Swargashram – Hardwar

(i) Ramdas Gives It Up

When Ramdas returned to Swargashram, he directed his steps to the double kuti which he had occupied with the other two friends before leaving for Vasishtashram. But he found the room locked. For the night he sought refuge in a kuti which was in ruins. This kuti consisted of nothing but two walls and tin sheets covering the top. The night was cold and icy blasts were blowing into the dilapidated kuti. The night passed and the next day he still found the double kuti shut and locked.

In the same line as the fallen kuti, in which Ramdas stayed for a night, there was another occupied by an old sadhu from Maharashtra. He had known Ramdas on the last occasion. He informed Ramdas that Ramcharandas and Bhavanishankerrao had left Swargashram some days before, and Ramcharandas had locked up the double kuti. He expressed his keen desire to accommodate Ramdas in his kuti. Ramdas accepted his hospitality. The room he occupied was only ten feet by four feet. There was a slightly raised pad of earth along its width which was intended for seat and sleeping place for the single dweller. The kind sadhu insisted upon Ramdas’ using the raised pad, and, as for himself, the sadhu slept and sat on the lower floor at Ramdas’ feet. The sadhu was a short-statured man. He was given to smoking ganja. His sadhana consisted of reading twice a day the Avadhuta Gita in Sanskrit of Sri Dattatreya.

For bhiksha both he and Ramdas would go to the annakshetra at midday. One meal a day always sufficed Ramdas; such also was the case with the sadhu.

On account of the Kumbhamela and also the approaching pilgrimage to Badrinath and Kedarnath, there was an unusual rush of pilgrims in advance of the set periods. They would wander in Swargashram for the darshan of sadhus residing in the kutis. They used to make presents to the sadhus of eatables, cloth and money. The pious pilgrims, before turning away from the kuti after the darshan, would throw into the room their presents. Mostly they would fling pice. Everyday the coins collected would amount to ten to twelve annas. The sadhu had a jholi or pouch in which he stored the coins.

Armed with the money the sadhu would run to the small bazaar outside the ashram and procure milk, tea, sugar and eatables. He would thus prepare tea twice a day from the proceeds of the alms. Ramdas found that the sadhu’s life became one continuous round of fetching tea materials and preparing tea from morn to eve. Even his daily readings of Avadhuta Gita had to be stopped in consequence.

As days passed, the coins commenced to pour in like a shower, sometimes silver coins also. Every day there was a surplus or balance of coins after expenditure. The jholi was getting heavier day by day, and the sadhu became madly active like a cat with a burnt tail!

Ramdas now wanted to cry halt and had a frank talk on the subject of money with the sadhu.

“Sadhuji, God has provided us with a shelter in the kuti and is feeding us with one meal a day. He wills that we should devote all our time to His remembrance. Now what are we doing? Tea, eatables and meal have become the sole things of our lives. You know sadhus have nothing to do with money. The moment you have surplus money after your creature needs are met, you think of the ways how you should spend it. You run to the bazaar for things which you can do without and get into a whirlpool of deluding activity. So, in future we shall not accept any coins from the visitors. We will pray to them not to offer any. Let us see how much we have already accumulated.”

The sadhu at first rebelled against the suggestion, but at last yielded when Ramdas asked him to choose between him and the money. He lowered the bag from the peg on the wall and poured out its contents. The amount was about five rupees, mostly in copper coins. The sadhu was for the time being convinced of what Ramdas told him on the question of money.

“What shall we do with the money? – shall we give it to some other sadhu?” he asked.

“How can you hand over a thing to another sadhu when you have found it bad for yourself?” remarked Ramdas.

“Then, what is to be done?” he queried.

“The only way,” said Ramdas “is to throw away the money and have done with it.”

At this hint the sadhu opened his eyes wide at Ramdas in surprise.

“Come along, fetch the coins,” saying thus Ramdas walked out. The sadhu blindly obeyed. Ramdas led him, both his hands full of coins, to a meshy, thorny bush which was perfectly inaccessible.

“Now, throw the coins into the bush,” Ramdas advised.

At one fling the coins flew into the thick bush and disappeared from view. Now they returned to the kuti. This happened in the evening. Next day, as usual, the pilgrims had again their indefatigable quest for sadhus and came in larger numbers than before. They were appealed to, both by Ramdas and the sadhu, not to make presents of money, but in spite of their pleading they threw coins on the floor of the room at its entrance, as was their wont. This time not only copper coins but also silver rupees rolled down. In the evening they found that the collection amounted to several rupees.

Ramdas gave it up – it was Ram’s will – and kept quiet over the matter. The sadhu coolly, as if nothing had happened regarding the money matter, went about preparing tea and storing up provisions procured from the collections.

(ii) The Kumbhamela

The main day of the Kumbhamela approached. It was to be on the morrow. Ramdas asked the sadhu if he had any idea of attending the festival at Hardwar. The sadhu seemed to have a great desire to be present at Hardwar the next day for the great occasion. He requested Ramdas to go with him. Ramdas also wished to see the fun. That they had good fun at the fair will be clear from what follows.

They started in the afternoon. Another old sadhu who was a permanent resident of Swargashram also joined them. They made a halt for the night at Sat Narayan Chutty, seven miles from Swargashram. Next day, after bhiksha, they walked to Hardwar where they arrived at about five in the evening. Both the banks of the Ganges in Hardwar presented a seething mass of humanity. For miles all round every nook and corner was occupied by pilgrims and sadhus. It was a tremendous gathering. It was said that over thirteen lakhs of people had assembled there for the gathering.

The sadhus, however, wedged themselves between two groups of pilgrims on the opposite bank of the river. The muhurta or auspicious hour for bathing in the Brahma kund was four hours after midnight. The belief goes that those who bathe in the kund at this psychological hour will attain immortality. Ramdas did not appreciate nor had he any belief in that cheap method of earning immortality! God had granted him that supreme blessing already by making him pass through the necessary struggle and sadhana. He was there to witness the magnificent mela of lakhs of people. The very sight of the vast crowds sent him into ecstasies.

Till twelve, the mass of humanity was lying still on the banks of the river. Now commenced a movement like the huge waves rising in the ocean. Thousands of pilgrims made a rush towards the coveted Brahma kund. The two sadhus and Ramdas had to join the rabble. The sadhus, to prevent their being separated from each other, had their hands interlocked with one another’s. The crowd had to move very slowly, sometimes they took more than five minutes to cover a yard of ground.

Hundreds of police were present to maintain order and prevent accidents. On and on they went. At certain stages the crowds halted for over half-an-hour. No further movement was possible on account of the march of a thick crowd from the opposite direction. Thousands of people at the back pressed on them. They were crushed and squeezed as sugarcane in the juice-extracting machine. The sadhus bellowed forth. The old sadhu who had newly joined them was frightened out of his wits.

“I don’t want bath in the kund or any such blessed thing,” he cried out. “I would I were out of this insufferable condition with my bones and skin whole.”

But there was no escape. They had bargained for the experience and they must go through it willy-nilly. The sadhu’s one thought was freedom from the most uncomfortable situation in which he found himself, and he counted such freedom as nothing short of immortality itself!

At last, they reached a square open place on a broad road, where a number of police, with the help of their long lathis used for fencing, had kept at bay two on-rushing crowds from opposite directions of the road. The sadhus crouched close to a sweetmeat shop on the road-side. A moment had not passed, when the lathi fence gave way in one direction, owing to the enormous pressure of the crowd, and what ensued was pandemonium. Cries, yells, stamping and cursing rent the air. The old sadhu, who was close to Ramdas, giving himself up for lost, gave out a piercing shriek.

Ramdas was leaning against the wall of the shop, and he found two men standing on his knees, two on his shoulders and one on his neck which bent down with the weight. All through this marvellous experience he was perfectly calm and collected. At that time, he remembers to have had his breathing entirely stopped, he sustained the heavy human bodies with ease. If he had fallen down he would have been trampled down to pulp, but God’s protecting hand was ever on him. Ramdas now heard a piteous cry from the old sadhu. A stout mother had taken up a standing posture on his chest, and he was exhorting her:

“O mother, you are my dearest mother. Please do come down from my chest. I cannot bear your weight. O mother, a thousand dandawats at your precious feet, please do!”

“I cannot do so, Sadhuji,” replied the mother. “The moment I jump to the ground, I am done for; have patience for a while.”

“Oh!” shouted the sadhu, “you are then bent upon killing me. Why did I come here at all? Cursed be the thought that guided me to this death-trap.”

The tense situation lasted only for a few minutes. The police got the crowds well in hand again and the space was cleared. Ramdas was relieved of his burdens and so also the old sadhu. The sadhu drew a long breath of inexpressible relief as the stout lady abandoned her perch upon his breast.

Till the evening of the next day they were driven hither and thither by the rushing crowds and the police, and they could not disentangle themselves from the vast and intricate human riddle. Ramdas was reminded of the perplexing fortress of the Mahabharata war. However, after the sun had gone down, they found a way out and proceeded towards Rishikesh with as much speed as they could muster.

Over a hundred casualties had occurred during the night’s stampede and the violent onsets of the crowds. In the night they stopped again at Sat Narayan Chutty and next day reached Swargashram. The fright and fatigue to which the old sadhu was subjected in the mela told upon him, and he was laid up with fever and nervous debility for over a week, while Ramdas and his companion sadhu were sound as bells, not any the worse for the trying experience they had passed through.