A meeting of minds

For me, a Nagpurian, Mumbai holds more distractions than attractions. The hulking, throbbing, mechanical metropolis invokes no empathy: the only thing it makes me conscious of is vapid indifference. And on their part, the great city and its countless multitudes treat me likewise. I daresay the cabbie whom I chanced to run into shared my view. Partially, at least.

With no meaningful business to attend to, the time not being ripe for a late show and the passable beach having bored me thoroughly, I had decided to meet a friend. But there was still a lot of time to go before the rendezvous, and I amused myself reading faces, most of which spelt exhaustion and ennui. Forming no more than an inconsiderable speck amongst a sea of seemingly programmed automatons who brusquely brushed past me without as much as a by-your-leave, I let myself flow along with the tide.

Soon it was time to hail a cab. No sooner had I settled into the back seat than the cab rocketed off the blocks, as if the cabbie had taken it upon himself to turn the barely 10-mile ride into one that would fetch him a world record. Not wanting any broken bones, I decided to break the ice.

Glancing at the dashboard, more to gauge the speed than anything else, I espied something that told me that the man was a `Hindi-sider’. “Achchha, so you are from Allahabad, eh?” I ventured, with what I thought was nonchalance. His icy demeanour seemed to melt a wee bit, as he noticed that his passenger spoke Hindi without the pronounced Mumbai accent. “Hmmm,” he monosyllabled. I construed this murmur as an answer in the affirmative.“You could say that I’m from UP as well. I was born in Kanpur,” I informed him, as if that would induce him to spare my life and limb. To my not inconsiderable surprise, it did. The cab had slowed down perceptibly now. I took this as a very welcome sign.

With his interest in me, or what I was saying, ignited to some extent, I pushed through with my harangue. By now the cabbie had decided to give way to other cabs honking behind him, and did away with his monosyllables as well. In fact, he began to speak with something approaching eloquence.Badriprasad we had exchanged names by then was quite a cabbie. Little did I know then that I had come upon a sage of the road. The brisk drive had now been transformed into a sleepy, spiritual journey.

Having spoken of this, that and the other, we eventually began discussing the Sangam the confluence of three rivers: Ganga, Yamuna and Saraswati. “I see only the mighty Ganga and the Yamuna at the Sangam. Why is it then that people speak about the non-existent Saraswati?” I asked him. He seemed mighty surprised at my utter ignorance.

Giving me an incredulous look, he said, “Sahab, it’s not the river Saraswati that unites with the other two. For long, Allahabad has been a seat of erudition. It is this perennial flow of learning (Saraswati is the goddess of learning) that mingles with the holy waters of the Ganga and the Yamuna: thus it’s called the Sangam (confluence) of three rivers,” he enlightened me.

The lost course of the legendary river which flowed in the last millennium, according to the ancient Indian literature, has been traced by scientists now. But ask that nameless cab driver from Mumbai and he’ll have a different story to tell. The Saraswati is dead. Long live Saraswati.