Hardwar

A Town Called Hardwar

First published in ‘Beyond the Pancake Trench – Road Tales from the Wild East’ by Orchid Press in 2004.

So here’s a funny story, of sorts….Haridwar is a town in northern India, which stretches along the banks of the Ganga, India’s holiest river. Haridwar, population 200.000, would be fairly unremarkable, were it not for its position, at precisely the point where the Ganga spills from the Himalayas into the vast Indian plains. This makes Haridwar a very special and auspicious place.
According to Indian myth, Gods and Demons once fought over a great Kumbh, a huge cauldron of nectar, the nectar of immortality. This is precious stuff and hard to get hold off in this strange age of greed and materialism. While the Gods and Demons were having it out eons ago, one of the more sloppy combatants shook the cauldron in such a way that four drops fell to earth. Incredibly all four drops landed somewhere in India and, more incredibly still, one of the drops landed in Haridwar.
A festival, the world’s greatest gathering of human beings, called the Kumbh Mela, takes place every three years, each time in a different of the four locations, hence returning to the same place only once every twelve years. This in honor of the aforementioned precious drop of the nectar of immortality. The most recent Maha Kumbh took place last year in Allahabad and attracted more than 70 million pilgrims (as well as a few hippies, the Dalai Lama and about a million saddhus. Madonna was politely asked to stay away). The Maha Kumbh returns to Haridwar in 9 years.

Meanwhile the town is preparing for the next festival with an age-old tradition called the Ganga Aarti, a river prayer ceremony that takes place on the town’s large ghats every night. Even without a festival there are plenty of people turning up from all over India, at least 20.000 on a single day. The pilgrims come from all over the country, from as far away as Rajasthan or Kerala, in their traditional clothing, with barely any luggage or money.
The ghats, wide prayer steps leading to the water’s edge, are brightly illuminated by floodlights. The pilgrims flood across bridges, some jump into the fast moving, almost clean waters, swollen by recent rains near Gangotri, the Ganga’s source, high up in the Garwhal Mountains. Others buy flower-boats, wide leaves loaded with marigolds and ghee (clarified butter) candles, that are duly set off on an uncertain journey across the plains towards Varanasi. Serious looking Brahmins sit on little podiums, surrounded by crowds, keen to dispense knowledge of future fates. Bells ring everywhere and bhajans (prayer songs) blare from giant tannoys, rigged up on lampposts along the river. Shrines are covered in garlands and the smell of incense fills the air. The atmosphere is full of rejoicing, rarified by pure thought and strong faith, without reflection or tack, unimaginable in the West.

In fact, the mood is so crammed with devotion and prayer that I decide to take a picture, put my bag down next to me, stare through the view finder, press the shutter, and look down again to find the bag miraculously whisked away by Gods, Demons or, much more likely, by a thin tall man with a pencil moustache and a red shirt and a young boy of about ten, who have been gradually edging closer to us and then promptly, the moment I was taking the photo, faded into the crowd. My girlfriend Aroon, from a distance, watches the entire maneuver, but by the time she reaches me, it’s all over. I sprint into the crowd, following the culprits with Shiva’s wrath in my heart, but to no avail. The surge of the masses around me is too great to allow a detailed look at anything. The confusion and riot of colour called India has swallowed up my bag and some of my most precious possessions.
The Indian police have been watching all the commotion and by the time I arrive back at the scene of the crime, two young men in smartly pressed uniforms, equipped with smartly varnished sticks, are already trying to figure out what they just saw. While I stand and stare, dumbfounded and a little numb, scanning the ghats for thin men and young boys, they come to a decision. I must go and see their supervisor. Our shoes having been in the bag, we march barefoot across the hot tarmac behind the ghats to the nearest cop shop, where we are welcomed by H C Joshi, the top man on duty, a forty-something 2 star cop with a 3 star moustache and a very quiet voice.
Mr. Joshi insists on going back to the scene of the crime.
“We must investigate. Maybe he culprits are still around,” he whispers.
We cross the road once more and return to the ghats. I explain again what has happened and he sends some of his boys across the ghats to have a look around. Then he marches us back to his office.
We sit in a bare, hot room with four TV sets and wait for fifteen minutes. None of the TVs work. Mr. Joshi returns and tells me that I have to write a report. Though I am not convinced this will help anyone, I duly pull out a pen and write down what happened and what the bag contained. A flashlight, two knives, an MD player and microphone, a cheap camera, a scarf, a bottle of Bisleri water, a pair of flip flops, a pair of shoes.
Mr. Joshi disappears again. The two young cops return from their stop and search mission with desultory expressions. In a crowd of thousands, they have not been able to spot two criminals they have never seen.
I complete my statement, sign it. Nothing happens for another ten minutes. Outside the Ganga Aarti is in full swing. I watch the ceiling fan swing around in a slack-backed, tired way.
Eventually we follow Mr. Joshi out into the street.
“Where are your shoes?” he asks. I tell him.
“Oh.” is all he can muster. He’s got a melancholy expression on his broad face, resigned, jaded. He flags down an auto-rickshaw and herds us in.
“We must go to the main police station. You must come,” I can just hear him behind me.
It’s dark by now. With the horn in constant use we speed (at 20mph) through the crowd of worshippers on their way home or wherever it is they will put their heads down tonight. There’s a power cut. The driver drives without headlights, an age-old Indian tradition to save on battery power, but even the dozy cows can hear us. Stoned saddhus with tridents scarper out of our way, traffic cops salute us. It’s almost funny. Until we get to Haridwar’s main police station.
We pass a main gate into a wide courtyard. Off-duty cops lie in hammocks in long dormitories, most offices are closed. On the far side of the yard, a small room is a hive of activity. Three policemen sit behind a long table covered in giant leather-bound ledgers that the British must have forgotten here. One of the cops is on the phone. A couple of female police officers, in khaki green shalwar kameez linger in the shadows. The scene is lit by three candles.
This is the incident room.
Mr. Joshi disappears. A 3 star officer turns up, takes the same statement again, and tells me to write it out once more. It’s hot. I can’t watch the ceiling fan here, it looks like it has crashed and died. I tell him I know a police officer in Haridwar. He doesn’t care. I write another statement about a thin man with a pencil moustache (suspects in Haridwar on a Novemeber day last week- 100.000). The 3 star man is in a hurry, despite the heat. He shouts a bit and leaves the room. Mr. Joshi, after studying the new statement for some time, follows him out into the yard, which is about 10 degrees cooler than the incident room. We follow suit. The 3 star cop mumbles at me in the darkness, “Joshi will take you to your hotel. We will investigate.“
I feel reassured.
We follow our ‘case officer’ out into the street, which is still jam-packed with cows, vehicles and pilgrims. Mr. Joshi flags down another auto, we jump in, but after a 100 meters he stops the rickshaw, gets off and mumbles, “Juice.”
I lean out of the vehicle to see what he’s up to, when he passes me a glass, then another. Mr. Joshi has stopped at a juice stall and is treating us to orange juice. It’s 9.30pm. We have been with the local police force for hours now. The juice is ok.
Some time and another traffic chaos later, we introduce Mr. Joshi to the hotel owner, who hands him a card while we escape into the night, to find some dinner.

The next morning my friend Sanjeev asks me about the copy of the F.I.R., the First Incident Report, we should have been given. We were given nothing. This means the police will not investigate. Sanjeev, forever optimistic, advises me to procure this document. We catch a rickshaw back the police station. We march through the gate into the courtyard, now in glaring sunlight. Off-duty policemen doze in their hammocks. Back in the incident room, the same men are on duty. Most offices are closed. We are told to return to the police post where we first reported the theft. There we will receive an F.I.R..
Back at the police post, Mr. Joshi is happy to see us, I think. He tells me, quietly and with the same resigned expression on his face as during our first encounter, that he has already sent out patrols this morning, looking for the bag. I bring up the delicate subject of the F.I.R. and for a second Mr. Joshi looks visibly scared, then merely uncomfortable and within a few more seconds, resigned once more. He ushers us into the empty room with the 4 TV sets. He sits us down and leaves the room. Today this station has electricity and I get to watch the fan. The TVs still aren’t working. After some time, a young policeman, dressed in a smartly pressed uniform, brings us two glasses of flat coke.
Mr. Joshi waves me into another office to the only telephone in the building. There’s a call for me.
Mr. Pratap is Mr. Joshi’s superior.
“I am very sorry about your misfortune. I myself have gone for eye treatment today and so I am not available, otherwise I would personally look after your case. I cannot come to the office for some time, days maybe.”
I assure Mr. Pratap that is ok and that I merely want a copy of the F.I.R. Silence at the other end. After some time, “ I think that will not be necessary. You see, it is only worth making out an F.I.R., if the culprit is caught. Otherwise, the time taken with the filling out of the document will slow down the investigation.”
I concurr with this, but tell Mr. Pratap that I will need to contact my embassy if no F.I.R. can be procured. Mr. Pratap, now audibly strained, asks me to pass the phone back to Mr. Joshi. Mr. Joshi answers several questions succinctly. His expression never wavers. After a while I get the phone back.
”Mr. Vater, Mr. Joshi will write out an F.I.R. for you. Please change your statement from having had the bag stolen to having lost it. This will save a lot of time.”
I agree with Mr. Pratap, but tell him that Aroon saw the thieves and that loss is out of the question. Mr. Pratap asks me to pass the phone to Mr. Joshi again. After a while Mr. Joshi hangs up and leads us back to the empty room. Some time later I am called back in the room with the phone. A really fat policeman has joined Mr. Joshi and is in the final stages of filling out an F.I.R.. It looks great, but the fat man is protective of his document and moves his enormous shoulders in front of my eyes. It’s all written in Hindi. Several carbon copies are being made. The big man then turns all the copies around and Mr. Joshi dictates my original statement in English for the second policeman to copy on the back of the F.I.R. and all the other documents underneath. The fat man breaks into a sweat and rearranges his carbon copies. It takes long enough for me to find time to become interested in a couple of flies having it off on the dirty wall next to me.
The next moment, the power cuts and a swarm of mosquitoes descends on the police station. Like the ceiling fan, the policeman grinds to a halt and wipes his forehead with a dirty towel. Mr. Joshi, determined in his utterly passive way, presses on, first reading, then spelling each word to his writer. Luckily the statement is brief.
After some time, the fat policeman is done and jumps up excitedly. He grabs a stamp and a worn out pad, slaps the stamp on the F.I.R., hands it to me and salutes at the same time.
A wave of gratitude and relief washes over me, for what, I cannot remember.
Mr. Joshi escorts me out of his police post. “Will you come to see Ganga Aarti tonight?”
I tell him that I am not sure.
Mr. Joshi’s moustache rises a little, his face almost caught in a smile. “Good luck,” he whispers, as his expression slips back into resigned acceptance.
Providing our hotel has electricity, I think I will be watching the ceiling fan rotate tonight, safe in the knowledge that the police are out there, investigating, honing in on the thief, just waiting for that moment to make their move.

For more information on Trekking in the Indian Himalayas, as well as on Hardwar and its surroundings, please contact Sanjjev Mehta, dedicated TV producer, mountain guide and elephant owner at Mohan's Adventure Tour and Travels