Bikaner - A Tale of Two Temples

On our way back to Delhi we stopped at the town of Bikaner, famous for it's 'rat temple'. This bizarre Hindu temple is filled with thousands of rats who are fed by worshipers and temple attendants. There are various stories about why the rats are fed and all are excellent. My favorite is that the rats are the souls of storytellers, kept alive by the worshipers of Karni Mater to deny them to another god. Inter-deity spite again!

Mary wasn't keen on the idea of entering the temple, particularly as you must first remove your shoes. She decided to replace her flip-flops with a pair of my thick hiking socks. I suggested this might attract the rats by making her feet resemble two large cuddly rodents, with beige Smartwool coats. She couldn't be dissuaded however and so we padded around the filthy temple in our socks, rats scampering hither and thither.

We were fortunate to see a white rat, which is considered very lucky. Mary was doubly blessed when a rat scampered across her foot - most auspicious - although neither Mary nor the rat thought so at the time.

We stopped at another astonishing temple which we spotted as we left Bikaner. This was more Disney than Hammer Horror. Enormous colourful statues of various Hindu gods guarded a replica of a famous temple elsewhere in India. The replica included a concrete copy of the hillside the original stands on. It's a bit like Epcot Park for Hindus.

Hinduism seems amazingly flexible in the way people can worship. Perhaps because it's such an integral part of everyday life, there is no preciousness about how people practice their faith. This kind of imagination, flexibility and participation seems to be something western Christianity craves, but is culturally unable to achieve. Not the rat part specifically, of course.

Mary and our excellent driver Mr Singh. Oh, and a whole bunch of rats.

It's good to be a rat at the rat temple. A statue of the goddess Karni Mater is in the alcove behind.

Is Ganesh related to Mickey Mouse? Is Walt really Mickey's father, or might it be Shiva?

Mary, Ganesh and big 'ol tiger.

Jodhpur, The Blue City

After the slight disappointment of the Pink City that was orange, we were pleased to find that Jodhpur, or at least the old town, was in indeed blue. A great town, our favorite in Rajasthan, Johdpur is overlooked and dominated by the massive fort Mehrangarh. The fort is a monster, built to follow the line of cliffs around a huge rocky hill that overlooks the city. The walls follow the cliff contours so perfectly that it seems to grow upwards from the rock itself, of which it is built. This was the way that the Rajputs built their formidable forts and to good effect - Mehrangarh was never successfully stormed.

The Blue City beneath Mehrangarh's walls.

The royal palaces of Mehrangarh were the residence of the Maharaja of Marwar (Land of Death) as the area was known in Mughal times.

The hand prints on the wall were made by women of the royal household passing through the fort gates for the last time after a battle. They were on their way to perform Sati, by sitting silent and motionless on their husband's funeral pyre.

Pushkar, Rajasthan

Pushkar is a refreshingly small, sleepy little town in the middle of the Rajasthan desert, built around a pretty lake and surrounded by mountains. It was good to get away from the hassle and traffic of the big cities so we decided to stay for a couple of days.

The coming hot season meant there were few tourists. The only westerners were the garrison of neo-hippies who had found their way to Pushkar and never left. In a perfect encapsulation of the NH scene, we saw one dread locked individual cycle past us (it looked like a girl, but it's hard to tell from the back with NHs) with a teeshirt so torn that it was more holes than fabric. And she/he was cycling, you guessed it, a unicycle! Perfect.

Inevitably this means that Pushkar is replete with Reiki massage and Ayurvedic medicine shops. After three weeks in India, I'm left wondering how such rarefied disciplines as these can have evolved in the absence of much more basic concerns. Like fiber in the Indian diet for instance. How can you discover how to massage someones aura before you figure out that there is a healthy alternative to white rice and white bread? In *my* hierarchy of physical needs, dietary fiber comes way before my aura.

As you might have guessed, fiber is a big concern for us at the moment. We hope for an improvement very soon.

Hindu guru or accomplished neo-hippy? In this case a Hindu guru at the Brahma temple in Pushkar.

Offerings to Brahma, and a statue of the god in the alcove behind. Brahma temples are rare in India, despite him being the root of all other Hindu gods (at least in my basic understanding). This has something to do with his first wife restricting his worshipers to Pushkar Lake after he married a second time here. Hinduism seems full of tales of gods spiting each other. I guess it's inevitable when there's more than one boss. Monotheism seems very dull by comparison.

Pushkar's population is swelled considerably by our close cousins, who seem to inhabit all the best lakeside accommodation.

Jaipur, the Pink City

Jaipur is the capital of Rahasthan, the famous desert state which is home to Maharajas, princesses and Rajputs. The Rajputs were a feared warrior caste who would fight to the death rather than surrender. If they knew the battle meant certain death in advance, they would take the considerate step of burning their women before the battle, so that they didn't have to perform 'Sati' - self immolation by jumping on their husbands funeral pyre.

Jaipur is know as the Pink City, since the buildings of the old town are all painted pink. This was a tradition begun to welcome the Prince of Wales (or rather *a* Prince of Wales) in the 19th century and continued ever since. Mary are I thought the old city was decidedly orange rather than pink. Perhaps they ran out of the requisite colour of emulsion, or perhaps the Rajputs decided that pink wasn't in keeping with their death-before-dishonour image? After all, there's very little pink in heraldry. Whoever heard of the Pink Knight or the Dread Pirate Pinkbeard?

A model poses for a photo shoot at the magnificant Amber Fort.

Bloke on an elephant (I think the technical term is mahoot - for the bloke I mean).

Don't get out your old school recorder, linen basket, King Cobra and try this at home.