A Sliver of a River
This is my fifth or sixth trip to Vrindavan (for a while, my Substack will take a break from films and deliver some travel notes) - the sacred geography of Krishna workship devotional cults in northern India. But this time, I am about to spend a year here.
I notice that the streets are a bit better paved this time around. Is it because of the recent elections? As always, my first haunts are the Radha Raman temple and the riverfront. Mendicants are sleeping or sitting still with stone eyes in the nooks and crannies of the river ghats. The massive structures at the Keshi and Arati ghat are slowly coming apart. There is a heap of cement sacks at the corner of the ghat. Yesterday, I noticed a camel in the distance!
This river and its people have a contradictory relationship, I gather. One of worship and sacrality and the other of extreme apathy. The ghat is a warzone. Warfare that is made of plastic remains of urban consumption. Some of this remainder flows into the river. The river has more water now because of the recent rains. There is a concrete column in the middle of this sliver of the river Yamuna. I am not sure of it spurpose.
And in the middle of it, these seventeenth century structures stand tall and heartbroken. Someone meditates sitting on one of the river islands. It’s nice to meditate in the quiet, aromatic rooms of a monastic atmosphere. But what must it take to meditate amid this material cacophony? Perhaps, he is holding together this riverfront despite the dilapidation.