Of time, travel and tales

The silhouette of the electric pole by the riverside. My first instinct to understand a city is to travel the city the way the locals travel, and in this small town of Ayodhya, people walked.

Ayodhya, the town of tales. Mythological tales. Religious tales. Been at the heart of controversy for a long time now. Just the smallness of it, fascinated me.

As I walked past the ghat (banks), I saw a family of 20, spreading their bedsheets and going to sleep. The oldest amongst them was talking on the telephone saying, that we've all had a bath by the riverside, and now we are sleeping by the banks. It was ironical that they had no roof over their head, but a mobile phone!

The river is their comfort. The river is their shelter.

Saryu, the river. It curves through the town dotting its own little private tales. The sun is melting into the horizon. An army of dragonflies pirouette their way into the evening sky. The water is singing its silent calm.

As the dim light of darkness fades in, little lamps float into the water as people pray for goodwill. A boy who looked like he was 10, tries to sell a lamp to me. He overheard the priest sermon the visitors to the city that if you spread light into the river, your wish would come true. The only kind education that the boy had, was what he has heard in temples. Its evening time, and the temple bells are ringing. It is interspersed with the sound of conch shells.

I asked him, "What do you do in life? "

He said, "My parents could never send me to school. So I am a shroud-picker. The river is said to be auspicious, and the ashes of many bodies are immersed here. I pick the cloth that is put over the dead bodies and recycle them. I see death everyday, that it doesn't move me anymore. I see it as a cycle. The priest tells me that there are no bodies. There are only souls. When the soul feels trapped, the body has to die. "

"Do you believe in God?"

"If I started to believe in God, then I'd have to die. I am a shroud-picker by profession, no?"