The land of extremes

Before arriving in India I kept reading and hearing that India is a land of opposites: extreme poverty next to extravagant wealth; religious zealotry and jingoism side-by-side with tolerance and welcoming warmth. Here I add our own experience of a few extremes we found on Sunday while visiting Chamundeswari Temple (on the Chamundi hill overlooking Mysore).

We took a city bus to the top of the hill where the temple has a commanding view of the surrounding areas. As we have come to expect, upon arrival we were immediately accosted by no less than three beggars with serious deformities and fifteen people trying to sell us postcards and pens and other crap.

To deal with the onslaught, we have regrettably taken up the technique of not acknowledging the irritating people. I have never been one to give small change to street beggars, preferring instead to donate my time and money to organizations like p:ear who foster long-term support, healing, and growth. But I keep a little bit of pride knowing that I will always look into the beggars eyes and give the gift of human contact. I know it sounds cheesy, but to me it has been an important part of not making direct cash gifts. Anyway, that's all out the window. We just ignore them and they go away less slowly than when we say "no." The hassle is extreme.

I decided to go into the temple and make an offering to the divine. Which brings up another extreme aspect of India: the pushing-shoving-frantic-queueing style. You see it everywhere there is a line of people, at a food cart, on the bus, at a temple, on the street even. Everybody wants to get into this temple, and they want it right now. They are pushing my back and trying to slip around me. Seriously, people, this is a place of worship, not a line to get Madonna's autograph. And yet people are rushing and pushing as though the gods will not be there if they were to slip their place in line. (Actually, the worst queueing is found when you purchase rail tickets from the platform booth. Sharpen your elbows, folks, it's fight club in here.)

Here's a picture of me after emerging from the temple. Notice the dark dab of tikka on my forehead. Just above it is some cream-colored goo which I believe to be some sacred mixture of coconut milk and tikka. Each was applied by a different priest in the temple complex. I think it is normal, but I'm not sure. I was also given a banana, which I promptly ate.



Monica did not feel so comfortable going into the temple. Perhaps this was partly due to the pushing line and partly due to a bad taste in her mouth left by the prohibition of westerners from a particular temple in Gokarna we tried to visit last week. She decided to wait outside for me while I went in. This left her vulnerable to the non-stop attention of packs of men, a form of attention which she does not welcome. Another extreme of India: the constant staring of strangers. Especially: the totally dumbfounded stares of idle men, young and old, lining the streets everywhere. Seriously. The distraction of our presence has caused at least one traffic accident this week, as well as several near misses.

We decided to descend the hill. If you take the stairs instead of the bus, you pass by Nandi, Shiva's monolithic black bull mount. This is about 1/3 of the way down the hill. As we were leaving the temple site and heading town hill we passed by a sight of such extreme foul carnage we almost ralphed on the spot. The image below is of a dog eating the body of another dog. The carcass was evidently quite old and rotten for the smell was tremendous and the flies were loving it. Another extreme of India.


After this we continued, quite freaked out. We started to wonder if the stair-path down to town was not safe for us. It was nearly sunset and there were 1000 steps to descend. Are there muggings here? Are we not obvious targets? The further we went, the more freaked we became. But the only other option was to go back to the top and take a bus, which seemed silly after the progress we had made.

And then we were hit with another one of India's extremes. Crowded on the side of the stairs was a large family: a husband and wife, perhaps an aunt or two, and about eight little children. Mostly girls, actually. Happy and peaceful, they were there to enjoy the view and to have a nice little picnic. They smiled as we came down towards them, some clapped with glee, and they wanted us to sit down and share the meal with them.

What? Here we were, running from canine cannibalism, dung-covered cows, screaming monkeys, packs of overinterested men, beggars limping on stubs, irritating non-stop sales pitches, and---worst of all---our imagination of thugs and thieves. And here, in the midst of all that mayhem, was a happy Indian family who wanted nothing more than to sit us down and feed us and ask us questions and probably take us their home afterwards. It was too much to take; I nearly started crying on the spot.

We declined their plea, saying that the sun was setting and we wanted to beat the darkness. But the truth was that we simply could not change gears that quickly. We needed a break. We needed to get back to a restaurant or better yet our hotel room. I wanted my head to stop spinning.