A River Runs Through It



There is a sketch that’s etched in my mind. It’s also reflected in the many narratives of India – in novels, essays, Hollywood movies depicting an Indian scene [before Slumdog Millionaire, I must admit]. There is a shrine, often large, sometimes smaller – shaded by a tree - by the bank of a river, a lake, a reservoir. This could well be the retirement vision of peace and calm for many – etched deeper by a constant exposure to such a place in life, or through art.


I first came face to face with such a place, decades ago, in the shadow of a family tragedy in a small dusty town called Lalitpur. There had been a loss in the family and many rituals involved a river close by. There was a small temple built in the shadow of a large peepul. The reservoir channeled water into two small shallow pools where I swam with my cousins. A tragedy temporarily pushed back for a while as we jumped around in those pools on hot summer afternoons. A naughty uncle asked a bearded, mat lock haired ‘swami’ who inhabited a shack behind the small temple whether he had packets of happiness to share – Bam Bhole! We were excited by an un-understood thrill. Then we dispersed back to our homes, our schools.

I visited again a place like this, recently. On a business trip to Mysore we stopped briefly at Nimishamba Temple.  If that temple from Lalitpur could have grown over 30 years this is possibly what it would have looked like. The temple, more robust and large, promising great strength and larger boons, massive trees providing a verdant canopy by the river Cauvery. Just behind Tipu Sultan’s palace at Srirangapatna – temple and palace, two powerful witnesses to an infinite history of dotted lines connecting prayers and wars.

The monsoons had been good and the river was replete, not a weak trickle as rivers can be sometimes and not a dangerous swell, just a calm full flow. Coracle boats bobbed gently in the water as a direct challenge to the very principles of buoyancy. Goddess Nimishamba is considered an incarnation of Goddess Parvathi and is said to have the powers to make wishes come true in an instant [Nimish actually means a minute in the local language]. Pilgrims bathed at the steps leading down to the river. It was early morning, the breeze was cool and the crowds were very light that day. The hawkers selling flowers and lemons as offerings to the Goddess outnumbered the pilgrims three to one. Villagers sipped tea and thought about their dreams and wishes against a backdrop where every second took a moment longer to pass.

There may be something about calm shrines by flowing rivers that refresh parts that other places can never reach.

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