Haridwar and Rishikesh in Kartik: a quiet week by the Ganga कार्तिक में हरिद्वार और ऋषिकेश: गंगा किनारे एक शांत सप्ताह

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Kartik is the month many older people in North India speak of with a particular warmth. For those who follow the purnimanta calendar, it began this year on 26 October, the morning after Sharad Purnima, and it runs to Kartik Purnima on 24 November. Families who follow the amanta calendar, common in Gujarat, Maharashtra and the South, begin Kartik a little later, after Diwali. The practices are the same either way: an early bath, a lamp in the evening and a little more attention to prayer.

## Why Kartik suits a stay by the Ganga

By late October the air in Haridwar and Rishikesh is cool in the morning and pleasant by midday. The river runs clear and steady after the rains. Kartik snan, the early bath of this month, is an old custom, and many people choose to keep it at the Ganga for a few days.

If you are flying in from abroad, a week here is a good way to land. The days have a simple shape. You wake before sunrise, bathe or simply sit by the water, have breakfast, rest, walk, and come back to the ghat for the evening aarti.

## A simple week

- **Haridwar, three days.** Stay close to Har Ki Pauri so you can walk to the evening aarti. Visit Mansa Devi and Chandi Devi on separate mornings by ropeway, at an unhurried pace. Keep one afternoon free. - **Rishikesh, four days.** Mornings for yoga or quiet sitting, afternoons for the walk across the bridges and along the river. The evening aarti at Parmarth Niketan and at Triveni Ghat are both worth an evening each. - **One lamp a day.** Kartik is the month of deepdaan. Float a small leaf lamp on the river once, and light one at your window every evening, wherever you stay.

Elders, children and anyone with a health condition should take the river bath only where the steps and chains are, and only in daylight. The water is cold in Kartik. Sitting by the river and touching the water to your head is also a full Kartik snan in many families.

## About the Char Dham

Kedarnath, Badrinath, Gangotri and Yamunotri close for the winter each year around this season and reopen in spring, so they are not part of a Kartik trip. If your family has been waiting to do the Char Dham, this is a good time to start planning the 2027 yatra: talk to the elders who will travel, think about the months that suit them, and begin early so that the journey is calm.

## If you cannot travel this year

Kartik can be kept at home in Toronto or Dubai just as well. A lamp at the tulsi or at the window each evening, a few minutes of quiet in the morning, and one simple meal shared with family is how many grandmothers have always kept it. The Ganga is remembered wherever she is remembered with love.

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