Kedarnath Karma

Kedarnath is a meme.

Its growth to memehood began when the temple was spared the ravages of a flash flood in 2013, and cemented when Prime Minister Modi walked a red carpet laid out in its courtyard prior to the 2019 elections.

He proceeded to meditate in a cave, with his spectacles - and TV cameras - on. The spectacle spawned twelve Rudra Meditation Caves, run by the Garhwal Mandal Vikas Nigam Ltd. (GMVNL), which you can book for Rs. 3400 a night (GST included), complete with fan, heater/blower, mosquito repellent and intercome (sic). No TV cameras, though.

You can try booking, is more accurate. I tried to get myself a Rudra cave for dates in October, four months hence, but the nature of memehood is such that they are fully booked out.

Rudra Cave, with ‘intercome’

To pre-empt anyone who wants to inform me that Kedarnath has been a revered temple for centuries - thanks, I know. My grandfather told me he went there as a little boy, with his father. Before they left their home in Kamalia, now in Pakistan’s Punjab, the pilgrims visited the homes of their close relatives, to say they were embarking on an arduous pilgrimage, and would return only if the fates so willed. My own father took us there when I was twelve, and I was intensely moved. I hesitate to use such weighty words for myself, but on a starlit night in Kedarnath, I had my first spiritual experience.

Thirty years later, on a day when the monsoon rains had scrubbed the mountain air clean, I could just discern the Kedar peak from the verandah of our home in Kumaon. I dropped the Sanskrit dictionary I had been scanning for a name for our son, rushed into the living room and announced to my wife, “Kedar!” She loved the sound of the word, the weight it carried.

Thirteen years later, intimating the end of a five year period when he refused to accompany us on treks, Kedar asked why, when we had named him Kedar, we had never taken him there. I have never smiled such a deep invisible smile. That autumn, we camped in the meadows below the temple, and on Dussehra evening, took him to the shrine whose name he bore. We joined the line of pilgrims doing the parikrama, bare feet on cold bare floor, when we were ordered to halt, make way for police officers, followed by a politician in a bandgala, his wife’s head draped in the pallu of her bright yellow saree. Flanked by the uniformed minions of the state, they performed their prostrations, making us wait for ours, then exited - for the helicopter, we were told. Excess Devotion, Express Karma.

The current dispensation decided that this Kedarnath Karma should be made ever more accessible, and the Char Dham highway project was launched, to link Yamnotri, Gangotri, Kedarnath and Badrinath. In 1998, the year we named our Kedar, eighty-two thousand pilgrims visited Kedarnath. By 2023, the number had multiplied twenty-four times, to hit almost two million, and the fourteen kilometer hike to the temple is a slow-moving phalanx of pious humanity. Despite the four-lane highway, built in the face of major environmental issues, long hold-ups on the road are common, especially when landslides remind us that the Himalaya is the youngest mountain chain in the world, still growing, always shifting.

You could, of course, take the helicopter service, but in the light of recent accidents, you would be well advised to take a cue from my great-grandfather, and go bid farewell to all your relatives before you drive to the heli-pad.

Last week, just after the last, fatal chopper crash at Kedarnath, some men in a hurry decided they would stick with the terrestrial route, but still find a way to beat the pilgrim traffic:

“Two ambulances*, moving towards the last motorable point, Gaurikund, were intercepted by the police”, who found “... no stretchers, no bandaged limbs, or wheezing patients”. Just three ‘pilgrims’, wanting to beat the system, cheat their way to the head of the line.

This is a weird kind of devotion, which inspires you to cheat. Maybe you believe that it’s all in a good cause, and in any case, once you visit the great Lord, all your past sins will be washed away, and you can start all over again, skipping lines, shoving people aside.

Or maybe, if you pray hard enough, you will become a famous politician, all queues will be pushed aside for you, so you can walk a red carpet, parade your piety before fawning millions.

Har Har Mahadev, as an Instagram celebrity exclaimed on Instagram two days ago, posing before the portal of the Kedarnath shrine, his fleece jacket appropriately vermillion, the hood pushed back just enough to reveal the orange glint of a silk scarf.

Dear Lord Kedarnath - Let a thousand reels unspool.

• https://www.moneycontrol.com/city/kedarnath-pilgrims-hire-luxury-ambulances-as-taxis-to-skip-long-queue-police-seize-vehicles-article-13131518.html