Holy Haridwar

Holy Haridwar:
"Hari-dwar literally means gate to Hari (meaning God). Hence it is holy", this is how the spiritually inclined (or challenged :-) ) Indian father introduced Haridwar to his daughter, Ganga (very "cute name" ).

They were zooming into the city of Hariwar in an air-conditioned car, hence away from the 'unwanted elements', commonly callled dust, smoke, hot air and frowned upon by all educated humans. AC could check some elemnts but who can stop light? Every moment, light takes a picture (yes, digital) of the surrounding and forces into your eyes. Ofcourse your physical eyes should be open. Let's defer talking about spiritual eye for the moment. No wonder, Ganga saw the streets full of garbage which contained plastic bags, pan-masala/namkeen pouches, news-papers, human defecations, baby-diapers, fruit peelings, etc. and yelled "eyouuuuuuuuuu". The spiritual parents, frowned, smiled, shook their head, all in the same second. "These multinationals and packaged foods and ..."

"Indian culture being the oldest and richest, Haridwar is mentioned very highly in our scriptures. Haridwar has a special place in every Indian's heart", the father continued. "It is very sacred and lots of learned Gurus have ashrams here to spread the awareness about 'our' great heritage". Now the spiritual father felt proud of himself. How effortlessly he could churn out such meaningful words and elucidate the great Indian culture. But from inside, he realized that this was nothing but the effect of cultural programs and Desi fairs he attended back in the USA, which unknowingly enriched his vocabulary. Well! we learn a lot about our culture once we go out of our place, hence confirmed his long standing viewpoint, read in some Veda commentary ofcourse.

"Then why there is so much dirt and .. and ... streets are full of garbage here. Do we REALLY respect this sacred place?", now it was Ganga's turn, thanks to american education which makes our kids so inquisitive and straight-forward. Before the father could explain further, they reached the main parking lot near "Hari-ki-Podi", the place to wash sins, a spiritual wash-basin, literally. The parking lot was all mud, since it was made up of sand and garbage scattered here and there. Where ever there was dry land, pilgrims were sitting to take respite from hot and humid weather.Now they were out of the car. AC car couldn't stop elements to hug them. Smell from rotten garbage, smoke from large number of vehicles, dusty-hot-humid air brought the american pilgrims down to earth, literally again.

The father, mother and Ganga were all thinking: "Do really God likes to live here? While all pilgrims strive to live in clean and hygeinic place, they don't even make a small effort to clean their own 'Hari-dwar', the Gate-to-God".
That night the father-mother-Ganga trio stayed with local relatives in Haridwar. The relatives made it point to state that they don't go to Haridwar to take bath because of filth and they prefer to go to Rishikesh. The relative blaimed the municipality for not keeping city clean ("and bla-bla-bla.. whatever", Ganga was thinking, you guessed right :-) ).
Next morning, the father was doing his bit, cleaning the street where they stayed that night. He thought, the garbage is thrown by us (yes), the God is ours (YES), why should I leave cleaning for the government.The bottomline: "Do I want the "Gate to God" clean or not. No ifs, no buts."

"I like India, but it is very dirty", Ganga said. "Why can't we have separate "Gate to God" from America, which is clean?". "May be no more Gate-to-God are allowed because of heavy traffic up there".

When will these kids realize the real, very real, ultimate spiritual wealth?

Note: This is a very very real story and it has reference(s) to real living beings (including humans).