Delhi-Mathura : 157 kms
Time taken by car : 2hrs 30 mins
There is a word called superstition in our English dictionary. Its dictionary meaning is "a belief in things which particularly bring good or bad luck". . Superstition is nothing else but faith whether true or false, we are not getting into that arena. This thought I will leave for some other post. So anyways, this word formed the reason behind my Mathura trip.
It is 4:15 a.m on April 12 and the three of my friends along with me are standing in front of my building looking out for the driver. Around 4:30 a.m we are all set inside the car and off to Mathura.With lot of hopes in our heads and a single minded faith in our heart, we just wanted to visit this holy city. No plans, just small back-packs, we all were in high spirits. It is always pleasant to see the rising sun specially when you haven't done that sometime soon. The sun wished us good morning in its own charismatic manner.
There is a sharp demarcation when you cross borders. I love seeing that and recognising those points of distinction.To mention a few, the first being the difference of the movement of traffic. When you are in a place like Delhi the traffic is highly regulated, but when you enter U.P it is just the opposite. The traffic in U.P is not regulatory at all barring Lucknow(the capital of U.P), courtesy politicians of U.P, they are only concerned with the development of its capital.
Second in my opinion is the style of speaking. Delhi citizens are less courtly than the public of U.P. You find them to be very free and ready to help you. They appear to be more at leisure. Delhi citizens are more occupied in their own life, which seems to be the story of every metro in India.
Thirdly, the culture which in U.P you find more grounded to our traditions. There are rare occasions when you get to see our traditional indian culture and what better places to find it than the country side. Delhi is more hep and happening at every hour while the countryside is more peaceful and calm.
When we reached Mathura it was only 7 o'clock. we were supposed to meet my roommate's brother at Dwarkadhish Mandir, which is the first one we visited. To my surprise it is located on the banks of river yamuna similar to the location of dashwamedh ghat mandir on the banks of river ganga. Such mandirs bring nothing but more pollution to the rivers and I felt sad at the site. Watching a river is the most peaceful thing I can ever think myself doing, but here what I was viewing is that loads and loads of sindoor, flowers, milk etc being poured into the river every minute. People calling themselves pandits were nothing but dhoorts of all varieties . Making money is their profession and they do this by disguising themselves as servants of lord. I dipped my leg into the river and the feeling was exhilarating. The cold river filled me completely with its poise and undemanding nature, but then, a so-called pandit came up to me asking me if I wanted to worship the yamuna and he will help me with that. if I agree to pay him Rs.11. Ah ! he had the wrong target. I got a chance to bring my anguish to an end and I fired such words at him which will not allow him to disturb me anymore. These people don't want to listen to you they are not interested in what you are saying they have a job and need to make money. The benefit I had was that such others will not disturb me any further.
We visited the rest of the mandirs beside the ghats. Every one had a pandit and they asked for dakshina. It was only one mandir on the way back from yamuna which struck me enough that I went inside and talked to an old lady sitting there. Dressed in a white sari, old and widowed, she was quietly sititng on the foots of the lord's statue behind. At one side was her gadda and I saw a fan was attached to the ceiling. She had a torch for her aid. I asked the lady what she did the whole day long there. She had been thrown out of her place and was content here. I didn't inquire in to the details but she was old and I touched her feet to ask for her blessings. She seemed happy.
Out of Dwarkadhish temple now, we headed towards Lord Krishna Janambhumi. I don't know the exact reason but there were troops and troops of rajasthani people visiting the city. Since it has already started being hot in Mathura I couldn't understand their reason. Then, a gentleman told me due to hot summers in rajasthan there is scarcity of work there and hence these people shift to U.P in search of work. The janambhumi was magnificent. Its special feature is that all the walls and pillars had paintings/sculptors of various incidents in our hindu mythology. I liked the place. Just behind the janambhumi is jama masjid which i couldn't visit because the security there does not easily permit you to do that once you have visited the janambhumi.
Just outside the janam bhumi there are various sweets and namkeen shops and they serve hot kachoris, samosas and jalebis. uummm yummy !! Mathura is famous for its kachoris and peras. Since it was already 11 a.m and by the time we would have reached Vrindavan , the temples there would be closed for the afternoon break, we moved towards Govardhan. Govardhan is the pahad which Lord Krishna picked on his smallest finger. there is belief in people that if you take the complete 21 kms parikrama(or whatever suits your health) your desires are fulfilled. My driver somehow managed to convince me into taking this daring step. I thought I'll do the small 5 kms parikrama but we somehow missed the short cut and landed up going around the bigger 12kms one. It was only after we had travelled 6 kms that we got to know about this. Well, whatever be his Mighty's intentions. The last few kms were very exhausting but we still did it with the help of water and constant doses of frooti, maaza, slice and lays(its dillogical). Thanks to these industries we made it through. We visited the Giriraj Mandir which is where you end the parikrama.
By this time my legs were hurting and burning. It was damn hot and I couldn't bare to even stand, already 5 o'clock, just wanted to have lunch. On the way to Vrindavan , we stopped at a dhaba and had lunch. Sadly enough but none of the dhabas near Mathura are good. Nowhere,could we find the original dhaba taste, the spicy dal fry and good tandorri rotis :(.
Vrindavan has an ambiance which makes you feel that this is thhe raas-leela nagri. Enetering into the Brij-Bihari Mandir it was awesome. The people are all so excited. I loved watching the crowd. We were already getitng late so couldn't spare much time there and stared our last phase of journey i.e returning back to Delhi.
All five of us tired and exhausted felt so relaxed inside the car, knowing nowhere to stop in between. Long drives is what I relish and they excite me. But the tiredness was too great to keep me wake. Partly in sleep and partly awake, we travelled back to Delhi and were inside our flat at 12 midnight. We had already got parathas and raita packed which formed our dinner and not later than 1:30 I was dozing.
I love surprises and travelling in a non-planned manner. This happened to be a memorable trip and I am happy to be a part of it.
Lastly, thanks to my roommate's brother, we visited Mathura.
P.S: I have some of the photographs clicked on the way to Mathura while the car is running at 90 kms/hr.
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