Of Meerut and Mathura (Part 2: Mathura)

Just as Meerut links me to my naani (maternal grandmother), Mathura links me to my daadi (paternal grandmother). This spring, as I travelled through northern India I saw both small towns and large cities crying for infrastructure. However the cities of Delhi, Mathura and Agra have less  reason to complain as just a handful of cars zoom on the three-lane Yamuna Expressway connecting these towns.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Aligarh and Mathura, both once-renown centres of learning and spirituality, appear to have lost some of their sheen amidst dug-up roads and mushrooming shops and houses.

 

 

 

 

 

 

These street scenes below are again reminiscent of anywhere-in-India. I have yet to come across a town in India that doesn't have a tangled mess of wires in a public space!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

More interesting is this local Lal Qila (Red Fort) – the name by which my extended family (uncle and grandmother’s) house is affectionately known in this relatively new neighbourhood of Mathura. It is several kilometres away from where my grandparents spent most of their adult lives and my father and his siblings spent their childhood in the narrow alleys, not far from the holy ghats of river Yamuna.

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Not far from Mathura is Vrindavan- the town where one of the primary Hindu gods Krishna is believed to have spent his childhood and, as per ancient Vedic texts, still resides in a spiritual form. Despite the obvious commercialisation at each stage of the prayer rituals and centuries-old rites performed at Mathura and Vrindavan, millions of pious Hindus and tourists go there each year.

 

 

 

Back in Mathura, the town of a million sacred places as they say, it is only apt that my extended family's house has a small puja (prayer) room devoted to Krishna.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Outside some loudspeakers blare devotionals songs. The pelting rain has made the adjoining dug-out road inaccessible. The neighbour’s daughter comes to show us her new sari before heading to a college award function. My cousin heads off to the Pizza Hut in the swanky new mall nearby. The shop near Mathura's old bus terminal is selling 'Idli, Chowmein, Momos'. What will happen next? Will Krishna meet KFC? Nothing can be surprising. This is India after all.