Deepak Singh, a native of Uttar Pradesh's Sultanpur district, has been travelling thousands of kilometres as a kanwariya for the last five years. Every year, he travels all the way from Muzaffarnagar, where he currently lives, to Bihar's Sultanganj to fetch water from river Ganga. Then he returns to his native place to make an offering to Lord Shiva.
Instead of religious faith, the 30-year-old's devotion is inspired by love. Singh hopes that his dedication would break the shackles of the caste system that his love story is bound in.
"I have been participating in the kanwar yatra for the last five years in the hope that Lord Shiva will help me convince the parents of the girl whom I want to marry. She belongs to a different caste and that's why her parents are not accepting my proposal," says Singh, who takes care of his ancestral mango orchards.
Singh says: "I fell for her the first time I saw her in college in Muzaffarnagar in 1999. I was pursuing BSc, Maths, and she was studying Home Science.
At the time, I did not realise that the issue of our castes will become such a nightmare for of us," says Singh, who belongs to the Korwa community.
"I tried to convince her parents a lot but failed. In 2013, I finally decided to give up on impressing them and started pleasing Lord Shiva — the God of love," he says, while sitting in a tent installed for kanwariyas in east Delhi's Patparganj area. He further says that his own parents are also not happy with his decision.
When queried about the blue shirt he is wearing, unlike the other kanwariyas, Singh says: "How's it possible that God will listen to you only when you are wearing a particular colour? Wo sabki sunta hai. Jaati ya rang ka bhed-bhaav nahi karta (God listens to everyone, irrespective of caste or colour)."
While most kanwariyas from UP go to Haridwar in Uttarakhand, as it is closer, to collect water, Singh prefers to go to all the way to Bihar. "I have heard that the more you travel for this yatra, the more are the chances that your prayer will be heard. After so many years, I can't take a risk," he says.
