Pushkar

Pushkar is just seventeen kilometres away from Ajmer in distance but in time it travels way back to Puran, Ramayan, Mahabharat and beyond. Its genesis is associated with Brahma. It has more temples and tourist lodges than perhaps homes.

My day in Pushkar started with a one hour pre-dawn trek to Savitri Temple which sits on the highest hill around Pushkar. First wife Savitri was not around and Brahma married his second wife Gayatri because he was in a hurry to perform a Yagna whose auspicious time was expiring and which could not have been performed in the absence of his wife. Savitri was furious and gave a Shrap (curse) to Brahma that he would not be worshipped anywhere else and left him and went and sat on top of the hill, where the Savitri temple stands today.

The view before sunrise from Savitri Temple was awesome. Barren hills form a ring around Pushkar. Then fifty two Ghats of white buildings with yellowish domes form a bowl around the famous Pushkar Lake. Sun rises and with one splash of a brush, paints everything in totally different colours.

Unfortunately for me, some Lake restoration work was under progress and there was hardly any water in what could have been a beautiful Pushkar Lake. The hills around also were barren and not mighty as if they had been stunted by the internecine wars Rajasthan had seen. I could see my own life in a huge mirror which lay before me. I felt like those hills, a bit stunted by my own numerous struggles. The moisture and the greenery was not to be seen around me. Brahma - Savitri, water less Pushkar Lake, barren hills presented my own picture and the picture of my society before me. The man stunted. The woman struggling to make her presence felt.

I longed to see and become the mighty hills of Garhwal. Those hills have the magnificence, expanse and ambition of the best of the men. They have the greenery, unceasing creativity, beauty and grace of the women. Suddenly I realised why, since time immemorial, some of the best of our talents, when they wanted to find themselves went to the Himalayas. I do not know whether they realised god there or not. However, in the magnificence and beauty of the Himalayas they must have realised what the best of men and women could become when they became magnificent, complete and one.