Vrindaban Days: Memories of an Indian Holy Town

Chapter 2 - Road to Mathura

"This transcendental land of Vrindaban is populated by goddesses of fortune, who manifest as milkmaids and love Krishna above everything. The trees here fulfill all desires, and the waters of immortality flow through land made of philosopher's stone. Here, all speech is song, all walking is dancing, and the flute is the Lord's constant companion. Cows flood the land with abundant milk, and everything is self-luminous, like the sun. Since every moment in Vrindaban is spent in loving service to Krishna, there is no past, present or future." [Brahma-samhita]

My sleep is troubled, filled with dreams as strange as opium visions. I levitate like a demon out of the Ramayana, rising off the floor and into the air. The coolie with kajal-smeared eyes grabs my duffel bag and dashes through the airport. I lose sight of him and panic. Through the latticed window I hear the sounds of car horns, the cries of vendors, the beeping of motor-rickshas. Do I wake or sleep?

Smells of incense and steaming chapatis drift in from the street. Soon again, I dream. Somehow caught in the southwest monsoons, I struggle through flooded streets and seek refuge at the New Govardhan Hotel. The manager hands me the guest register. It’s a new form required of all foreigners, and my hand soon aches from writing. There must be hundreds of pages to fill out. The questions asked by the Central Indian Government become more detailed and personal: Do you chant while bathing? What do you think of during sex? Do you ever cheat?

I awake, and the dream pops like a bubble. Groggy from jet lag and nightmares, I lie on my back, unable to move. Where am I? Not West Virginia. Hare Krishna. Somewhere on the planet. Oh, yesterday, Connaught Place. Now early morning light streams through the lattice. It’s the Ajanta Guest House on Janpath Lane. I’ve slept nearly twenty-four hours.

When we come out of sleep, we emerge from the lowest mode, the mode of ignorance. Antidote: a cold shower and the maha-mantra. All devotees are required to chant sixteen rounds of Hare Krishna every morning—about an hour and a half of chanting.

There’s no chance for a warm shower at the Ajanta. I plunge into the cold drizzle. Half squatting in the tiny cubicle, I lather with neem soap. Cold water is colder when it’s only a drizzle. I try sitting on my haunches, Indian-style, but lose my balance and fall over, banging into the corrugated tin walls. How do the Indians make something so difficult look so simple, and vice versa? When they sit on their haunches, their ninth gate is only a half inch from the ground, and yet they look so natural and comfortable. They squat like this to defecate, bathe, sweep, eat, smoke, chit-chat, and even, according to Kama Sutra, procreate. I fall backward every time I try it. No wonder Indians laugh whenever they see our clumsy Western bodies inconvenienced or embarrassed.

I put on a black summer suit and tie, the last remnants of my teaching days at Ohio State. I was wearing the same suit in my office at Denny Hall when my colleague, Dr. Mohan Lal Sharma, convinced me to go to India. That was in 1965. But during that 1965-66 India trip, I wore only dungarees and plaid shirts. Hippy years. Now it’s back to the black suit. Prabhupada requested that I come to India wearing a suit. “I will introduce you as Professor Wheeler,” he said. In the suit, I look like a Bible preacher, especially in India, where only missionaries wear black suits. The surprise comes when I turn around and display my Hindu sikha, that little telltale tuft of long hair. Hare Krishna! Of course, I’m less sensational in the suit than in robes. Now, Prabhupada’s “dancing white elephants”—the shaved-headed, saffron-clad American and European devotees—are shocking India, just as they shocked the West. It’s crossing cultures that’s taboo, possibly dangerous.

By ten am, I catch a motor-ricksha to the Interstate Bus Terminal. A motor-ricksha is a noisy, three-wheeled contraption with a two-stroke motorcycle engine and a rear seat just big enough for two Americans. I’ve seen ten Indian schoolchildren squeeze into one, and the driver was still stopping for more passengers. In Delhi, motor-rickshas are usually driven by Sikhs—our bearded, turbaned friends named Singh (lion). Sikhs claim to be descendants from the old Vedic kshatriyas who fought at Kurukshetra. Indeed, I’m reminded of that battlefield as my chauffeur weaves through traffic like an ancient charioteer.

I clutch my duffel bag with one hand and the railing with the other. Affixed over the windshield, where Catholics place Saint Christopher medallions, are colored prints of Guru Nanak and Lord Shiva, who kneels and drinks with cupped hands from an ocean of poison. A Shivaite trident is attached to the front visor of the ricksha like a radio antenna. The trident, sharp and bellicose, indicates that Mr. Singh isn’t to be pushed around.

He sounds his high-pitched horn—Beeeeeep-beeeeeep-beeeeeep—and zips like an angry wasp in and out of a frightening array of traffic: cars, buses, trucks, bullock carts, bicycles, rickshas, pedestrians, goats, burros, and cows. He’s willing to face any danger to get me to the bus terminal. He even plays chicken with a truck barreling down on us. The truck, tottering with cargo, is decorated like a Christmas tree. Zip, zip. It roars by, just inches away. We pass the Red Fort and Jama Masjid, India’s largest mosque. At the Kashmiri Gate, we scrape the side of an ox cart, then race toward oncoming rickshas. They veer to the left and right as we pass between. Snatched from the jaws of death! My driver looks as if he’d just won a jackpot.

“Never was there a time when I did not exist, nor you, nor all these kings,” Krishna tells Arjuna. “Nor in the future shall any of us cease to be.”

At the Interstate Bus Terminal, an old, white-haired coolie sets my duffel bag atop his head and points to his brass armband numbered 346602 IBT. He has the intent eyes of a man frightened by a thunderbolt.

“Bus?”

“Vrindaban-Mathura.”

“Vrindaban-Mathura? Achha!”

I overpay my driver, then follow #346602 into the concrete maze of the terminal. The old man sets such a lively pace that I have to jog to keep up. Dozens of buses come and go, their airhorns shrieking and engines revving. Since nothing is ever replaced until it breaks, none of these buses—with their bald tires, worn brakes, missing mufflers, rattletrap bodies resting on their axles from overweight, and God alone knows what internal defects—would ever be permitted on an American highway.

The coolie sets my bag before a counter where people shove one another to get tickets. I manage to get the ticket-walla’s attention. He’s in no hurry. He calmly ignores the mob’s urgent shouting.

“Vrindaban!” I tell him. “One ticket.”

“Vrindaban?” He notices my kantha beads and japa-mala and gives a red, betel-stained smile. “Achha! Hare Krishna!”

I join my hands together. “Namaste.” This unexpected gesture impresses him so much that he abandons the counter and escorts me to the Mathura bus, one of the worst looking of the lot.

“Hare Krishna, Hare Rama,” he says. I give him four rupees for the ticket, and he makes sure that the coolie puts my luggage beside my seat. “Bus leaving in just twenty minutes. After three hours—Mathura. Then tonga to Vrindaban. Seva Kunj?”

“Yes,” I say. “Radha Damodar Temple.”

“Bhaktivedanta Swami,” he says, approving. “Sadhu. Guru.” He closes his eyes devoutly, letting me know that it’s a privilege to help His Divine Grace in whatever small way.

He leaves me with the warm feeling that I’m being cared for. I’m not just a tourist en route to the Taj Mahal, like most Westerners breezing by Mathura and Vrindaban on the Taj Express. So intent are they in photographing that monument to a woman that they are unaware of passing India’s spiritual center. My kantha beads and destination distinguish me as an anomaly, and people stare and wonder.

“India is a land of extremes,” I once read in a travel book. And how true! Mountain and desert, heat and cold, drought and monsoon, rich and poor, beauty and ugliness, love and hate, courtesy and rudeness, disregard and unmotivated helpfulness—all exist side by side, alternating like sun and shadow. The bus crowds up quickly. All the seats are taken, and then the aisles are filled. The driver garlands a picture of Lord Krishna on a little dashboard altar. Incense is lit, and I can smell the fragrant jasmines from the garland. Old women in saris push their way into the aisle, shoving mysterious bundles before them. The driver revs the engine and lays on the airhorn. Vendors of fruits and peanuts fight to get off as last-minute passengers fight to get on.

The shoving becomes more hectic. Someone pounds on the back of the bus to alert the driver that the way’s clear. Airhorns blast a fanfare like doomsday trumpets. Exhaust pours through the windows, and passengers cover their faces with shawls and handkerchiefs. We bumble into the stream of southbound traffic. We take the Mathura road south past Hamayun’s Tomb and shady mango trees. Along the roadside, turbaned Sikh schoolboys kick a soccer ball back and forth. Police in brown khaki shorts ride by on bicycles. Rickshas park along the roadside, their seats filled with old tires and sacks stuffed with cotton. From ox-drawn carts, vendors sell bananas and oranges to office workers waiting for buses. We enter the industrial slum of Faridabad, and traffic becomes even more formidable: bullock wagons, camel carts, mule teams, elephants, and creeping dump trucks with workers standing atop tons of sand, their bandannas flapping, their dark, sinewy skin covered with dust.

I marvel at the chaos along the highway: workers clustered around brick factories and steel mills; men and boys at water pumps, dousing themselves with buckets and lathering up. The factories spawn slums where thousands of families live elbow to elbow in huts built with burlap and cardboard. Teams of water buffalo wallow in greenish ponds beneath date palms stripped of fruit. Faridabad is a fairly recent nightmare in Indian history, arising where no less than eight distinct cities—from Indraprastha to British New Delhi—have thrived on the fringe of the Great Indian Desert. Here, some Urdu poet even engraved on the walls of the Diwan-I-Khas: “If there is a paradise on earth, this is it, this is it, this is it.”

I remember the time five years ago, sitting on a bench on New York’s Lower East Side, Srila Prabhupada observed: “There’s a small speck covering your pure consciousness, and when it is gone, you will see this as it really is—as Vaikuntha.”

Gradually the traffic thins out. The four-lane highway becomes two-lane, and the air begins to clear. Slums and factories give way to small parcels of land where crops are cultivated by oxen with long sweeping horns. The farms are separated by low stone walls, and peasants live in mud huts shaded by banyans.

I gaze out the window, absorbing all I can of the scenes. Then I suddenly become aware that I’m being observed. I look up to see curious eyes studying me. When I return the stares, a few people look away, but others stare all the harder. Eventually, more eyes turn away, but a few diehards continue to scrutinize me. I look back out the window.

When Lord Chaitanya Mahaprabhu first journeyed to Vrindaban, He danced and chanted in ecstasy through the forests. A peacock trumpeting or a cowherd boy playing on a flute would send Him into a trance. As He walked barefoot from holy place to holy place, He would chant the Hare Krishna maha-mantra, and the deer and tigers would chant along with Him. An insignificant stream would remind Him of the holy River Jamuna. In His ecstasy He would ask even the birds and plants, “Have you seen Krishna?”

Since then, the iron age of Kali has progressed five hundred years, and I travel like an animal crammed in an iron box. The airhom shrieks to all living entities to get out of the way or perish.

My fellow passengers are not renowned philosophers or intellectuals. They all fulfill some simple role in life as farmers, artisans, tailors, vendors of oranges and peanuts, menders of footware, potters, construction workers, ox drivers, masons, and mango peelers. Yet somehow they were born Brijbasis—residents of the land of Krishna. From the cradle they were taught to consider Krishna as their special Friend. Out of respect, they have given the front seat to a couple of sadhus, who recite japa intently, their eyes half closed, their hands fingering tulasi beads.

We pass from the state of Haryana into Uttar Pradesh, and the road turns from macadam to a poorly maintained tar. The fields of Uttar Pradesh are not as well cultivated, but they are more lush and beautiful. I notice more shrubs, eucalyptus, and neem. Pampas grass, its silver plumes reaching ten feet high, grows wild along the roadside.

A few brick houses, a temple, and a watertower appear on the horizon. We turn off the main highway and enter the town of Kosi, entrance to the Mathura district. Our arrival sparks a chorus of bus station vendors offering oranges and roasted peanuts. Flies hover around tins of jelebis—sweet, syrupy, pretzel-shaped fritters. From the windows, passengers buy fried nuts mixed with noodles and sprinkled with chili powder.

A group of ragamuffin kids beneath my window demands my attention. They give me their most pathetic looks and beg for rupees. Why so miserable? Just nearby, Lord Balarama sat and waited for His brother Krishna.

Six miles after Kosi, we approach the village of Chatta, once called Chatraban because the gopis held a parasol (chatra) over Krishna’s head there. During the 1857 rebellion against the British, most of the village was burned to the ground. Many stone chatras used to surmount the high-arched gateways of Chatta’s caravanserai and could be seen from afar, but today only two are visible atop the remains of the red sandstone walls. Vedic kings built chatras not only for their architectural beauty but to attract sages, who would remain under them for weeks, giving spiritual discourses for the benefit of king and kingdom. Now those days are past. On the main highway are seen only a few mud huts and chai stalls advertising Panama cigarets and Limca soda.

Twenty minutes down the road, past cornfields and sugar cane crops, a paved secondary highway branches off to the left. A small sign announces: VRINDABAN 5 KM. It’s the direct route. I strain to see temple spires, but my vision is blocked by shrubbery and pampas grass. There’s no public transport at this junction. It’s necessary to ride on to Mathura and then backtrack.

Distant banyan and neem. trees spread joyous leaves beneath a clear blue sky. Strange that there’s no sign of the Jamuna here. It must lie just beyond those sugar cane fields.

Jaya Radhe, jaya Krishna, jaya Vrindavana
Sri Govinda, Gopinatha, Madana Mohana.

“All glories to Radha and Krishna and the divine forest of Tulasi. All glories to Sri Govinda, Gopinatha, and Madana Mohana.”

After five more miles, we arrive at the perimeter of Mathura. From the main highway we can see the city buildings—two and three stories tall. Aurangzeb’s mosque dominates the skyline. The population grows denser as small farms give way to clusters of mud huts, and side streets empty onto the main highway. Cobblestone lanes teem with children, mangy dogs, cows, goats, and pigs.

Only within the past hundred years has the population—now exceeding 130,000—destroyed Mathura’s idyllic atmosphere. In the 1880s, deer were so numerous that one could hardly travel a mile without seeing a herd bound across the road. At that time, the cows of Mathura outnumbered human beings, and over half of the district engaged in agriculture. The very name “math,” meaning “to churn,” connotes a place rich in cows and butter.

Mathura’s girls and Gokula’s cows
Will never move while fate allows.

This, then, is Mathura!

I feel that I’ve arrived home. In the United States, I’m a stranger in a strange land. Now, as I look into the astonishing variety of North Indian faces, I sense having known these people, having lived and died with them aeons before in their ancient villages. At last, I’ve come to rejoin my spiritual family in the land of Krishna.

Vendors call out to me, holding up wooden japa beads and bright saffron gamshas imprinted with the holy Sanskrit names of God. Yes! This is today’s Mathura.