The Holy Dip

The gentle breeze was charming as usual. As the train was veering at 150 miles per hour, the beautiful landscape and the breeze added grandeur to the experience. My love for seating myself near the window has endured the changes in the life. I preferred this low speed levitation train to the faster ones just to cherish this heavenly experience. The ones that travel close to the speed of the sound have imposing rules like closed windows to ensure safety of the passengers and also much lesser traveling time. It has been a long time since I traveled, I decided to have this one longer.

"Shall we have a coffee?", my father was looking at me. My mother nodded letting me know that she too was interested in having one. I thought that was not a bad idea considering the impact of the cool weather and the AC on us.

I pushed the little button placed conveniently from the reach of the travelers. It brought a sleek touch screen in front of me, that displayed the available food stuffs and drinks along with the price. I picked the coffee and from the number grid for quantity selected 3. A sweet electronic voice assured me of a prompt service before the screen moved back to its place.

The train is now darting on a bridge that extended for several miles and had placed at high altitudes above a vast beautiful river with greens ready to gobble it any time. The sun was struggling to pierce through the clouds. The rays that eluded the mighty clouds' grab ended up shimmering on the surface of river bed. My admiration for this beautiful earth and the secrets it holds within, is always on the raise.

The serenity the travel has left in me is now disturbed by the voice that said "Here is your coffee sir". A tall guy in a white uniform was standing with the coffees we had ordered. We picked up our coffee. He was here in less than 5 minutes, however, a specialized robot would have done the job much quicker. When the government proposed this idea last week in the Parliament there were strong agitations. Nationwide strikes were organized by the Lefts and secured the jobs of these men.

The coffee wasn't bad. By the time we completed our coffees we had reached our destination. The train floated smoothly down the platform before pulling off with a jerk. The automatic door collapsed to let us out. I picked up my my mobile and searched the Indian Tourism site to know how to move from there. The instructions were pretty clear. To convince myself I moved to the tourism assistant set up at the end of the platform.

I positioned myself in front of its speech sensors and asked for help. A 3D assistant, with the appearance of a typical good looking Indian gal, generated by the projectors on top occupied the small black table. It wished us and explained the map which is now on display in the accompanying screen. The location of the counter and the procedure from there on was detailed. As it went on, i could see the dazzling eyes of my mom and dad, struck by a frisson of surprise. They were witnessing this for the first time. After spitting the entire programmed message it vanished into thin air.

We moved to the counter we were described about and saw a robot giving the instructions. The screen displayed multiple cylindrical capsules and the permitted duration . After a small discussion we decided to opt the biggest one to ensure a wholesome experience. The system accepted my credit card and verified my identity with a comprehensive eyes, finger impression and a complete feature verification. We were directed to the section where we can get our capsule.

When we reached the section, the capsule we had just ordered was waiting and a man was there to give us the initial directions. The capsule was huge with turquoise blue glasses encapsulating the base made of a solid material resembling plastic with a similar color. The capsule was big enough to carry a basic limousine. The door automatically opened to let us in. The inner walls had chairs attached to them where we seated ourselves.

The capsule was up and was soon following other multi sized capsules. Now this looks like a series of test vessels in a laboratory lined up for a complex experiment. The capsule starts moving and we soon found ourselves on top of a huge river. The capsule slowly started to move down into the river and stopped after reaching a specific level. We are now in waist high water. The encapsulating glass sections had peeled off and the surroundings are unobstructed to our sight. The base still remains enclosing the water we had access to.

"You have 30 minutes from now. We wish you a satisfying experience.", the electronic voice from the speaker within the capsule gave the alert.

We dipped in and prayed the Lords, chanted the mantras and slokas, and soon we had another alert saying we had only 5 minutes left.

The capsule was up and a huge fan at the top of the capsule started spinning. The water that we used was cleaned by the segment at the lower end of the capsule and is now back in the river. We were dry soon and when the fan stopped at the top of the capsule behind the fan, was the inscription, "Project - Clean Mansarovar".

"Intha madhiri gangala snanam panna vimochanam kedakkumne thonaliye da (But I couldn't believe that this kind of holy dip in Ganga will absolve us from the sins)", I only had a melancholic smile as a reply to my innocent mom.