Vrindavan

 

  

Entrance of Shree Dwarkadhish Temple, Mathura.

My first itinerary called for me to visit Mathura, Vrindavan, and Gwalior all at once. However, we ended up at Agra before moving on to Mathura later. After visiting Janmasthan, we boarded a shared auto and arrived in Vrindavan by dusk. Even the regular highways are packed because of how populous the area is.There were no hotels or ashrams available to stay in because the area was so crowded. We finally found a place for 1200 Rs after a protracted search. We received some free food from the Ram Seva volunteers along the route, which included some potato curry and chapati.

By the time we reached room, we were almost sleepy, but then we had a lot to cover, and night was still very young. Our room was near Banke Bihari temple, so we decided to see Prem mandir and iskcon temple first, so that we can visit Banke Bihari the next morning and head over to Gwalior the next day at the earliest. We got ready and started our night out, we took a horse cart till prem mandir.

In Vrindavan, one can only hear "Radhe Radhe" everywhere. For everything, beginning with begging for a solution to being teased, they sing Radhe Radhe. Throughout the entire voyage, our fellow passengers in the horse cart were singing a lot of Krishna songs, and we joined them. We were on a horse-drawn carriage, but we were virtually walking because there was no other way through the sea of people, which I had never seen before in my entire life. Between each phrase, someone would chant aloud, and everyone would join in. It's good to see people come together, and in this case, Krishna was the catalyst. 

By the time we arrived at Iskcon Temple, the entire area had been shut off. Prem Mandir, where we were spending the night, was close by. Sushma, one of the three of us, would disappear then and now, and by the time we arrived, she had vanished once more and even our phones had lost service. It was a mass of people, and all we needed to do was remain there and the crowd would carry you wherever it went. Prem mandir is famous for its night view, the entire temple would change color every 5-10 minutes. There are sculptures of Kaliyamardanam and Govardan lift. temples in north India are way different from that of south, in south most of the temples are made of black brick and it has a very peculiar architecture, most are very ancient too. in north temples are made of marble, even the deity is. Even the pooja and rituals seems very different. in south only the main pujari(priest) is allowed to enter and touch the deity, here in many temples everyone can.      

Prem mandir is more of a tourist place rather than a pilgrim place.As it was almost closing time, and my friend Rishika was more concentrated on her reel swings, and the security was almost chasing us throughout the temple, we were running around the temple.

By the time we finished exploring the place we got Sushma back from the exit, she was waiting there. Sushma is not a very photography Wala person, so it must have been difficult for her to survive.

It was almost 10 by the time we came out of Prem mandir and iskcon was closed by that time. Sushma lost her chappal, so we went shopping to buy one. Rishika would go to every shop and would ask price of every dandiya dress, then won't buy, I accompany her, and I end up buying something, this cycle would continue throughout the trip.

We were pretty tired and, somehow came back near hotel, ate a whole lot of junk and got back to hotel and said goodbye to that day.

Despite how worn out we were, the idea to get up early and do two temples before noon didn't go as planned. By eight we were once more at ISKCON, this time in a ricksha. The major problem throughout the trip was not having liquid money. Majority of the people in Bhopal have some online payment method available, so it never occurred to us to carry some liquid money. After much haggling, we always manage to secure a cab or rickshaw, but once we arrive at our location, we have to buy something in order to receive cash from a shop, making the whole bargaining pointless. This time we had to buy poha for getting some liquid money, poha usually costs around 10 rupees plate almost everywhere I have been to, here it costed 40 per plate and for getting a change of 50 rupees we gave 120.You should have seen the congestion of that area to understand why the majority of ATMs didn't have any cash!

Iskcon temples are founded in New York in1966, by Bhakthivedanda swami Prabhupada, who went to the western world with the mission of spreading messages of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu for encouraging the practice of Bakti yoga, or Krishna consciousness. In comparison to other temples there, it is kept up, tidy, and structured. 

So, Rishika and I had been planning to make a reel for days, but since our vacation came as a complete surprise, we were unable to practice. while we were practicing, two or three other women joined. We abandoned our strategy and danced with them.  I am pretty sure Rishika would kill me for adding it here. Sushma had grown weary of the drama she had been exposed to over the past two days and had stopped caring.

By the time all the singing, dancing, and drama was done, it was around 11, and we had to reach the railway station to catch the 1.05 train to Gwalior. We had the main temple left to cover. The Banke Bihari, I wasn't even aware that Lord Krishna has such a name too; it was from Lipika that I first heard that name. Unlike Prem Mandir and ISKCON, we had to spend hours in line to get into the temple, and it was so crowded that I didn't even touch the ground sometimes. All of us lost our sandals, which were kept outside, and the saddest part was that we had to stand in that hour-long queue twice, once for Dharshan and again to only find out that our sandals were stolen.

 

 

inside view of Shree Banke Bihari temple.

House of lord Krishna

We ran to catch our train, but it was already 2, and we didn't have any booked tickets. Our plan was to get into the general compartment, but then the railway station was as crowded as the temples, and our Gwalior plan got cancelled again. Sushma's friend, who lives in Gwalior, whom we planned to meet in Gwalior, got pretty disappointed as she had dinner food for us. Since there had been no new plan for some time and the train, we booked back to Bhopal was at 10 p.m., we decided to eat and then make a new plan.

 

The new plan was to visit Gokul, where Krishna lived during his childhood. it's all confusing, isn't it? so Krishna was born in Mathura, he was taken to Gokul where he spent his childhood and then later moved to Vrindavan and later built his kingdom in Dwaraka which is in Gujarat.

In Gokul our guide took us to the house where Krishna was raised, house of Balram and a house where Meera lived some other places too. so, in Vrindavan people calls you Radha and here they call you Yamuna, Gokul was very small didn't even take 1 hour to cover and we had enough time left to catch our train, so we again went back to Mathura, to visit Dwarkadhish Temple, which was our last destination.

House of Lord Krishna.

Shree Dwarkadhish Temple, Mathura. Premises 

 

Train had a stop only at  Agra before Gwalior, so we headed over to Agra, which is around 1 hour from Mathura, got the train, since we had no tickets from Agra to Gwalior, as usual TTR came, scolded for not having tickets gave warning to not repeat, how does this happen every other time I don't understand , poor planning indeed and that's it, we slept well and good from Agra to Bhopal.