har-ish

In December 2014, after my father’s demise, I went to Allahabad to perform his rituals at the Triveni Sangam.
It was a biting cold morning, and we were the first to take a boat from the shore. The confluence was still some distance away, and there was practically nothing to see.
Because it was pitch dark.
The boatman was navigating towards a makeshift platform constructed from three larger boats at the Sangam. At some point, though, even he seemed unsure of where we were. The boat slowed down. There was nothing around us except darkness and the sound of the water.
And that was when my mind decided to become particularly imaginative.
I started thinking about all those stories of boats capsizing in the Ganga. People falling into the water. Bodies never being found. The possibility that this rather solemn pilgrimage could turn into something considerably more tragic.
All of this, naturally, while sitting in a small boat in the middle of the darkness.
Eventually, the boatman found his way to the Sangam.
I remember that journey far more vividly than the rituals themselves. Three rivers meeting in the darkness, and three colours are my way of putting that memory back on paper.