Devotees of Shiva dance on trucks, in Haridwar

From the archive record

Every year around mid July in the Hindu month of Shravan, the Haridwar-Delhi highway gets choked with a steady flow of kanwarias (so called because they carry a kanwar or pole on their shoulder with the covered water pots balanced on its two ends). Several of them do footslogging, some ride bicycles or bikes and some travel on trucks and vans and even bullock carts. The route, a distance of over 250 km, reverberates with the high decibel chants of bol bam and Har Har Mahadev, as invocations to Lord Shiva. Loudspeakers on the roadsides and those fitted to the vehicles blare out bhajans, some set to the tune of raunchy Hindi film songs. The frenzy of the kanwarias knows no bounds; they do a jig to keep the mela mood going even as entranced older pilgrims quietly utter their prayers as they h