The Bhaang effect...!

For almost all the trips that I went, I was more excited about the idea of travelling than the travel itself. I would not say they were bad or I was disappointed. Every trip had its own complaints like bad timing, over expectations or a terrible company. Even without any of those complaints, I was never able to feel the completeness that I was looking for. To put it straight, I was not sure about what I wanted. But I believed that I could crack this mystery of incompleteness at some point of time.

That was when I decided to go on the biggest trip of my life excluding my recent himalayan trek. It might not look as big as to justify my prior statement. But for someone like me who had hardly travelled across 2-3 states, it meant a lot both in terms of budget as well as the distance. It was always in my mind to get drenched in colors and look colorfully colorful. The month of Holi and my fellow people came together to make this happen in the name of a photography trip to Mathura and Vrindavan.

Being an amateurish photography learner, I was a bit hesitant to go on a trip that was all about photography with the people who are pro at what they do. My allergies with the technicalities of a photograph was always a threat when I am dealing with people who were good at it. But I was happy to be proved wrong as the trip went on and I was at my comfortable best.

The 3 hour drive from Delhi airport to Mathura had introduced me to the setup that I was going to live in for the next 3-4 days. Right from the butter dripping rotis in a motel to similarly sounding bhojpuri songs set, I got a taste of the difference I wanted that I never got in any travel before that.

The first day of holi started with disappointment as we were advised to go to a place called Gokul in Mathura. I was confused at the name when I heard it for the first time as it sounded like a person’s. Later I realised it was what is referred as Gokulam in tamil. When we reached Gokul, we could find the traces of color here and there but not holi. People were more interested in watching a shooting spot setup that was going on near a ghat. We felt like pleading at them to come and celebrate holi for the sake of us. At the sametime, we wanted to blame ourselves for taking too much time in preparing our gears with plastic covers and cello tapes. We felt over prepared and strange in a place where it seemed like holi had never arrived.

When we were in a shop savouring our disappointment with lassi, there was another blow in the form of a news channel which was telecasting an enthusiastic celebration of holi. We were told by the shopkeeper as that was in some place far away from where we were then. If we had to watch the celebration only on the news channel, we could have done that in our place itself. Before we could start proceeding with our whining, there came our hero with a packet of saffron color powder in hand.For the information, back then saffron color was not hated as much as today. He was already covered in multiple colors like the ones that set goals for a holi celebration. He told us to travel to Vrindavan which was around 15 kms away from Gokul to see what made him look so content with colors. He made us leave with a brotherly hug after smearing some colors which marked the beginning of our holi.

We arrived at Vrindavan after a bumpy 30 mins ride to get near the infamous Krishna temple. The flavour of holi started possessing us since the moment we stepped down. In today’s context, social distancing was truly a sin there. You were labelled to be fortunate if you are able to get a piece of land for your foot without any hindrances while walking. Stampede was always staring closely with the possibility. But the celebration was in such a way that you would not mind anything else.

Unlike any other festivities that we do in our home, the emotions were diverse and new. The people exhibited a wide range of feelings from innocence to fiery attack in their celebration. I would not say you will enjoy them all. There were some disturbances and compulsion to celebrate in a way that they wanted. Fortunately or unfortunately, we had tasted them all. Even for those, they have this phrase as a consolation ,“Bura naa mano holi hai”(Don’t feel offended, it’s holi). For which I got offended because I could not understand as it was told in hindi was altogether a different story.

In between my love for colors and the urge to shoot beautiful frames, I was lost somewhere. I was surprised by the warmth of people hugging me with ‘Bhai, Bhai’ emotions and smearing their favourite colors on me. I could not stop grinning at them, even the grumpy ones.

Amidst so much going around, there was this little cute girl celebrating holi in her own way standing besides a gully. The colors that she threw hardly covered any distance. But the innocence in her face made myself surrender voluntarily to her holi celebration. Her hands painted me with blue in a soft and lovable way. For me, that was the moment of the trip.

In the other world that was adjacent to the little girl’s street, a guy was enjoying himself by flashing his bum to the visitors and photographers. He was giving weird expressions to lure the audience before the actual ‘show’. Thankfully, my camera was not infected with that frame. 

There was a mob attacking a guy for interfering their dance beats which was immediately resolved by some more color smearing.

We were experiencing all these by going along with the crowd until Krishna temple. In the premises of the Krishna temple, the celebration was overwhelmed with devotion. Even after the premises were closed, people were ecstatic while celebrating in front of the temple. To be honest, it took me a while to figure out which building was the temple.

That was when we got ambitious to get some low angle photos and reached the nearby shops to get our way to the terrace. We often don’t notice the business strategies of shops in our localities but talk about the corporate giants. We encountered a few gentlemen on that day who had read the demand accurately. We were told to pay Rs.1000 per person to get to the terrace. We tried to explain our passionate attempt of capturing the holi beautifully thereby asking for a discount. But we were stunned as he had proof of concepts to show with people paying the amount that was asked were more passionate than us.

After deciding not to pay the amount, we spent some time there capturing few insanely jovial personalities. In the middle of all these things, we never had the time to have lunch. So, we thought of having something to fill up our stomach before leaving for our accommodation. We came across a Bhaang milk shop which tempted us to experience another tradition of holi. There was some hesitation among the group as it was supposed to give us some high until one guy uttered the most encouraging words, “For 20 Rs, you will not be intoxicated much”. We had 1 glass of milk each and started to our place. To be fair, we never felt anything odd in our travel to accommodation and almost forgot that we had Bhaang.

It was a 25 mins ride. When we got down, I sensed a feel of giddiness and I thought to myself ‘It should be because of the hectic ride and irregular last night sleep’. On reaching the room, I felt like I had no place to crash even when the room was empty. So, I sat outside the room browsing through the pictures that I took that day. Soon after, I was accompanied by a couple of friends in the corridor. We were talking some random shit when the manager of the accommodation arrived. He came to us as we were sitting near the entry and started talking in hindi. All I could sense was some sounds coming out of his mouth. But I was grinning with a constant ‘haan ji’ quotient. This was the case with two other friends as well. Clearly, the manager was expecting some response but not the one we gave.

Another guy from our group came to the manager's rescue and replied something. After the manager left with a weird look, he explained to us that it was about the food as most of the shops were closed for the occasion. We had almost lost the food that the manager was trying to arrange. Then the guy told “Dei.. bhaang has started to work!”. That was the moment we realised that we were already high.

But the realisation didn’t hold too long. We started laughing at ourselves for the manager conversation. With what started off as a silly laughter, it increased exponentially and had grown out of our control. We kept repeating the incident to induce laughter. While my eyes were filled with tears of laughter, my appendix was suffering a pain of laughter. I was pleading others to stop laughing. But my plea would not have reached them as it was shadowed by my own laughter. When it felt like the laughter was settling down, we were already in another world where everything was moving slowly and multiple dimensions. Even a guy announced himself as Jesus in that world.

Throughout this stretch, we were hungry to the core only to be added up by much laughter. Luckily, we were blessed with a few packets of chicken biriyani by the manager. We were thanking the manager repeatedly while eating. Even the gratitude didn’t last longer. Once the food got over, we started cursing him saying “See, how less biriyani he had given”. We remembered these incidents in bits and pieces only after waking up from a good sleep. Our holi excursion continued the next as well except for the bhaang part.

For those two days, I was in a different world hearing the language that I never heard so much, laughing at everyone for nothing, enjoying colors like I have never seen one, feeling like I was in there for a while and much more. I guess the whole trip was under the effect of bhaang, it just gives me high whenever I think of it.