Rathyatra In Puri: An Adventure I’ll Never Forget – Part 2

There were two streams of people – one moving towards the Raths, for people who hadn’t seen them and one moving away from them, for those who had. We entered the former stream and immediately regretted it. Let me elaborate – people had been walking on that road for hours and they were, by that time, very dirty; the roads were wet as well as the Government of Orissa had appointed people to spray the people on the road with water from these tanks on their backs to provide some respite from the heat (this was great for our faces which were being sprayed with cool water, but terrible for our feet which were covered in water and mud now); and of course, there were the people! There were reportedly more than a hundred thousand people on that road at the time and we were constantly being pushed and butted by others. Have you seen the Guiness World Record attempt where a small hatchback is fitted with as many people as possible? The record is somewhere around 30. Now, imagine being a person in that terribly cramped car and also imagine being there for about an hour in that position. Hell, you think? No, worse. That’s what it was like walking on that road. However, there was a part of me that was really enjoying the whole thing and was just nudging me forward with great zest. After the initial discomfort, I grew accustomed to the conditions and started looking at the finer details of which there were many.