Vaishno Devi - Part 2

With every Darshan, there’s a narah, or rousing chant that pilgrims will shout to drive themselves and everyone else around them. With the Vaishno Devi Darshan, its, “Jai Matha Di!” – “Long live Mata, holy mother and sister!”. This rallying call inspires the Bhakti (devotion) that pushes Yatris further, harder and faster along their journey. And you can feel the atmosphere bristle with energy. I’ve sat in on a midnight mass, a Passover service and a Hare Krishna Gho Pooja and there’s a kind of static in the air you can feel when thousands of people all come together for one purpose.



Me being the overly sensitive sap (in Kirsty’s words), it makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up and write sequels to the works of Kahlil Ghibran.
However, the major irony is that in a nation whose culture is born from harmony with the Earth, Indians are a fucking messy bunch of people. Littering is a national vice, up there with binge drinking and public urination. The littering and public dumping I have seen is on a scale that boggles the mind. Its pretty depressing, but on the mountain it keeps around 60-100 folks from the lower and Dalit castes in work. More on the littering later.