In Shiva's Footsteps

Author Amish Tripathi believes it is devotion that makes a place holy

- Shreevatsa Nevatia

Reimagined by Amish Tripathi, Shiva is an immigrant. He is used to long journeys. He is also used to the idea that travel can change lives. There is no irreverence in Amish’s adaptation. When National Geographic Traveller India visited him in his office, it soon became clear that the writer was first a believer. His faith, though, still allowed him to think atheists too can be pilgrims. Amish can cry in Banaras. Chasing Shiva, he also desperately wants to see Mount Kailash. The author of the Shiva trilogy told us, “As a traveller, Shiva can live in a bubble, but he can also be completely immersed.” Amish, for his part, remains more engaged than reclusive. He likes listening to the tales locals tell, and culture, he argues, is but a collection of stories we all believe in. Without travel, Amish wouldn’t have his backdrop.

You’ve said you visit a Shiva temple every Monday morning, so what does ‘pilgrimage’ mean to you?

The English language has some limitations, so I’d like to use the Sanskrit word for pilgrimage—tirtha. The meanings of Sanskrit words all evolve from a root of sorts. The word tirtha, for instance, means ‘the point of crossing over’. It’s a place which has been deemed holy by the devotion of the pilgrims who go there, and so it becomes a place where you can cross over to meet the divine, where you can touch and feel it. Hinduism is not a congregational religion. Hindus are not duty-bound to gather and pray. That’s not how pilgrimage is defined in Indian mythology. Ours is an individual journey. New places, as a result, can emerge as tirthasthans. In the end, what makes a place holy? Our devotion makes it holy. God exists within us. Much of this, I admit, has been forgotten, and a lot of this perhaps needs to be revived.