The playful Ganga debouches from the hills to the plains at Haridwar. People throng to the various points across this temple dotted town for paying obeisance to the revered Ganga. But at Haridwar it is not about worshipping any deity. River Ganga is the open air temple cum deity. Chants of Har Har Gange rent the air here. Every evening devotees flock the Har-ki-Pauri ghat and float offerings of auspicious things like kumkum and flowers, and light incense sticks on little rafts. Divinity is strongly associated here with mother-nature in the form of river Ganga.

A devout believer will take to Haridwar like a duck takes to water. The sight of a river, the river of India, sliding along and sandwiched by temples on either sides, in the vicinity of Har Ki Pauri is indeed divine. The temples, fellow believers, the Ganga aarti, the lamps bobbing in the water, the bathers as they take a dip to wash away their sins... a devout connects in more ways than can be imagined.

For many a non believer watching the devotional fervour of the Ganga aarti has been a moving experience as well. Even sitting in the comfort of one's hotel room, away from the milieu, watching this act of piety is at once a spiritual and aesthetic experience.

Along the way one also notices the galis, the flower sellers, the beggars, the food stalls, the rickshaw pullers, tourists milling around, the proverbial 'gold' and 'coin' diggers who search the floor of the river to fish them out. And the thought comes to mind that this was not the original course of the river. It was the handiwork of Colonel Proby Cautley, of the British East India Company, who was the force behind the Ganga Canal which was thought necessary in the aftermath of the devastating famine in 1837-38.