The worst thing in the world, I mused darkly, must be to inch down a road, alone with a garrulous cabbie. We were somewhere in Noida, and the way we were going, it looked like we'd be there a while. Sensing a captive audience on the back seat, the driver was boring me with recollections of enormous jams in Benares in which people left their trucks and jeeps to wander off for a snooze and a cuppa, only to return to discover their vehicles facing an empty road with a kilometre of irate drivers behind them. Inching along as we were, his story irritated me immensely. But that was before I saw what was causing the traffic snarl. Boredom took the backseat thereafter. |
A Kawaria jogging in a leisurely fashion down the road. Wearing the latest Nike shoes, stylish orange shorts, a gym vest and a headband for his raffish hair, he was anything but your regular simple pilgrim. Ahead of him were six adolescents on two motorcycles, brandishing stout sticks and clearing traffic. Keeping pace behind him was a truck (with a gaggle of similarly attired youths) which seemed disinclined to allow any vehicle to overtake it. Our only option was to grit our teeth and move at the jogger's pace. |
"They're a bit of a nuisance," the driver commented, altogether too tolerantly for my liking, "but they're making such an arduous pilgrimage "" we must bear with them!" I glowered silently. Kawariyas, he said, carried pots (locally known as kawars) of holy water to immerse in the Ganges. "They walk barefoot, not eat non-vegetarian food, not cohabit with their wives and avoid putting their pots down while travelling," he said. He said the restrictions on these pilgrims were so strict that they did not eat outside food in the fear that it might contain something prohibited and spoil their fast. |
I pointed out that the man jogging in front of us wore Nikes and wasn't even carrying the mandatory pot of holy water. His cronies weren't either "" instead, they were holding long sticks and travelling by motorcycles and trucks. Instead of behaving as if they were performing a solemn religious duty, they were behaving like hooligans. |
"This is different," he said airily, "this jogger is a local UP leader's son. The pious boy goes on the kawariya pilgrimage every year. It's so good that the younger generation hasn't forgotten its traditional values," he said, adding, "and a great PR exercise too, for they collect more village boys on their way!" |
My temper, on slow boil till then, erupted. I ranted about the breakdown of civic-mindedness in the country. "A single 'pilgrim' brings traffic on a busy road to a limping halt," I yelled, "and you tolerate it?" The man looked shocked: "but they are devotees of Lord Shiva!" he offered. I retorted angrily that they weren't devotees, they were anti-social elements. Some devotees/miscreants decided to get off the truck and dance in the traffic jam "" which enraged me further. |
"I'd never understood till now what road rage really is!" I shouted. The cabbie, rattled and bewildered, shushed me: "Keep quiet, madam "" they've seen how angry you are!" One of the motorcyclists rapped on our car and asked, "Any problems?" His tolerance long forgotten, my cabbie stammered, "No, sir!" He found an opening in the traffic and the car nearly flew on the blessedly clear road. Now it was his turn to glare at me as he said, "Being tolerant is safer than discovering the hard way what they're capable of doing..." |
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