Guruji.

The way back to Delhi from Haridwar was one long bumpy ride. The acres upon acres of rolling rich green paddy fields and swaying sugarcane boughs on the road side , a treat to the eyes was the only silver lining to a painfully slow drive on non existent roads.

The sight of buffaloes ploughing fields or pulling carts was a ludicrous sight to one accustomed to seeing bullocks ploughing fields and huge white oxen's drawing heavily laden carts , down south.

As I came out of a tastefully landscaped hotel , after a brief lunch on the way side , to board my bus , I bumped into a big group of westerners in Indian kurta's and pants , heading towards a conference hall , in the hotel.

A tall woman,several years older than me ,at first look, with closely cropped hair and a forlorn look on her face smiled at me and stretched out her hands.She looked very sad . There was stark desperation on her face. I immediately gave her my hand.

She said "You are beautiful"[ Me ! at this age and after every thing?] And added "Most Indian women are. You are all always smiling and have such good teeth."


The tag around her neck had the smiling photo of Nithyananda.So did all others in that group. Most of the westerners who formed this group looked glum,weary of life and lost .Many of them had some disability or the other.

An young woman,an MBA from Mumbai a co pilgrimist , sniggered when this disparate group's leader , a young Indian, bearing a close resemblance to the guru ,a female clone ,explained wide eyed ,how the clouds stopped pouring and skies cleared magically when 'The master of the universe' landed at Delhi.

On my enquiry the old woman said that she was a German residing at New york.I paid back her compliment ,that I admired Europeans for their coloured eyes and golden hair [ages ago though]. She smiled back but it didn't touch her eyes.

Maybe she is rich but has none to share her thoughts and cares or worse even talk to. A lonely woman.Or is under going some terrible grief that requires gentle ministrations.I could empathise with her.If the Guru she is entrusting her faith can provide the required succor and pull her out of her dumps, so be it.

Every house in the villages, my bus passed through has a 'charpoy' the 4 legged threaded cot placed prominently at its front.Women clean grains seated on them, old men curl up resting their weary limbs or a bunch of lads crowd on them talking or staring into their mobiles. On some charpoy's lone men puff on their hookahs and on several, men sit in groups and are in deep discussions.Villagers in south sit or sleep on pyols[thinnai] or mud/cemented floors.

Even the pathetic dwellings of the poor , that has but four sticks for walls and a canvas or plastic sheet as a roof in outerlying areas of towns, have a charpoy within.

2500 kms separate Tamilnadu from Delhi, UP and Uttarakund.Yet the rag pickers in the streets in all urban centres down south or up north carry the same huge soiled white plastic bags over their shoulders.

Another common thread [ apart from cricket, railway's,IT and Bollywood] bridging the great North ---South divide?