I believe that life of an IT professional always swings between two extremities, bugs before release and fixes after that. Re factoring is a diluted mild abuse defining percentage of consciousness left during redesign because most of the time we live in a "zombie" state. For past 16 years my life was version-ed re-visioned by factors related to surviving in business. Ultimately I thought about a break - a cycle steal from my monotonous life. Throughout life I always questioned my self whether I will ever be a good boss, good colleague, good brother, good father, good husband or a good son. For the rest I still could get opportunities but I was short of time from becoming a good son.
Some soul stirring events in last few months made me take a conscious decision. I needed to spend time more with my mom and fulfill her expectations from me as a son, of which one of the wishes was pilgrimage to 12 Jyotirlings, which is supposed to be a path for salvation - freedom from cycle of life and death - Moksh.
My mom were a family of seven sisters, she being the mid with three elders and three younger ones. Every year all sons from the family contributed for yearly pilgrimage and a team of 15-20 uncle,aunts and cousins traveled across various holy places to create gossip material for them to cherish till their next journey. This ritual continued for more than a decade but I never was a part of their entourage, god being the least curiosity factor for an atheist like me. My mom and sis were always a part of it till 2000 when some unplanned event disrupted their participation. Tragedy stuck during their return from Somnath when I lost many family members in an accident. My entire clan of relatives elder to mom died in that tragedy and she was the eldest now. After the incident this yearly pilgrimage event stopped and mom was left stunned. During our hectic lives seldom do we get time to retrospect and I don't know how a decade passed by, till death of my friends mom jilted me out of the professionalism i followed. My life was a machine working 28x366 that's 4 hours of extra sleepless juggled time out of 24 hours each year being a leap year for me. Little did I realize her need for my time and attention. Success, security, stability and all career jargon's faded for me when I saw her expectant eyes wanting a break for me. It was time to restart the interrupted journey and "reclaim life" from business responsibilities.
As usual I was always a JIT guy and I hated to be punctual for planes and trains as they always had alternates ever ready to replace me. After 20 years I dared to travel in long distance trains expecting them to be improved and sleeper class being the most comfortable mode of transport for elders. Airports security stripping would have deprived me from taking some belongings for pilgrimage besides being exorbitantly expensive for an unplanned traveler like me. Somehow I was always allergic to unhygienic railway toilets and sheer thought of shitting in motion violated every conceivable newtons law of motion,masses or gravity i had studied in my engineering. As usual last minute errands and stupid corporate muck of signing, authorizing and validation made me recollect the sequence of event which would follow - a la DDLJ scene with SRK catching a running train minus the Kajol I dreamt. Luckily I managed to board hoping responsibilities could be left behind but BB and roaming cell followed me till death. Yet I was happy to see my gleaming mom turning 18 at the prospect of "darshan" of those deities which could resume and her sisters couldn't.
My first halt was at the new improved Jamnagar aka the womb of reliance. During journey we were told the most visited place in Jamnagar was a cemetery, the final destination of life's journey made picturesque by engraved anecdotes from Ramayan and Mahabharat.
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| Fresco's and murals adorning the path to pyre |
I recollected reading Osho's "The Art Of Dying" where he explained death as a celebrated anticipated and unavoidable event of life. I could see the celebration on the faces of mourners. Living in city and constantly connected to USA i regretted the change in indian life style, technology has brought in the garb of development, status and standard of living. In city when everyone wanted Botox shots, implants, hymen restoration and every scientific advancement to look younger, here I was amidst people who were willingly embracing age and death gracefully as path of salvation. The irony besotted me.
My next destination was Dwarka, Lord Krishna's Abode. Never in life I had woken up early on a new year day, dressed and starved for prayer, got shoved, jostled and massaged free so early in the morning queue for Darshan. I could experience the temple serenity next to a beach, the cool morning mist and fragrance of temple offerings. The sheer majestic sight of the decorated deity rekindled my thoughts on "Krishna Consciousness" echoed in every Hare Rama Hare Krishna temple and translated Bhagwat Gita i read. If Steve Jobs could resurrect his life and take Apple where it is today why couldn't I revive my sagged life. I liked the contrast of city and village life. Here all devotees were so happy, content, calm, devoid of deadline fears, tensions of future security cos of a simple belief "God". Life was carefree as they very optimistic and ready to gracefully embrace future - good or bad as fruit from god as per karma and there in city we had every insurance policy, "aviva - kal par control", yet so unruly, ruffled to the core and insecure.
The only grudge I had was with temple authorities who prohibited mobiles, cameras and even waist belts. I didn't understand why leather belts were banned but leather wallets were permitted. The extra large hundi boxes littered around every conspicuous space cleared my doubts and business logic of operating cost and management of such large religious venues with overwhelming pious crowd. Accompanying snap of the temple was all I could get, yet I was pleased with my blissful morning experience.
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| Dwarka Temple |
Next we proceeded to Beyt Dwarka an island temple believed to be an offshoot extension of this parent peninsular entity. I love voyage - but this was a small one in a jetty accompanied by fleet of hungry seagulls which followed us midway till the temple. The wild life photographer in me reincarnated. Balancing on one foot, clinging to a support rope I could shoot some amateurish snaps, yet i was proud of my attempt because my intelligent SLR covered my photography incompetency.
We left Beyt Dwarka for Somnath. famous for its Krishna temple and Triveni Sangam. On journey we visited another famous Nageshwar Temple one of the two sites of Jyotirling and Khijadiya Bird sanctuary.
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| 85 feet status of Lord Shiva |
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| Please check the size of workers in renovation |
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| Visit to the bird santuary |
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| The closest I could get... |
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| Dusk at the sanctuary |
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| Fleet returning at sunset |
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| Lovely sunset at Khijadiya |
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| Post sunset we had to rush back from getting swamped by mosquitoes |
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| A rare view I could capture |
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| Wish !! I could laze around like this !! |
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| The only species I found in abundance |
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| Neil Gai - it had a "i care a damn attitude" - something to adopt |
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| First ethanol driven bus I rode !! |
Somnath weather was windy and chilly. Abrupt travel plans changes were done due to forthcoming auspicious day and we decided to stay in Somnath for few days. The first day started with some pooja just on the banks of river Saraswati. The most interesting part was the boat ride we took to snap Saras and seasonal migratory cranes near the river bank.
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| Saras flying away as our boat got closer |
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| The water walk and glide reminded me my childhood days when we tried to bounce off stones on water. |
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| start off for the take off |
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| Looks like Marathon Hurdle jump |
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| Silhouette of Saras at sunset. The embankment separates the fresh water of Triveni Sangam from the Arabian sea |
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| Dusk at Triveni Sangam |
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| Triveni Sangam of Somnath |
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The next day we left for Diu island a replica of Goa. The air was cleanest I could breathe in last few days and the best part of this place was the exotic "nariyal pani", the sweetest i could taste since birth.
Diu triggered my retirement plans and forced me to recollect my old vagabond hippie days, when I resigned from my last job in 1994-5 and started working as consultant. Every few months I would travel alone, visit unknown places and lived carefree void of earning tensions, deadlines and client commitments. This year onwards i planned to skip all new orders take a sabbatical and live in "cloud" for few days.
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| Night illumination Of Somnath |
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| Lord Shiva at Somnath |
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| Somnath Temple |
Next day was full of puja and rituals at Somnath temple. Late night Somnath hosts a light and sound show explaining the temples glorious history and saga of destruction and reconstruction. When the show started all lights were put off. The darkness brought crystal clear night sky full of millions of stars the brightest being Rohini. Never in Bombay i could see so many stars. The city glow and pollution deprived the citizens of this celestial view. The only day I could remember I saw so many stars since my birth in Bombay was when I was wading through flooded water on 26th July. The city was dark, there was an eerie silence of disaster and cold water resembled the scene of Titanic. How helpless mankind gets against nature was witnessed by many but few remembered it to improve. The similarly of the view made me rethink about science, logic and reasoning. Here we were amidst thousands of devotees knowing nothing of technology, internet or Facebook yet the social networking was so strongly bonded as it shared more than just photo albums and stupid status messages. People were unknown strangers yet they helped and cared for each other so much.
Of all people involved with science and engineering few could recreate the magic of nature yet keep the social fabric intact. My current experience was similar to James Cameroon's Avatar when Navis prayed to revive the antagonist. I compared these two worlds. Everyday in city I felt technology and US influence was corrupting the next generation. After few days in Somnath I was happy and confident that it will still take centuries to change India and felt proud that media and technology could hardly influence the simple lives of people beyond cities.Each one was content and had conquered his expectations from life. My peers in US had inherited the culture of GG (Gordon Gekko from WSJ) - "Greed is good. You have to be super selfish to succeed. Live and let die.". Here religion preached to give up everything. Strangely Kevin Spacey in American Beauty said - "I'm happy because I have nothing to loose". If beatles, apple founders could find solace in temples, we in cities were simply aping US to succeed and forgetting the basic principles of life which religion taught.
I had reclaimed my life a bit and jinx of family disaster was finally overcome. When i write this trip memoirs i'm experiencing a strange calmness in me when deadlines in my life have become transcendental and i no longer rush to compete against time. Somehow I've accepted destiny and timelessness of time ...
