This morning we left Jaipur and arrived in Pushkar at noon. I have been fighting off a chest infection and after my pneumonia last year in South America, I wanted the afternoon and tomorrow to paint or sleep, whatever I felt like. Once again our driver insisted on something. He told us that in order to walk safely around this holy Hindu city we must have a blessing by a Hindu priest. We figured that it couldn't hurt. When I asked how long it would take, and how much it would cost, Kahn said two or three hours and although there was no fee, we would be expected to tip. Okay we thought, let's get this over with and tomorrow I can paint. So Kahn called up his company's guide (for yet another kickback to Kahn we presume) and the guide walked us around and we saw the only temple in the world to Brahma, the Hindu god of creation. Turns out Brahma made his first wife angry when she found out about his second marriage and as punishment she made it so that there would only be this one to Brahma. There are 335,000 different Hindu gods. Pushkar has over a thousand temples and a population of about 20,000. (it is also over run with hawkers and hippy tourists)
After the temple visit, we were delivered to a "priest" (a young man in western clothing) on the lake of Pushkar. Then we had a nice five minute ceremony wishing for only positive thoughts and health and happiness for ourselves, our families and for me our friends. I found it a little disconcerting but on the whole it was quite lovely. But then the priest started his pressure for money and it was brutal. He told us that 1500 rupees would support the priests and temples and other vague good causes for one day and it was expected that each of us donate at least three days worth. Then he tried to force us to say how many days each of us would donate for. Lucky for me, Jim took the initiative and refused to committ to such a donation. The " priest" was adamant that we had to tell him in order to finish the ceremony. Eventually, we were taken by the priest to the official with a cash box. Jim and I decided to donate 500 rupees and then the initial guide of course had to be paid his tip. After just promising to let go of negative thoughts, this episode ruined that. Many Indians come to this lake to bath and be purified. While we were arguing with the priest a group of women undressed to bath naked. Jim was amazed that he missed that!
Anyways, we loved all of the south of India although there were none of the big historic sites. So far Ragistan has been a challenge, and mostly because our driver keeps on insisting on things (like stopping at "special" shops) that we really don't want to do. So for tomorrow, I took the initiative. I asked a chap at our hotel desk if there were any real villages with no tourists within an easy drive. Of course he knew of lots. Then I told our driver that I wanted to go to one of these villages tomorrow so that I can paint and that he should come inside and find out how to get to these villages. We will see how this works out. Stayed tuned.
And for those of you, who read my earlier word picture about driving in India, these are a couple of things we saw today.
No comments:
Post a Comment