A Night of Chaos, A Touch of Leela in Vrindavan

3rd June, 2026; 6.15 pm

We jostle through a sea of pilgrims flooding the narrow lanes of Vrindavan. The crowd is so great that e-rickshaws and cycle rickshaws have been stopped beyond a point. It’s the adhika maasa effect, we’re told.

For now, we’re blissfully unaware of what this will mean for the rest of our evening. They say that in Vrindavan, nothing happens by chance.

“It would be great if we had a bike to navigate these lanes,” my husband says.
“You don’t even know these roads—it won’t help,” I say.

I can’t see his reaction—I’ve taken off my glasses and stuffed them into my bag after a notorious Vrindavan monkey tried to snatch them.

We reach a small clearing when a lanky young man walks up to us. He’s overheard us asking for directions to Keshi ghat for the Yamuna arati.

“I’ll take you,” he says. On his bike.

Is this the handiwork of Krishna, deciding to grant my husband’s wish expressed just a minute ago?

But there’s no time to ponder because our biker is hurrying us up. He gets on first, and my husband sits behind him. I’m wearing a saree and can’t straddle the seat, so I have to struggle to fit myself into the leftover space, and I grab the rear metal rail for balance.

And then begins one of the most surreal, white knuckle rides of my life.

The bike twists and turns through blind-ended gullies that are barely wide enough for a pedestrian, yet crammed with bikes from both directions. The young men of Vrindavan seem to lack caution, but they more than make up for it with their devotion. Near-collisions only evoke a soft “Radhe-Radhe” from both riders.

Faces, houses, monkeys, movement—it’s overwhelming. I shut my eyes and begin chanting the Lord’s names.

Thirty minutes later, our biker drops us at Keshi ghat, and starts to leave. Some intuition drives my husband, and he asks the guy if he will wait and take us back. After a quick bargain, the deal is finalized by us paying him 1/3rd of the total cost as advance.

I take a picture of his vehicle.

I give a missed call to his phone to keep a record of his number in my call log for easy access later.

We get swept into the crowd and reach the ghat just as the arati ends. Moving further along, we find another pooja being set up. A young devotee guides us through a sankalpa and leads a recitation of the Yamunaashtakam of Sri Vallabhacharya.

After about 45 minutes, we decide to leave.

We reach the point where the biker had promised to wait.

And find no bike or biker waiting.

I pull out my phone to call him.

I open my call log and scroll once.

Then I scroll again.

The number isn’t there.

Doubting my own eyes because my glasses are still inside the bag, I hand over the phone to my husband.

He checks.

Nothing.

The number we had just saved has vanished.

We wait. Walk around. No sign of him.

An e-rickshaw driver nearby refuses to help. He says every road is completely jammed.

As we begin to worry about how we’ll get back, our biker suddenly reappears from a side lane, grinning. He says he waited, assumed we’d be late, and went to drop someone nearby.

We climb back on.

The return ride is even more terrifying. My slipper slips off at one point. We stop, retrieve it, and continue—squeezing past barricades meant to stop bikes altogether.

Hanging on for dear life, we marvel at our biker’s artful navigation through the labyrinthine gullies, a skill that would put even Google Maps to shame.

We reach our destination, but still need to cover almost 2 kilometres to reach our hotel. And impossibly, the crowd seems to have swelled even more.

Our biker says he can’t come beyond this point. We finish paying him. He then offers to find us another ride to the hotel, and engages another bike to ferry us there.

A few minutes later, we’re sitting in the cool environs of Govinda’s restaurant, eating our satvik meal.

As the noise of the evening settles, questions surface.

We wonder, “What was this entire experience for? Why did that biker’s phone number disappear from my phone? How did he miraculously appear, then disappear, and re-appear? What account from which past janma were we settling by riding precariously through these roads of Vrindavan?”

And then, I find my mind drifting to the numerous upanyasams I have heard, that describe how the Mischief-Monger ran around the houses stealing butter from the gopis of Vrindavan. 

We’ve been told that He stole not just the butter, but also the hearts of the Vrajawaasis. 

And that He steals the sins of those who listen to stories of His theft.

Maybe He brought us here and took us on this ride to steal our sense of doership, our feeling of being in control?

Was this biker more than just a biker?

Just as Parthasarathy guided Arjuna, he had been our saarathy—leading us through confusion, straight to Keshi ghat, to fulfil our wish for Yamuna darshan.

Who knows – perhaps he was some great-great-great-great-great-grandson of one of those gopis, or gopas, who had been fortunate enough to have danced and played with Krishna?

Maybe sitting next to him, and driving along with him, and offering him a small amount of money has multiplied our punya, and nullified our paapaas of some past janma?

Maybe the time spent with him has been the satsang we need to fuel our sadhana ahead?

Previously, I used to feel that our travels would be more fulfilling if we planned them with greater foresight instead of impulsively plunging into a trip. But after 25 years, you learn to stop resisting. So, this time, when this Vrindavan-Mathura detour got impulsively added to a planned Badrinath yatra, I went in without a murmur. Little did I know that this going with the flow would give me one of the most memorable yatra experiences of my life!

How boundless must His karuna be, to grant such wondrous experiences to ordinary people like us!