"I was charmed with the natural scenery about Hrishikesh and the Lakshman Jhula, and bowed my head in reverence to our ancestors for their sense of the beautiful in Nature and for their foresight in investing beautiful manifestations of Nature with a religious significance.
But, the way in which men were using their beauty spots was far from giving me peace... people dirtied the roads and the fair banks of the Ganges. They did not even hesitate to desecrate the sacred water of the Ganges. It filled me with agony to see people performing natural functions on the thoroughfares and riverbanks, when they could easily have gone a little farther away from public haunts. Lakshman Jhula was, I saw, nothing but an iron suspension bridge over the Ganges... the iron bridge is entirely out of place in such surroundings and mars their beauty.
The Svargashram which one reaches after crossing the bridge was a wretched place, being nothing but a number of shabby-looking sheds of galvanized iron sheets... [The aspirants] who were in the main building gave one an unfavorable impression."
- Ghandi, 1915
I went to the Ganga View Cafe again for breakfast this morning, and no joke - the same guy, the same discourse about Shiva's urine! (This time for a different woman, who sounded maybe to be Israeli or perhaps European.) I think Ghandi did this town justice with his description, but if only he could see it now in this age of plastic! Yikes! The photo above is of one of the unofficial riverside dumps.
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