Kailsh Mansarovar Yatra - Last day at Delhi
Next day was anxiously awaited by many Yatris, especially the older ones. Frantic discussions were going on as to what should have been done and what not. We were taken to ITBP Head Quarters. In all these outings those Yatris who are from Delhi did not participate as they came to the destination from their homes. So it was a surprise when we found more people on the final day than the usual crowd. The number of yatris, the states from where they hail was not known till we really left Delhi. Even simple introduction round never happened till the end! A gentleman from Delhi was calling a senior lady from Pune as "a Naari" by the 26th day of our stay together... that should explain the level of closeness in the group!
Coming to the brighter side of things - except one gentleman from Andhra Pradesh, all the Yatris (53) were declared fit to proceed on Yatra. One gentleman from Gujarat who was declared unfit medically the previous year was very happy and as expected made a song and dance of it with loud noises which made the doctors in ITBP send word that our group should behave better as there are other real patients in the hospital. But nothing would deter us from behaving the way we wanted to and we went around making whatever noise we wanted to make wherever we were!
By lunch time, a group from Ghaziabad provided us with a very tasty nice lunch with sweets. The way they served the lunch was honestly admirable. They were very disciplined and with so much respect they gave us our food making us feel that we are all very important people! They gave us each a waist pouch with some small travel essentials. Another gentleman, Mr Gulshan Kumar who had undertaken the yatra earlier, came with packs of eatables for all and distributed a book written by him on the Yatra. One more group came and gave us some books with hymns and prayers on Lord Shiva. By now we all have got used to being garlanded and also being recipients of goodies given away by groups which called themselves by various names connected to Lord Shiva and Kailash Mansarovar.
During the waiting time, we decided that the common pool money be collected. I collected Rs.2,000/- from each one, and while doing this, introduced myself to the Yatris and tried to remember each one along with his / her State from where they have come. By now all faces were familiar except that of the Delhi group as we were yet to meet them.
We all proceeded to Ministry of External Affairs where Mr Vijay Kumar who was head of the co-ordination committee greeted us and led us to the conference hall. There were briefings from him, the ITBP commandant and LO of a previous batch (Mr Goyal - IT Commissioner). The ITBP commandant was so positive in his speech that he made us feel that the Yatra is going to be safe and secure. I bet that he and his team did exactly that and a very very big salute to ITBP for their delivery of duty.
The LO of previous year's some batch, Mr Goyal, Commissioner of Income Tax made a very impressive speech highlighting the spiritual part of the Yatra. He spoke high of the ITBP women force and told us not to miss their Satsang at Gunji. In fact we ended up staying the maximum number of days at Gunji during our onward and return journey. The song sung by them "Bhole Baba se miluna aasaanu nahi... thoda Kashtu uttana padutha hai" became our group's theme song and everyone went on adding the "difficulty" lines to the song - like " kabhi nadhiyo mein, kabhi naaley mein, kabhi rassi pakadkey chalunaa hai" and " kabhi halwa poori keeru miley, kabhi bhoogey sona padutha hai"....the whole group would sing this one song with so much energy and cheer, as though Bhole Nath is being amused with our singing!
After the briefing session we all proceeded to Hotel Ashoka for exchanging Indian Rupees into US dollars for payment to Chinese Tourism department on our arrival at Taklakot. We needed Chinese currency as well, but it was to be converted at China. This part could have been better organised by calling some Nationalised Bank to GSS, and complete the conversion work quickly. We all wasted some 2 to 3 hours there and reached GSS by 8 pm. By then the concerned Minister who was to address us and handover the goodies being given by the Delhi State Government went away and Mr Uday Kaushik entertained us with songs and Bhajans from Ram Charit Manasa. Had a hearty dinner and collected the nice back-pack, rain-coat, track-suit and cap along with a small box of pooja materials given by Delhi State Government and went to sleep....... no, went to the room to do packing, unpacking, packing, unpacking and repacking....
Actually I had the least heavy luggage with basic minimum things and hence I could pack my essentials in a small back-pack which I could carry and packed the other stuff (especially winter clothes and China essentials) in the Delhi back-pack. This I had to cover with huge poly sheet and tie with a rope which I did not hve. Luckily, Akilesh from Kanpur had too much of this sheet and generously gave me a big sheet and a nice rope to tie them. The gentleman from Andhra who got medically rejected, helped me pack this bag and I closed my eyes trying to sleep though there was too much plastic shuffling sound all around me till late in the night.
That was end of day 3 in Delhi! Om NamaShivaya!
I will write on the actual Yatra in the coming parts....... :-)
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