The Sunday Tribune - Spectrum

It is safer to go to Bateshwar by the Agra-Bah road flat 70 kms. But again on that route, once we have crossed the Uttangan river, the risk gradually increases towards Bah, from where we must return before dark.

Today it is Kartik Purnima the day of the annual fair and ritual bath. "Eh, do you want to see a dacoit? Well, well, it can be arranged, but not live, only a dummy one who has surrendered. This man is a lawyer, calls himself a social worker, and claims to make contributions to a local paper. Today, he is organising a free medical camp in the annual fair. He offers us tea in mudbaked kulhars.

We have already been told these auspicious days are the safest ones: "safe are there is enough of police force. On such a day even a dacoit won’t think of nibbling.

The lawyer continues: "But if you want to see the dolphins of Chambal, I will ferry you round in my motor-boat, just 18 km from here. Nowhere else you will find dolphins in a river of this planet."

"...Enough of hiding places. Many small three-four house settlements karvi. To make your movement. You have a piece of land and you are funny, funny enough to assert your right to self-respect. Then the big man would come pounce on you, pounce on your land and your wife and grin at you. Then what happens? Nothing. you simply pick up a gun and the action begins. This is what happened when the dacoit Mansingh picked up his gun and this is what is happening today. The terrain is naturally carved for the people who are reckless and give a damn to their lives. Perhaps, there is something in its water. I don’t know what. They would lose patience. After a while. And then they would pick up a gun. It is the same thing with me. The people won’t come here. Those five or six potbellied men, the guardians of law, what will they do?"

Idols of Shankar, Parvati and Ganesh at Bateshwar "Problem?... Where is the problem? It is not a question of discovering a problem and its solution. It is a matter of nature. Can you change the nature of the people here? No. Water is just like that. Air is just like that. And it will remain like that. The terrain is like that and it will remain so.

It is a land of people who don’t care for their lives. Sometimes a police patrol does go to the village. There is no road, no passage, only a narrow footpath overgrown with brambles. Stealthily, the police patrol goes there and silently it manages to come out. Everything is stealthy. Silent and stealthy is the name of the game."

We walk along the circular embankment where many temples stand. There hangs a big bell. On it, the name of Mansingh is etched. It is murky water. "Yes, the Yamuna water is so dirty here, but 18 km from here is Chambal, its water is mineral water, you scoop it and drink. It is mineral water. Why? the men have not spoiled it. They have built their houses, their hamlets on Yamuna and that has spoiled its waters. But Chambal rises, we do not know to what extent, and where it would turn to, what land it would gulp down. So they don’t build their houses on it and it is as clean as mineral water."

A priest who is currently attached to some temple near Puri and has just come there to stay for these particularly auspicious days leads us through a street: You do not know who sits inside these small houses. Kidnapping is the business here just as the terrorism is the business in Punjab.

There is a Jain nun who has made her shelter by gouging the mud out of the side of the hill, she peeps out. There is darkness inside her grotto. For years, she has been living inside, year in and year out.

With hardly anyone around, the innumerable tortoises crawl up to bask on the bank while scores of white freshly painted temples sparkle on the bank. There is a marvellous trio of Shankar, Parvati and Ganesh at one place. Shankar’s moustaches are big, his eyes as well as those of Parvati are wide and elliptical. There are some wall panels a chariot being driven, the divine pair evolving out of elemental backdrop and the Nagari script probably 800 years old.

Brick remnants at Chandrawar This area came to be known as Sursen after the name of Shatrughan’s son. Vasudev was one of the chiefs here. After the killing of Kans of Mathura, Krishna is said to have spent his days around this territory before proceeding to Dwarika probably under some compulsions.

While it was the birth place of Lord Neminath, the 22nd Jain tirthankar, the Avanti kings who were contemporary of the Buddha tended to spread Buddhism. After them came the Nandas and the Chandelas, who were later defeated by Prithvi Raj Chauhan, followed by the Sultans and the Mughals. This area also had its share of action during the freedom struggles of 1857 and during the 1942 call of do or die. Even when surrounded by the English forces, the revolutionaries could easily slip out through the water of the rivers and the villagers subsequently had to face the brunt of the frustrated fury of the Britons.

The holy men with brows smeared in ash take us down into the subterranean shrine of Pataleshwar with a big Banyan tree overshadowing it. The Brahmin from Puri quips: "These smeared faces used to hitch — hike, bringing disgrace to us. Now they have been firmly asked to be stationed here." Stories of miracle men who walked among lions and slept among snakes make their rounds.

Along the river there are ruins of palaces. An eremite has breathed his last. A motor-boat takes him to the centre of the Yamuna, where he is given a water burial. There is a news-item in the local paper decrying such burials as it pollutes water. Water of the river is dirty and black. But the Brahmin from Orissa doesn’t agree: "Lift it in the hollow of your palm and see how clear is the holy water."