We set off for Harike early morning, immediately dividing the bus into two halves. Since the bus with 32 seats was cheaper to hire than a 14seater bus, our bus was nearly half empty. CAT Ashish A. put his business acumen to work and coined the thought that we should perhaps pick up some Ludhiana/Jagraon passengers from the local bus stand to earn some money for the CATS!
CAT Navpreet and a few others suggested that we should start antakshri without our customary prayer. There was no stopping the CATS who belted out one song after the other. Quite ironical though that about an hour later when we got stuck on alphabet 'Ae', it was CAT Navpreet himself who sang 'Ae malik tere bande hum' :-)
CATS were caught off-guard when we were approaching the parking of Gurdwara Nanaksar in Jagraon. We noticed lots of women and children sitting around with packets of 'Mishri' and cans of water in their hands, rushing towards our bus. So fierce was the competition amongst them to reach us first (or attack us first!!) to boost their sales figures for the day, that they would not even allow us to alight from the bus. Some of the felines literally had to take to their paws to avoid being way laid by these otherwise innocuous looking women and children.
We found out later that no monetary offerings are permitted in the gurdwara and 'Mishri Parsad' is the only offering accepted inside. Pity though that such a great policy had been effectively put to use within the Gurdwara, but the authorities were absolutely helpless at their doorstep to stop this loot.
We first reached the main hall of the Gurdwara premises to pay our respects. Towards the end of the Parikarma, we came across a door leading to 'Bhora Sahib' in the basement. This is apparently where tapasya was done by Sant Ishar Singh and where he was blessed with the 'Saroop' of Guru Nanak Dev Ji. However, Bhaiji at the door said that we could visit the Bhora Sahib only if we agreed to a set of conditions, which included holding an Akhand Path, or a Sehaj Path, or reciting Sukhmani Sahib or Jap Ji Sahib certain number of times a day etc.
Hush fell over CATS as these conditions seem out of reach for most of us. Additionally, half the group belonged to Hindu religion and would not have been able to perform the path by themselves. Whilst I left most of the group to decide what they would like to do, I witnessed an unexpected moment of sheer pride as the leader of the pack. CAT Ashish A, CAT Gopika decided that they would comply with one of the conditions and walked through the doors of the Bhora Sahib. They were closely followed by CAT Gurneet gallantly put her paws forward. I could not help reciting 'Ek Pita Ekas Ke Hum Baarak' to myself.
Watching them take the initiative and seeing the faces of the rest, I asked the Bhaiji if we can get someone else to do the path on our behalf to which consented. We agreed on Akhand Path but then he said that each one of us would have to get one Akhand Path done. This again put us in a quandary as getting the Akhand Path conducted is considered as one of the most pious but equally strenuous tasks in the Sikh religion. Finally he relented and said since we all belong to one family (activity related CATS family rather than a biologically related family), we could pay obeisance in the Bhora Sahib if we could get one Akhand Path conducted within a time frame of a month. We readily agreed.
Thereafter we had a quite langar and set off towards Harike. CATS decided to give Antakshari a skip and indulge in some dumb charade instead for the second leg of the outward journey. Soon the enthusiasm of the experts rubbed off on to the rusty ones like me and again the bus was divided into two groups. Mithya was surprisingly easy to figure out but Kaafila took forever. In fact we had so much fun that when we looked out of the bus, we had already reached Harike! We had missed stopping by at Sabraon for the Anglo-Sikh war memorial altogether in playing dumb charade.
DFO of Ferozpur, Mr Basanta Raj Kumar had arranged for his staff to escort us for the day. Soon we found ourselves by the waters of Harike Wetlands where stillness and silence ruled. Since 15 of us had to be accommodated in a seemingly rickety motorboat, we were instructed to plant ourselves in the boat as per our weight and size (yes!!) and strictly told not to rock the boat by moving around at any stage. For the first time in the day, there was absolute silence. CATS were dumb struck by the sheer vastness of the space and the variety of aviary around them. CATS had been let loose amongst the birds, but it was the birds which were having a last laugh!
Most memorable part of the boat ride was seeing the Sangam of River Beas and River Satluj. Whilst Beas waters were clear and relatively fresh, Satluj waters were clearly murky, smelly, oily, filthy and thoroughly polluted. In fact, we could clearly distinguish between Beas and Satluj waters where they merged together in the Sangam. The stench arising of the Satluj waters was so unbearable that we had to request for the boat to be taken towards Beas waters. We were told that every Minister or Officer who comes to Harike for a day trip simply enjoy the natural habitat after making tall promises for taking care of the polluted Satluj waters, but nothing of substance has come to the fore thus far. We noticed later that most of the birds were prancing around in the Beas waters and not on the Satluj side. An extremely sad state of affairs indeed.
It was sheer joy to watch birds 'walking' on water. National Geographic had become 'live' for us. It was also extremely interesting to draw comparisons from the Zoo Treasure Hunt a fortnight ago. There we saw so many birds, but in the cages. Here we were caged in a motorboat whilst thousands of birds had the free run of the place! We really missed our 'Bird Watching' CAT Ashok and CAT Neerja for it would have been really good to know more about the resident and migratory birds around us.
We walked for about 5kms around the Wetlands after the boat ride. With serene waters on side and farms on the other, we witnessed a 10 second episode of jungle raaj straight out of the Discovery Channel. We saw two dogs fighting noisily and bitterly over a squirrel. Before we could react, we saw the blood stained squirrel dangling limply in the jaws of one dog. The dogs had left the CATS in awe!
Next came a much resisted lunch break stop at a local banquet hall where a wedding was taking place. We stuck a deal with the manager to serve us the excess food from the wedding celebrations to CATS for lunch at a nominal cost. I could not help thinking of CAT Charanjeet, who had coined the name CATS but had said in the same breath that we should be careful of using the word CATS, since cats are known to the scheming creatures! What the heck, food was good and the service was prompt which put us back on the trail of the dolphins.
We traveled through dusty narrow lanes through the fields to reach a village 25kms away from the main Wetlands. Though it was a very hot and sunny day, CATS were determined to give their best shot at finding the Dolphins. We walked for about a kilometer, only to be told that since the waters had receded in the last few days, dolphins had actually not been spotted for the last 4-5 days at all. We felt disheartened and perhaps a little cheated, but there was no one to be blamed. No one had promised us a sighting of Dolphins and we had decided to try our best to get an opportunity to see them.
Since we had come this far, we decided to embark on one final hunt for the elusive dolphins. We jumped onto a wooden barge usually used to ferry tractors across the marshes. One skinny Mallah used a bamboo pole to fish us out to the other side of the waters. The disillusioned CATS had lost all sense of purpose and direction by this time and for some strange reason, started walking towards the heart of this island. What were we thinking?? Were we trying to find a house of dolphins where we would have spotted them resting in their rocking chairs in the balmy late afternoon with a glass of Nimbu Pani or Vodka?? Heaven knows.
Fortunately, senses soon prevailed and we grudgingly accepted that we were not going to see any dolphins that day. In our disappointment, we forgot to visit Sabraon on the way back (AGAIN) and were soon heading back towards Ludhiana. Since we wanted to have a little more fun before we all headed back to our homes, CATS decided to have dinner in Ludhiana, hosted by CAT Fang. However, this was also cancelled since they decided that they were not really hungry upon reaching Ludhiana. Then they wanted to have a bite at McDonalds' in Doraha, however, McDonalds lies on the other side of the divided highway and it was too much to make a U-turn and travel back. Half the bus had fallen asleep. CAT Gurneet would wake up and ask after a few odd minutes, 'Aur kitni door hai?' By the time some CATS got hungry, there was not a decent eatery in sight. In the end, we were all too tired to care for the food.
Looking back, I would say that though disappointment of not being able to see the dolphins was write large across our faces, but none of us can deny that we had sheer fun in the bus, the boat ride in the wetlands was the most memorable for all of us, the walk around the wetlands was an experience, and we sure will catch up with the Dolphins next time.
I was also told by the Chhatbir Zoo Director, CAT Dharam that it was our very own Harpal who had actually spotted the Dolphins in Dec'07 (remember the smart looking extremely helpful second in command from our Chhatbir Zoo trek). Harpal had then asked the local office to officially identify the dolphins. CATS are also grateful to DFO Ferozepur, Mr Basanta Raj Kumar who had instructed his staff to ensure every assistance be extended to CATS for a memorable day out for us.
CAT Supreet
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