Ancient Wisdom & New Ideas: A Spiritual Journey through Nepal and India — Part 2
In part 1 of my journey, I traveled through Buddha’s birthplace in Lumbini, his family kingdom in Kapilvastu and a tiger reserve near the India-Nepal border.
Now, I’m sitting on a cycle rickshaw crossing an international land border.
I felt a strange sense of comfort entering India from Nepal.
This entire trip was about reconnecting with myself and my homeland after spending almost two years in China as a desk-strapped, photo editor for a media company. I had all the comforts I could imagine but lacked fulfillment. Through this journey, I was seeking to reconnect with my wild, uninhibited self that I had suppressed while working at a serious, loveless workplace.
I entered India through Uttar Pradesh (UP), one of India’s most populous states with 235 million people. I know it sounds paradoxical for someone seeking mindful, expansive moments to end-up in perhaps the busiest part of the world. But, as I later came to realise: this was the real test of my inner constitution.
Spiritual learning is an inside job
My first stop was Lucknow. It’s the capital city of Uttar Pradesh and well known for its historical sites, good food and for being a political battlefield given its sizable population. It’s commonly said that the road to New Delhi — which is the seat of the central government — passes through Lucknow.
In honesty, here I felt like I was deviating from my spiritual journey. There was far too much activity for me to really connect with people and I was distracted by the hustle and bustle of the city.
This is when I encountered my first conundrum: is finding inner peace really that dependent on the external environment?
It was refreshing to pause and realize how much our ideas of peacefulness — a state of psychological or spiritual calm despite the presence of stressors — have de-toured from being an internal process to an external expectation.
Our spirit has plans of its own
My second stop was Kanpur. It’s a city known for its colonial history and leather tanneries. This is where my father grew up and I hoped to find some of my roots in an Army cantonment where his family lived.
Arriving in Kanpur felt like a trip back in time: hand-painted advertisements lined the city streets and temple structures by the banks of the Ganga river narrated an old yet timeless tale. This was the first stretch of open land I had seen after Nepal and it lifted my spirits. I met a bike mechanic who was a cockfighting enthusiast and spoke passionately about his escapades while showing me around town. We spotted some pure white horses which were probably groomed for wedding processions — a sight I have witnessed multiple times before — so I half-heartedly clicked a picture. I didn’t think much of this moment but when I looked back at the photograph, it had a touch of divinity.
This is when I had my first realisation: if we don’t voluntarily align with our spirit, it will create conditions for us do so
Inner conflict is an ongoing negotiation between our mind and spirit
My third stop was Allahabad. It’s the city that’s most famous for hosting the Kumbh Mela, the largest human gathering in the world that attracts over 100 million people for a period of two months. It’s organized at the intersection of three holy rivers: Ganga, Yamuna and Saraswati which is considered to be a powerful energy center. The entire ordeal costs the government approx. $550 million but the estimated revenue is approx. $15 billion.
As a photojournalist, I wanted to document this world, but as a seeker, I wanted to experience it. Ultimately, the conviction of the seeker won over the skepticism of the journalist. In 2019, the Mela felt like a combination of spiritual festivities and a political campaign for Modi’s re-election. To me, the entire atmosphere felt unsettling — the confluence of religion and politics seemed to have brought money and power back into an equation meant for solace and solitude.
Then I met Bhagat Baba.
He was a member of the community of naga babas, who live in isolation during the year but come together for Kumbh Mela annually. They refuse to wear clothes as a symbol of renouncing all worldly possessions, even during the peak of winter, and have strict rules of celibacy.
There was something about him — beyond the ray bans and the flower garland — that gave him a magnetic personality. I spent two days with him documenting his life and trying to learn what I could about spirituality from such a peculiar personality in the entire Kumbh.
This was an experience like no other. The spirit in me was enthralled, but the journalist completely disoriented.
Sometimes we need an alarm to wake us up
On my last day, I sat by the Ganga to collect my thoughts and reflect on my experience when suddenly, I felt a forceful jolt. A cow ran past me stomping my ankle with its hoof, leaving me in excruciating pain and a limp for the rest of the day.
While researching later, I discovered that being struck by a cow is considered a lucky omen in Hindu mythology. I took it as a consolation and was humorously reminded that the search for spirituality is a process that reveals itself, sometimes with subtle hints and other times with powerful jolts.
