A temple on the Yamuna

Geetanjali Krishna visits town of Bateshwar famous for its temples and is struck by its diversity

It’s a quiet, sunny morning in Bateshwar. There isn’t a soul in sight and the only sign of human activity one can see is a plume of smoke rising up from the top of a ravine. “It’s from a house inside the hill,” the driver says. “The old baba always cooks his lunch outside.” So off I go a steep, sandy path to the top, where the dry sand has been watered and hardened to the texture of a clay tennis court. There, under a scraggly old tree, the sadhu sits with his disciples and a couple of chillums, watching