, unaware of her surroundings — almost in a trance, happy with herself and calm. She was wearing an overused saree that partially covered her head and a dull faded green colored blouse.

Nothing mattered to her, I paused and a thought came to me — My society has taught me to stay away and look down on such people. But why?. If faith is making her happy who am I to judge her.? After all, she was not bothering anyone, nor asking for money, nor interfering in anyone else’s business. She had chosen her own little space and with full devotion deriving happiness from worship. There is a higher level of existence with which we have to connect ourselves. This women had chosen the path of devotion to happiness and to connect with herself.

After observing her, I started to think about the modern life and why we are so unhappy. She chose happiness in an old overused saree and the rest of us are complaining about their designer sarees!.

She is just one of us, however archaic it may seem to many but, she definitely was in a higher state of existence!