To the future, To the faith and To the desire!
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THE YEAR 2000
I am standing amidst the mountains—green mountains on one side, snow-capped on the other. There is a massive cave in front, and I see live images of snowfall all around me.
Slowly the snow starts taking the shape of a shiv ling. I watch the entire process in stupefaction. The whole cave is now filled with white hard ice in no time. The rocky interior is now soft and cold.
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Quivering and enchanted simultaneously, I open my eyes to check the time; it is 6 am. The dream is partly scary as I am all alone on that mountain in that cave. I tried replaying the images in my mind. Later at the breakfast table, I share with my husband in detail narrating the formation of shiv ling; he says something similar happens in Amarnath.
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But thanks to my poor knowledge of geography, I wasn't aware of any such phenomenon until then.
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The same year in March, I visited the science city in Matigara Siliguri with my son. After completing the garden tour, we entered the building to watch miniatures of massive structures and scientific marvels.
At the end of the hall in the museum room, I see a small window-like opening with the label on the top "Holy cave Amarnath". There is a small deep opening on the wall to insert a hand into the cave to feel the ice shiv ling.
The image inside the gap is similar to the one I saw in my dream a couple of months ago.
I force my forearm into the hole to touch and feel the shiv ling.
The temperature inside tha cavity was 0 degrees. I lost sensation in my fingertips for a couple of seconds after touching the shiv-ling-like formation. It was an out-of-the-world experience for me.
There was a brief description on the wall next to the hole about Amarnath Ji. I stood there for a while, reading each line and repeating the entire depiction multiple times to establish a connection with the images I saw in my dreams a couple of weeks ago.
I left for home with my 5-year-old son. He immersed himself in the mesmerising world of dinosaurs. I was captivated by the correlation between my dream, the prototype of the amaranth hole cave and the ice shiv ling I touched at the science city museum.
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A year later, my mother-in-law visited us at Siliguri. Back then, she was on a whirlwind trip, crisscrossing various spiritual places across the length and breadth of the country. She often got us momentoes, pictures and sometimes idols from the various temples she visited.
While she stayed with us, the pooja mandir was under her control; she arranged and rearranged the idols in it. It was her self-imposed duty to light the diyas morning and evening.
One day while doing pooja, I noticed a small 3"/ 2" laminated picture of ice shiv ling. When I inquired about it, she narrated her journey of Amarnath yatra, how magnificent the holy cave is, and how treacherous the journey is. I made repeated inquiries to describe the cave, shivling, the trip's significance and how to reach it. She travelled in group tours covering the entire north of India in a go.
That's when the desire to visit Amarnath Ji took birth in my heart.
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I connected the dots between the three incidents to try and see a larger purpose in it. The more I thought of it, the stronger the urge to travel.
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For the next 17 years, raising the kids, building a career and serving the family took precedence over everything.
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A couple of years ago, a CA friend from the auditor's office visited the shrine with his family.
One evening he came to my place to discuss some work which was a part of his job. Before leaving, he gave me a detailed chronicle about his sojourn into the Himalayas, covering Amarnath Ji and Char Dham in Uttarakhand. He showed me some pictures on his phone. It was a group tour with friends and family. The dormant memories got triggered, and the past remembrances with BARFANI baba came to life.
By now, a good decade and a half have elapsed in between.
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I started requesting my husband to take a break from work and accompany me to the Himalayas.
His standard answer is
"Pilgrimage after retirement only".
Right now, "Work is Worship".
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A year later, a cousin AKKA of mine shared pictures of her trip to the holy shrine. Observing her cater to her faith and undertake the treacherous trek was outstanding.
Every encounter with people who embarked on the pilgrimage strengthened my resolve to travel.
In 2020 I mooted the topic with my friends. All of them were interested, and we planned a group tour, But in due process, some sad unforeseen unanticipated health conditions of elders in the families of two of them compelled them to drop out. Neeru Sharma and I decided to go come what may.
We paid in advance and booked our tickets to the shrine. A week later, the coronavirus landed at our doorstep in 2020.
2021 was a repeat of 2020.
Yatra cancelled for two consecutive years.
2022 Neeru and I made plans to go and booked our tickets accordingly. She could make it, and I failed to once again. This time too, the circumstances were beyond my control. The natural calamity around the holy cave on 10th July, my fever and my daughter's exam all added to call off the trip.
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If the desire to reach there wasn't strong enough in me, the courage to climb the mountains was lacking, or my love for shiva-Parvati was inadequate? I don't know. And possibly each one of them is equally valid.
Or maybe a bit of each of them made me fail in reaching the top of that mountain.
But thanks to technology, I travelled every inch of the yatra from Srinagar to the holy cave by reading various blogs and watching vlogs shot by professionals using drones and pilgrims with their go pros. The noisy rivers, the snowy mountains, the rocky path, the dangerously narrow muddy lanes, and steeply inclined climbs are all captured in their lifelike avatars by the vloggers.
I am not disheartened and will not give up on the wish to trek the Himalayas to watch my beloved shivas' fiery energy manifest in the form of ice. They call it a pilgrims paradise, a trek to salvation, but for me, it is a DESIRE to meet the one who came to see me in my dreams decades ago.
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