Walking Into the Light

As promised back dated posts Haridwar 01-07-08 I must say that this feels like old times, working on the laptop in a hotel room. This laptop has seen a few hotel rooms, a few as grubby as this one even. But then, as we were coming back from the ghats this morning we saw where the dobhi was being dried. I am sure it is really clean until it gets laid out on the side of the river right next to piles of rubbish, where pigs are scrabbling around in a welter of grubby plastic bags. Actually this computer has been in this very hotel before, when we stayed in Haridwar 3 years ago during our Silkthreads Project. It feels as if the project has started now, after lots of travelling we are here in one of the main centres of Hindu Pilgrimage. If you bath here all your sins are washed away, Adrian bathed his feet this morning, which might get rid of a few bad actions. Once again we are fascinated by how being a Hindu is not something reserved for going to the temple once a week, it is your whole being. We are also again fascinated by how the ritual and actions of religion are like performance. The images and symbols of the Hindu way act like metaphors, in the way artists try to make sense of their world through images and symbols. We have just begun to collect sounds and images, but tonight we hope to document the Ganga Arti, the Fire Ceremony on the Ganga, it happens every night at dusk, wild and wonderful. Look out for images soon. Tomorrow we leave for Yamunotri, the source of the Yamuna River, by private Ambassador Car. That actually means being a bit sick round the bends. For those of you reading this who had not been in an Ambassador, it is something like being in a boat. It is hard to know at this stage what we will become interested in, actions, rituals, bells. But it is great to be nearly there, experiencing the pilgrims way.