Saturday, March 4: Temple of the Wind

SRI KALAHASTEESWARA: TEMPLE THE TEMPLE OF WIND

"You are very lucky to be here this day and this time because from now on in your whole life all your problems will be solved," said the man behind me in a clipped British accent. Somebody always adopts foreigners in a temple. This time it's this guy in his white shirt and business slacks. He looks a bit out of place in the jumble of colorfully dressed pilgrims sweating it out today for the yearly Shivarathi festival, when the deity gets taken out of the inner sanctum and paraded around the temple grounds in a huge wooden cart drawn by pairs of white oxen struggling with the weight and the crowd.

But that's not until later. Now we are sweating it out in the special darshan line, the one we paid 50 rupees to get into. I might have given this place a miss had it not been on my list and the last in the series of Pancha Bhoota (five elements) temples I'm visiting in South India, because it is only 36 kilometers from the incredibly popular Tirumula temple which gets more visitors than Mecca, Jerusalem, even Rome, and is the focal point of any good pilgrims South Indian tour. About one in ten of the pilgrims have had their heads shaved, as at that temple it is considered auspicious to offer the gods ones hair. We'll see, tomorrow, but for now, astrologically-speaking, Marcia and I have not only stumbled on the most important temple festival of the year, but apparently upon the most important three hours of the most important day of the year to be here.

It had been work to get into the inner sanctum, even with our 50 rupee special-darshan tickets. When the attendant rolled back the chain link fence to let us into the inner sanctum some frenzied pilgrims rushed it and pushed past, shoving me into the sharp cut-ends of the fence which ripped the bottom of my pants. Respectable women in saris, these. But there's no telling with religious frenzies. In visits to these temples I've seen men literally rip their shirts off and stand on railings as the priests open the door to reveal the silk-dressed and flower-bound deity. Loud bells are rung, the sound is deafening, which only serves to whip up the frenzy even more. Everyone pushes forward, a young man jumps up on a cement barrier and waves his hands in the air, shouting excitedly at the deity, as if trying to capture the attention of a rock star.

That part won't come for about an hour. For now we're lined up inside the dark recesses of the inner sanctum. We've walked around the deep outside hallways, shafts of light from holes in the ceiling illuminating the cool dark passages where all the supporting columns and pillars are carved with fantastical mythological animals and scenes from Hindu religious stories. We pass by more than one hundred small deities lined up against a wall, the same number, says the man who has adopted us, as the number of pillars in the temple. We walk up a staircase toward a lit area with a caged deity attended by a priest. The deities are caged because pilgrims would fling themselves upon it, believing that physical contact brings greater attention and fulfillment of wishes. The bellies, feet, and foreheads of any sculpture of the elephant-headed god Ganesh, called Ganapati here in the South, shine with the oil of hundreds of thousands of hands rubbing them in wanting and devotion. The feet, forehead and breasts of Laxshimi, the goddess of abundance and prosperity, are similarly polished.

Our guide puts me standing in a faded yellow circle on one spot on the floor, and bade me look up. Through an opening in the ceiling one of the spired golden tops of the inner sanctum is visible. Three more spots give similar views, each one to the roof of the abode of the deities that live in the temple. As soon as I step away someone steps in my place to gaze up the shaft of light to the golden room and folding their hands in prayer. I am overwhelmed by the ritual of Hinduism. Each deity, and there are many in each temple, must be addressed, given offerings, prayed to, circled a few times (clockwise), and sat by in contemplation. Each deity has his or her own offering preferences (certain flowers, leaves, fruits). There are devotional songs for each of them, too, offered outside in the shops that line the temple entrance, on cassette or CD.

Shopping at the temples is its own experience. For children who must be coaxed to wait endlessly for reasons they cannot comprehend there are lime green tennis racquets, fuchsia squeeze-me dolls, gleaming aluminum foil handguns, rattles, drums, and other diversions, all wrapped in cellophane and hanging in bunches from the overhanging tin roofs of the shops. On the shelves sit framed illustrations of the deities in different poses, especially the special deity of the temple, which is pushed into your face upon each approach. There is the image of the deity in pastels, in shocking psychedelic, painted on black velvet, encased inches deep in clear plastic, on keychains and pendants and bracelets, batiked on pillowcases, fashioned in plastic around a lightbulb, even carved in a coconut.

Incense, ash, yellow and red puja powder sits in colorful piles on copper dishes. Bangle bracelets in all sizes and colors are stacked neatly in boxes by the thousands on back walls of wooden shacks. Cheap rings made from tin and copper lie in piles, all much the worse from dust and humidity.

Between these shops are refreshments stands selling sodas with names like Maaza and Limeca, as well as brands like Coke and Sprite. Water and buttermilk is sold in one-pint bags of plastic. Customers pinch off one corner of the bag with their teeth and squeeze the liquid into their mouths. Green coconuts are opened with a deadly hooked machete, their contents drunk and the jelly-fruit scraped out and eaten. Bananas are sold, 1 rupee each. Discards are piled by supporting posts and in sewers that run behind. Women wielding short bundles of straw sweep most of the mess out of the way of the pilgrims bare feet.

Here, a charitable organization similar to the LionÕs Club provides small plastic bags of flavored rice to the hundreds of thousands of devotees who come on pilgrimage, those who cannot even afford the 2 rupees to put their shoes in the chappel keep while theyÕre inside. Their worn rubber thongs lie in piles by storekeepers who charge 50 pieces, or nothing. Some of these pilgrims seem to have set up housekeeping inside the temple, washing their clothes in the tank, breast-feeding their babies, lying prostrate in front of a deity, their oil-lamp fire having gone out hours before, in the dust mingling with puddles of coconut water. We walk by dozens of them dozing like this, stretched out on their bellies, some in contemplation but some certainly dreaming, as others broke open coconuts, lit fires, offered flowers, and chanted their devotion.

My feet become stickier and stickier as the sun dries the juice on the floor stones of the outer temple. Some pilgrims laugh and Marcia and I run across the sun-drenched stones to the shade across. We are the only foreigners here. One woman comes to pull my braid, chattering to us in Telegu. Her words were incomprehensible but her meaning is clear. She yanks at my braid and flings hers over her shoulder, comparing the color and the texture. She points to her gold earrings, and yanks my bare earlobes. "Why donÕt you have earrings?" she is saying. And "where is your nose-ring? Every woman must wear such jewelry." She point at the red dot on her forehead. "Married? No? Why not? You are certainly old enough." She rattles the bangles on her arms. "No bangles, even? You must be rich, why don't you wear your wealth? You can't be ashamed of it!"

Women hear wear their wealth on their faces, their arms, their feet. From their head to their toe-rings you can tell the economic status of the family by the gold and jewels on the women. Some have both sides of the nose pierced, wearing gold disks encrusted with diamonds. Others have only a simple single jewel, which is, to my eye, more attractive.

Inside the temple their jewels glow in the shafts of sunlight and the flames. We came closer to the deity. The priest let everyone file through for a two second viewing, and stops at Marcia and me. He rings the bell, I am sweating in the heat of the pressing bodies and the fire lit in front of the deity. I have a clear view to Shiva, perhaps five feet high, in gold, covered in flowers. The priest feeds the fire, mumbles some prayers, pours liquid at its feet, rings bells, and brings the renewed flame to us in a copper bowl. Marcia and I wave the smoke in our faces and put our right hands out to receive the water the priest offers, bring the warm puddle of it to our lips as if to drink and then lift it higher to let it dribble on our heads. In this ritual a feeling of peace and communion comes over me, a feeling I rarely experience. But India, with all of its rules and complications, has settled me into to an easier companionship with the rest of humanity, and it in is these moments of ritual that it feels the strongest and catches hold, to grow.

THE GOD OF OBSTACLES

The Ganesh shrine was supposed to be somewhere 10 meters below the temple. We walked out and downhill and couldn't find it. People kept pointing us back into the temple. It was 45 minutes later that we came to realize that it wasn't down the hill below the temple, it was actually "below" the temple.

We had navigated the gauntlet of sadus and beggars lining the entrance three times before, and the fourth wasn't any easier. As the only foreigners in town we were a good target for attention. As we hadn't given out any rupees before, they probably thought we were working up to it. I find it difficult to give to beggars, however, especially if they block your path, grab your ankles or arm, or poke you in the ribs. It doesn't exactly get me in the mood for giving. More likely I'll pass a few rupees to someone who is quietly standing alone. It is a difficulty for westerners, I know. I have seen how Indians handle it, giving out a few rupees at random to the beggar who holds his bowl out the farthest.

By this fourth or fifth time we navigated the entrance the soles of our feet were burning on the flat stones sticky with coconut milk. Asking for the tenth time for the Ganapati shrine, we were finally directed to the right place, a small hole in the floor of a natural stone wall where people were lined up for about 50 meters.

As was usual, however, we are shoved to the front. Is it hierarchy, leftover from the British Raj, or pity for our obvious physical inferiority, our heat-reddened cheeks and white feet seared by sun and stone? Whatever it was, we accepted the honor and ducked into the cave. To my surprise it turned out to be a vertical cave, quite literally 10 meters down and only about 5 meters across, with a narrow steep staircase cut from the side of the stone wall. The fragile railing was obviously added as an afterthought. Two steps down I was able to stand upright, and hung onto the wavering railing for dear life. I flattened myself against the wall as I looked down at the floor, so far below. The only illumination was from a few tiny openings at the top of the wall, and the flames of a small fire lit at the feet of the deity from where a radiance soared upward to envelop us.

Glancing backwards, I saw Marcia, her face streaming with tears. She put her hand on my arm for a moment, and we continued downwards. Marcia has had a fascination with Ganesh since the year before when she had been sent a beautiful computer wallpaper image of the deity. As a theater producer and artist it had captured her imagination. Later that year she made it her Burning Man art project, creating a huge stuffed Ganesh to mount on her bicycle. Since she'd come to India it had been her focus. Not a difficult one since Ganesh, or Ganapati, it may be argued, is Hinduism's most popular deity.

Here, however, its power was much more apparent than its sweetness and intellect. This power was apparent long before we reached the bottom. The fire, the darkness, the difficulty in getting down each stair -- each over a foot deep -- while our attention was focused on the goal, created a swirl of energy that hit like an emotion, so that by the time we reached the floor we were practically prostrate before it with relief and devotion.

I have never been a person that could focus on religion, but moments like this bring me closer to an understanding and the power of set and setting as a jump-start to deeper understanding, communion, and compassion. The average American doesn't really have the benefits of this kind of tradition to put herself in that kind of mental space. Westerners have used many methods in attempting to get there, including psychedelics, which for many has been the successful tool for greater understanding of self and compassion for humanity and the earth. For Hindus the process has been this tradition of ritual and pilgrimage. It is not an easy path. If it were, the rewards would not be so great. This is understood by Hindus, Tibetans, and others who practice hard religions in hard places, but most westerners are brought up with the notion that life is and ought to be easy, despite the fact that for over three-quarters of humanity life is anything but.

Belief eases the mind, and for the less educated it may be the ticket to today's survival and even happiness if one believes in the cycle of karma and a better life beyond. For the more aware it may be the answer to other problems. Too many opportunities may create the same kind of internal frustration as too few. I know that as I grow older I realize how important is each decision I make, and how little control I have over the consequences of that decision. That decision to stop for a coconut at that roadside stand in Tamil Nadu, for example, caused me and that dog I hit to be on the same trajectory. At the same time I realize that the same stop may have prevented me from being on the same trajectory as a bus overtaking a truck, and I may have avoided death. How can one know?

So I knelt before this potbellied, elephant-headed god Ganapati, put a 10 rupee note in his lap, touched his forehead, belly, and feet, and prayed that it would be easier to clear further obstacles in my life, physical and otherwise, as Marcia and the other three pilgrims that had come down behind me did the same, until we were told that our time was up.

The sun hit our faces as we emerged from the cave door, and we sat with the others in the clearing facing it to contemplate the experience, as is the tradition. An Indian man who had been in the sanctum with us grilled Marcia with the usual questions, and as she was in a state of near-trance I answered softly for her. She repeated the answers after me, automatically, no knowing what she said, but the man was radiant, claiming that it was auspicious for him to have met a foreigner today in this place where the timing was also so auspicious. "You are like a god to me," he babbled radiantly, in his badly accented English. Marcia didn't hear him but I have had enough of these kinds of conversations, where things come out like this, to know what he meant. He meant that it was the wish of the deities that he had the opportunity to talk a little bit with someone that came from outside of India on this auspicious day, since he would never have the chance to leave his country and make contact with foreigners, and that the experience was godlike. He was glowing, and so was Marcia, and the woman next to me with the small child on her lap was giving us sidelong glances and glowing, too.

OBSTACLES

The 40 kilometer ride from Tirupati to Sri Kalahashti was supposed to be easy as it runs across nearly flat terrain, but 20 kilometers of the highway is under construction. Entire stretches of road is dirt hardened in lumpy waves by the tires of huge trucks and buses who zoom past, air horns blowing and leaving us in a cloud of orange dust that wouldn't come off even after a hot shower and vigorous scrubbing. We left in the cool of the morning but by the time we arrived, an hour and a half later, the sun beat down mercilessly. To get to the temple we had to navigate the town with its narrow streets, more road repair, buses, trucks on a hurry through, pony carts, three-wheeled autorickshaws, jeep-buses crammed with people, and Ambassador cars forcing their elegant white bumpers through all. We were scraped by an autorickshaw, bumped by a bicycle, and shoved over by a jeep before we found our way out of the mess and to the Hotel Bliss where 500 rupees a night gets us a truly clean room with a fan, satellite TV, a bed that's actually got a soft mattress on it, and a shower with hot water and water pressure, both. Usually itÕs one or the other. If I were to open a hotel for tourists in India it would be called Hotel Hot Shower, as itÕs nearly impossible to get a quality hot shower here. We've come up with other names, too. Hotel Water Pressure, Hotel Bland Food, Hotel Clean Cutlery, and Hotel Sit Toilet.

In most hotels the service is enthusiastic, if not impeccable. In this hotel the service is so good that during breakfast there is a knock on the door two or three times to see if we yet want "clearance" of our breakfast dishes. I guess they've given us 10 minutes to eat. When we stop answer the knocks on the door we get phone calls asking if we yet want clearance. Saying that we will call back when we want clearance, and please don't bother us again, we get a knock on the door from the floor manager to inquire about the service which we are obviously not liking. This is after the Do Not Disturb sign has been hung out. We have another idea: Hotel Do Not Disturb.

Food is another ordeal. Omelets come riddled with red onion. All juice has ice and several teaspoons of sugar added. When ordering breakfast: Scrambled eggs with no salt and no onions please. Pineapple juice, no water, no ice, no sugar. Coffee, no sugar, milk separate.

All of these requests are unusual, and it takes a while for the staff to get used to it. Once I ordered "plain pineapple juice" at a very clean and sophisticated looking juice stand in Goa. I watched the man put in chunks of pineapple, then he made a move to put in ice. I shouted "NO ICE!" just in time. But before I could shout "NO SUGAR!" he'd dumped in about 1/4 cup. To appease me he put the blender container under the tap and rinsed out the sugar, draining the water out of the container using his hands. None of the staff understood at all when I left without the juice.

Now, 6 weeks into the trip, I think I finally have it down. But tomorrow something else will confuse me, and everyone else. I must say, IÕm happy that people here are generally good-natured, and I'm trying to be.

RETURN TO DISPATCHES

RETURN TO HOME