Ganga-ji

Shivpuri Colony
Lanka, Varanasi

My morning tea was accompanied today by a smile and “Ganga-ji aaye!” Respected Ganga has come.  I replied, “Kya matlab?” What does that mean?
The house butler walked over to the edge of the veranda, beckoning me with his eyes.  Two stories below, the water was filling the streets, travelling steadily inward. It was now waist-deep outside our house walls.
I am glad I refused to take a ground-floor apartment.
Apparently, this last happened over ten years ago. Noone knows why she comes to visit our doorstep. It did not rain profusely upstream or here. 

I try to connect the power outage for 20 hours yesterday and all night with some motor or mechanism, of which I cannot find sense.  Benaras reminds me often that we are still very much connected with the elements, amidst our cellphones, cars and plastic bottles.

The water simply came in. It started about an hour before and was steady, needing no invitation, heeding no warning.  I feel frankly quite blessed, as do all the people in the neighborhood, forgetting logistics for a moment.  The sacred Ganga, to which people will pilgrimage for hundreds of miles, in order to dip for a moment, has come to my doorstep.

Water is indeed sacred in Ayurveda, the most worshipped element across the planet. We can insult her, step all over her, pollute her. We can waste her. We can use her to make electricity. We can bottle her up and profit. We can impregnate her with vitamins and called her enriched; she is already enriched. We can forcefully take her home. But we cannot keep her out if she wants to come and visit.  She will enter, insidiously, quietly, and with no warning. She will seep in.

Hansraj is below and begins to carry furniture from the ground floor apartments up to the roof.  He pauses, all the while smiling.  “The Ganga has come to welcome you,” he beams, and darts off to his next task.