Ghaziabad: For women on the kanwar route the journey begins where the facilities end. Every year, thousands of pilgrims carrying Ganga water in pots called kanwars flood the highways of north India to reach the Shaivite shrines. However, an overwhelming majority of these pilgrims are male, making it a test for the women who set out on it.Shavita Kumari (17), a resident of Sahibabad, picked up 14 litres of holy water from Har Ki Pauri with her 14-year-old brother on July 29. She decided to undertake the pilgrimage, she said, so that she could return to school and complete her Class X. She dropped out two years ago after her father, Nem Singh, met with an accident.For her, walking wasn’t the hardest part of the pilgrimage; finding restrooms and a safe place to rest was. “In Uttarakhand, it was still OK. But after that, it was hard to find a toilet,” she said. The journey has taken a toll on her. She is on the last leg of her 281-km-long journey from Haridwar to Dudheshwarnath Temple in the city. Now, her feet are covered in blisters and wrapped in bandages, and her pace is slow, but her spirit hasn’t been dampened. “If I can fulfil this yatra, I will be able to appear in my Class X exams and pass it,” she believes.When this reporter met Shavita in the city streets, she had fallen 3 km behind her brother, but her father, Nem Singh, and elder sister, Roli, had shown up to support and protect her. “My son is walking quite quickly as he doesn’t have blisters on his feet,” her father said. “When we learnt that she had reached Ghaziabad, we tried to accompany her so that she was not alone.”
Puja is a newlywed and she wanted to complete the yatra as a marker of the beginning of a new life
Puja’s husband Pankaj has held her hand throughout the journey as he was anxious about her security
For newlywed Puja, who undertook the journey with her husband, Pankaj, it was the most auspicious way they could begin their innings together as a couple. “It was hard, but we supported each other throughout,” she said. “We never left each other’s hands on the way.”Pankaj said accompanying his wife was also about fulfilling a promise he had made to her. Puja had initially told her husband that she could undertake the journey alone. But Pankaj disagreed. “It is very difficult for a woman to undertake the journey alone,” he said. “The facilities on the route have not been built for women. There are hardly any changing rooms or a clean restroom where they can take showers. Moreover, the route is thronged with so many strangers; it makes you anxious about women’s security.”She then laughed and said, “It would have been boring alone, so I brought my husband along.”Twenty-one-year-old Varsha has been undertaking this yatra since she was 16. But this year, she decided to do the ultimate walk of penance. “I have a wish that I want to be fulfilled this year,” she said. “So I will wriggle on my belly along the ground to reach the temple.” Since her journey came with an added challenge, Varsha had to start on July 26. She has covered 8 km daily by crawling on the roads to reach the final destination.“This is different from walking. I have to start before dawn so that I can get ahead of the bikes and the massive groups in trucks,” she said. “There is only one route for all of us, and it makes crawling to the temple extremely risky.”Unlike Shavita, Varsha said food and safety were not major concerns for her. By the time she reached Ghaziabad, the arrangements along the route gave her a sense of security. There were, however, stretches where waterlogging made her journey difficult. “They should have fixed it for us,” she said.
