JABALPUR, INDIA A SPECTAULAR FESTIVAL
JABALPUR, India - It’s been many years since I did India with a pack on my back, traveling by train across the subcontinent, but many of the sights and sounds I experienced are still there for the traveler who wants to have that special adventure. So much in India came as a surprise to me, especially traditions that have been going on for hundreds, if not thousands, of years. One of those was the festival at the Marble Rocks in Jabalpur.
I spent six weeks riding in a train car with a group of mixed nationals, most of them British. We had a train car to ourselves, slept on mats on the floor of the train and did much of our own cooking. This train car would be unhooked from the engine and left on a siding until we were ready to move on.
On this festival day our train arrived two hours late at Jabalpur, an ancient city in the heart of India on the shores of the holy river Narmada. We discovered we were lucky to be there during the first full moon of November, a special religious day. Crowds had come to the area to observe the holy occasion.
After packing a lunch, eight in our group set off to the Marble Rocks for a picnic and soon were immersed in a tremendous mob scene. It turned out that our group was one of the main attractions.
As my suitcase had not arrived with me in New Delhi, I was wearing odds and ends that had been left behind by previous tourists. The rest of our group were dressed differently from each other and from the natives: The women had on shawls, scarves and various foreign dresses and slacks, and the men were wearing shirts and head coverings from a variety of cultures. We were a walking zoo, and the natives treated us accordingly. They came right up to us, eyeball to eyeball, to stare at us.
The road to the Marble Rocks was so crowded with pilgrims that even the small three-wheeled taxies couldn’t get through. Dust was everywhere. We - and here I include the natives - looked like displaced persons fleeing a ruined city. A walk of a mile brought us to the entrance to the Marble Walls, from where we would take a boat down the 2-mile gorge to the waterfall. The dilapidated boats did not inspire confidence, and the boatmen looked hardly strong enough to row the empty boats to the falls, much less one filled with passengers.
Indians don’t understand queuing, making it difficult to maintain the integrity of our group so we could all board the same boat. We did manage to get a boat with only one Indian passenger who refused to get out. Indians in other boats found us funny; they passed us with much yelling and laughter. We did look a comic lot.
The rocks in light shades of pink, gray, blue and off-white rise 100 feet on either side of the Narmada River. We were told this was the only marble canyon in the world along a river. The 20-minute boat trip took us to the Dhuandhar, or falls, where the river narrows and becomes a waterfall. The force of the water creates a smoke-like spray, hence the name "Dhuandhar" - the smoke cascade.
Our group ate lunch standing on the dock surrounded by natives watching us eat. Two beggar women asked for our leavings, not an unusual request in India.
I had my own wise man at the waterfall sitting next to me talking a blue streak in some foreign language, of which India has many in common use. He was oblivious to my protestations that I couldn’t understand a word he was saying. I think he might have been a guide and was expecting a tip for the wisdom he was imparting.
It was a memorable experience. It was also amusing that our group was part of the spectacle for the crowds of native observers.
