I was to a famous pilgrimage in India where three most sacred rivers meet i.e. Ganga, Yamuna and Saraswati (the river which is supposed to exist few thousands of years ago but now it's dried up.) We also call it Triveni. Well yes I am talking about Prayag. Prayag now known as Allahabad, the name given by Mughal Emperor, Akbar. Akbar named this city Allahabad in the name of Allah and its meanin...g is the City of Allah. I find this city as very unclean, smelly and unplanned. Every where you can find garbage spread on roads and streets. The civic bodies are not doing their job properly. People are not cleanliness friendly. No traffic rules are followed. Well.. once I reached the Ganga ghat by auto, autorickshaw driver told me to leave me till the last lap where the auto rickshaws ply upto the bank of river Ganges. But as I was new to that place, he left me two or three hundred meters before that as most of the other passengers had already alighted. From the time I alighted from the auto, one boatman (kenwat) came along with me telling I should go with him in his boat and what ever I would give him as reward, he will keep. He told me not to interact with any of the Pandas (priests) and come with him till the bank of the river. I kept following him. When I reached there to the bank I found many boatmen trying to convince me to hire their boats. I first asked where is the Sangam. And then the boatmen saw me where we had to go. It was hardly 200-300 meters from the bank of the river. And can you guess, how much they were asking for to take me to that place. Yes they started with Rs. 850/- Ultimately they settled for Rs. 200. But after I along with one of my friends entered his boat, he started telling it's very meager. I should pay him at least Rs. 350. Then I said what ever we decided before entering his boat should be final. Then he started telling about his plight that all the money goes to the owner of the boat and all. When we told him if he kept on insisting us paying more, better let me come out of his boat, then he started telling then he will take some more passengers. We agreed, then he started bargaining us on the context that they are going for pind-daan and then they will remain there for four hours, and in that case we will be brought back only after that. We could not have waited for that much. Ultimately he took us together and we paid him more than we agreed at the first instance. Well.. we reached there filled a one liter bottle with the water from the confluence of Ganga and Yamuna. After a long time, may be years..I was going inside a boat, that too at a place where Ganga and Yamuna two biggest rivers of our nation meet. Wow.. it was such a nice experience.. I was in water, holy waters below the open sky for miles, water and only water... life line for all of us, whose water run into our bodies as we get our drinking water from these rivers only. This was one of the memorable moments that came to me totally unplanned unawares.
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मित्रों यदि मेरा यह पोस्ट आपके दिल को जरा भी छू कर गुजरा हो तो मुझे विश्वास है कि आप मेरे इस प्रयास को लाइक दे कर मुझे और भी अच्छा लिखने की प्रेरणा, स्नेह और आशीर्वाद देंगे। आप अगर मुझे मेरे फेसबुक प्रोफाइल पर फॉलो करते हैं तो आपको मेरे शेयर किये सारे पोस्ट्स आपके नोटिफिकेशन्स में मिलते रहेंगे।
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