Tuesday 6 August 2019

*Do* go when Lonely Planet tells you not to!

Guidebooks seem to do this regularly; they advise you to miss out places during their festivals, because the hotels are booked up and there are too many people there. Don't go to Pachmarhi at Shivatri Mela, don't go to Pamplona for the Running of the Bulls, don't go to Palitana for the great mela. Don't go to Lalibela at Christmas, the hotels are too expensive and the churches are full of Ethiopians...

Oh come on! This is when these places are most alive!

I could have climbed Charaugarh any day. It's a half good mountain; a stiff climb, some good views, a cool forest beneath. But it's not that special - except at Shivatri Mela.

At Shivatri Mela, I was able to climb aboard a jeep full of Indian pilgrims singing bhajans, which delivered us to the huge car park at the bottom of the hill. I wedged myself between two fifty-year-old ladies who held me tight as the jeep swayed its way up the serpentine road, leaning into every curve and belting out a cloud of exhaust, dust, and incense behind it.

At Shivatri Mela, a little boy dressed as Shiva poked me with his trident because I didn't give him enough money. Another thrust a cobra in a basket at me, and sniggered when I flinched.

At Shivatri Mela, someone stole my Coke out of my backpack. At Shivatri Mela, five other people grabbed my bottle of Coke back and gave him a stern tongue-wagging for bad behaviour.

At Shivatri Mela, I hung out with a Hyderabad brass band. I was invited to tea in their camp, I sang with the band, I had fun with their kids, I bathed in the band leader's sunshine of a smile.

At Shivatri Mela the caves were full of the sound of coconuts being smashed in the courtyard. The air was full of incense.

At Shivatri Mela, thickset men were dancing in ecstasy with the huge, heavy iron tridents of the god on their shoulders. Men and women in trance sat on the ground, howling gently or swaying and singing, some with friends gently holding their shoulders. The fire blazed up, black smoke drifting into blue sky. Shy women and braggart men dressed in their Shivatri best came to ask me to take their photos.

All this I'd have missed if I'd done what the guidebooks told me. I would have found a genteel hill station where all the sights are too far apart to visit without a jeep, where there are no decent hiking trails, and the town seems asleep most of the time. I would have got very bored very quickly. And I'd never have met that brass band.

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