Vrindavan: then and now

Vrindavan, author visited as a child, is a world away from temple town where real state developments have replaced groves

Our car kicks up swirls of dust as we pull up at the doors of the crumbling ashram. As we walk in through the cool stone entrance, I recall my nine-year-old self, watching my grandmother, who, with her prayer beads, would sit in this very courtyard and meditate in the sun.

The long verandahs of the ashram have now fallen into disrepair, but I don’t really see it. All I remember is the spotless expanse and the rattan chair on which my grandfather would sit, doing something we’ve forgotten to do in these frenetic modern times — nothing at all.

I breathe the air of Vrindavan — slightly dusty and redolent of flowers and incense — and a remembered sense of peace washes over me. Recalling the time spent with my grandparents in the Katyayani Peeth ashram, I’m filled with nostalgia for an era when people thought nothing of living in holy places for weeks on end, spending their days in prayer and repose. As a lapsed Hindu today, the religious aspect of ashram life is lost on me, but I somehow miss its exquisite simplicity.

The Bhagvata Purana tells us that Vrindavan used to be the young Krishna’s playground, with ample pastures for his beloved cows. The dappled groves around the little temple town used to be choc-a-bloc with gopis — or cowgirls, for the want of a better word — who all fancied the boy with his enchanted flute.

Today, however, Vrindavan presents a very different picture. Most of the groves where Krishna and his cows were believed to roam have been replaced by real estate developments. Ironically, the developers choose to advertise the pilgrimage town’s verdant peace that they’ve helped decimate. The town’s fabled narrow alleys are perpetually crowded with pedestrians.

The Yamuna, on the banks of which the young Krishna is believed to have played, is dirtier than the sewers that empty into it.

Not everything has changed, though. We set off to pay homage at the Bankey Bihari temple, one of the oldest and most revered temples in Vrindavan. En route, I insist on stopping for the lassi and kachoris that Vrindavan is famous for.

The road to the temple is so jam-packed that we simply choose the first establishment, which has standing room inside. Those with less foresight risk trampled toes and picked pockets as they partake of local delicacies standing in the alley, or, worse, while straddling drains. As usual, as we sip our super-sweet beverages, the conversation turns to the magic of Krishna, known here as Bihariji. Our lassi maker tells us about the legend of a sweet maker in this alley.

Bankey Bihari Temple

Many decades ago, the sweet maker, we are told, was making laddus for a festival when a little boy came up to him, asking if he could have some. The man gave him a handful, and, in return, the boy pressed something in his hands. Minutes later, there was an uproar. One of Bihariji’s bangles had gone missing from the temple; sure enough, it was with the sweet maker. “He still walks amid us, you know,” says the lassi maker, as we pay our bill.

Back in the crowd, I wonder why a constant dose of religion hasn’t had more of an impact on local behaviour. I’m constantly poked and jostled in the crowd, mostly by men. One digs his elbows in my chest and smilingly says, “Radhey, Radhey”, invoking Krishna’s consort in an ungodly greeting. 

Could it be possible that boys here, brought up on stories of how Krishna teased his gopis, have it ingrained in their psyches that this is the way to a woman’s heart? I recall coming here during Vrindavan’s famous — or infamous, depending on your viewpoint — lathmaar Holi, when men have licence to colour any women they find on the streets. Women, in turn, supposedly have licence to beat them with sticks — painting, on the whole, a potboiler of skewed gender relations.

We soldier on on the temple trail, listening to the lovely sounds of kirtan emanating from different temples. A couple of years ago, when I visited the non-profit Sulabh International’s ashram for widows, I realised that kirtan had traditionally been one of the few ways in which the town’s huge population of impoverished widows could get a meal and some alms. Competition at the bigger temples is huge and many of the indigent and weak widows get left out. Consequently, when I hear kirtan today, I think not of the singers, but of the silent multitudes who may not eat tonight.

The sun is setting as we head back to the welcome refuge of Katyayani Peeth. A peacock calls from a guava tree and the temple bells begin their incessant clanging, heralding the evening aarti. A hushed silence falls after it’s over, and, as I go for a quiet walk under a starlit sky, I experience a fleeting glimpse of the Vrindavan of my childhood. I can’t see it, but, somehow, I know it’s still there.