Day 7 – Morning in Shaligram Village
We woke with the residue of the previous night still
clinging to us – tired bodies, muddied shoes, and a grateful relief at having
found shelter. While the kitchen waited for milk, Suma and I slipped out
into the soft morning, drawn by the village’s slow, deliberate rhythm. Narrow
alleys wound between low stone houses, laundry flapped like small flags, and
the air smelled of wood smoke and damp earth.
A cluster of temples rose unexpectedly from the lanes, and
behind them a huge boulder loomed like a guardian. The priest, a man
with a gentle, weathered face, told us the boulder was itself a massive
saligrama, the reason the village bears its name. He spoke of full-moon
nights when devotees bathe in the Gandaki and sit before the stone until they hear the sounds from conches and cows answering their prayers. The story felt like a charm;
even the river seemed to lean in to listen.
The Shiva temple held a linga with a curious,
snake-like form on its left side – an image I had never seen before and one
that lodged itself in my memory. The Ganesh shrine remained closed, and
time, as it often does on pilgrimages, nudged us onward.
Ruru Kshetra Arrival and Rituals
The road to Ruru Kshetra was unforgiving, but by
10:30, we had arrived and gratefully claimed a dormitory and a room for
ablutions. Crossing a crude wooden bridge over the River Ridi felt like stepping
into a story: prayer flags fluttered, pilgrims moved with quiet purpose, and
the river sang beneath our feet. Ruru, often called Ridi or the “Banaras
of Nepal,” sits at the confluence of the Kaligandaki and Ridi rivers and
carries a weight of myth and devotion.
The Rishikesh idol in the main temple was imposing and intimate at once; its presence made the courtyard hush. Around it, temples to Tripureshwara, Shiva, Satyanarayana, Shantimukteshwara, Gayatri Devi, Ruru Kanya, and Radha Krishna formed a compact universe of worship. Suma offered a purple vastra, which the priest said he would adorn the idol the next day. True to his words, he sent a picture of the idol adorned with purple cloth.
We watched priests perform havans at Gayatri
Devi Temple, their movements precise and steady, and photographed the light
and faces until our memory cards were full. On the riverbank, we filled a bottle
with Gandaki water, clear and cold, to carry home as a small, portable
blessing.
Siddha Baba and the Ascent to Kamakya
After lunch and a quick vehicle clean – Rajneesh insisted
on dusting our shoes before we climbed in – we paused at Siddha Baba Temple,
a wish-fulfilling shrine where an akhand dhuni burned with a steady, orange
heart. Statues of Shiva, Ganesh, Nag, and Mansa Devi gave the complex a
timeless quality; devotees come with petitions and leave with quiet hope.
At Butwal, we boarded the cable car for Kamakya
Temple. The ascent was a slow, panoramic unveiling: terraced fields,
distant ridgelines, and the river like a silver thread. The temple complex,
newly built yet already resonant, houses Maa Kamakya alongside Shiva,
Narayana, Surya, and Lakshmi. We arrived in time for a sunset that bruised the
sky with orange and mauve, and the hilltop felt like a threshold between earth
and sky.
Sunset Aarti and Descent
Priests prepared the evening aarti with practised
choreography; incense smoke curled like calligraphy, and bells stitched the air
into rhythm. Vasu and others sat in meditation while we joined the
aarti, feeling the chant vibrate through the stone and into our chests. The
moment was quiet and expansive – a hinge between day and night that made the
long roads behind us seem small.
Twilight found us in the cable car again, descending into a
cooling world. Dinner was simple and satisfying: chapatis, rice, and dal
for Suma and me, while others chose a variety of North Indian dishes. At a
roadside tea stall, we watched Sridhar, with his endless curiosity, draw stories
from the elderly couple who ran the place; their sons worked abroad, and they
tended the shop with a steady, affectionate patience.
Gajendra Moksha and Evening Rest
We reached Gajendra Moksha Divya Dham and checked
into Hotel Grand Triveni, a welcome patch of comfort after a day of
temples and travel. The hotel’s rooms felt indulgent after the day’s rough
roads, and sleep came quickly as fatigue folded into the pillows. The temple
complex, at the confluence of three rivers, thrummed with students from the
Vedic school performing rites with practised ease. Suma offered vastra
and naivedya as she always did, and the priest promised to send a photograph of
the deity adorned the next day.
Reflections on the Day
Day Seven stitched together contrasts: the hush of village
shrines and the engineered sweep of a cable car, the intimacy of river water in
a bottle and the grandeur of sunset from a hilltop. Small acts of kindness – a
driver who washed our vehicle, a villager who pointed the way to a hidden
bridge, Vasu carrying Nagendra across a rivulet – threaded the day together.
Timekeeping by the group remained a challenge, but those missed moments became
part of the journey’s texture rather than its failure.
We slept with the river’s
distant murmur in our ears and the sense that the road would call us again at
dawn.
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