The Sinha family decided to show Nawras and her hubby one of Rajasthan's most iconic tourist towns: Pushkar. Pushkar is the home of the world's only Brahma temple. Hinduism has one god, who comes in many forms, 3 of which are primary forms: Brahma - the creator, Shiva - the destroyer, and Vishnu - the sustainer. Apparently Brahma had to do penance in Pushkar, and needed to make some prayer by a lake at sundown which can only be done alongside his wife. When his wife didn't come on time, the priests found some other local woman and married her to him, and then did the prayer. Then when the wife finally came out, there was hell to pay! She cursed him and told him that he wasn't fit to have a temple to his name. In the end though, she felt bad and told him, alright, you can have one temple here where you did your penance, because the place is so important to you.
Now, most Hindu gods are pretty groovy. One of them is even often depicted smoking hash. It is no great surprise that a place like this one would be a primary stop on the hippie trail. Times may have changed, but the amount of foreign hippies in this place certainly hasn't! This is the kind of town with one lane roads, lined with bulls and cows, Hindu priests all making their rounds, and white Europeans buying bongs.
Unfortunately, we didn't have much time to spend in this town before we went to Ajmer. In the morning, while we all sat down to discuss the plan, Pallavi's dad mentioned that there is a Durga located in Ajmer. This Durga is a holy place for almost every one of India's religions, and is the 2nd most holy place for Indian Muslims to Mecca. It contains the 'grave' of a sufi saint, who apparently sent his disciples away for a few days and stayed in his room, and, when they went to check on him 10 days later, discovered that a bed of flowers had replaced his body. They didn't even know he had died!
This place was absolutely mad! Now, Pallavi's family used to live in Ajmer, where her Dad was the commanding officer of the local military unit. As such, her Dad still has contacts there, so he had arranged a police escort and an Imam to help us break through the throngs of crowds. This was Islam meets India meets other religions. I haven't been so fascinated by India in a few trips. We moved through a heaving throng of people, past huge 400 kgs pots filled with food and money, past the Hindi wedding-style music playing, the men all sitting and sing/praying in the courtyard, the women tying cords to the edge of the grave in hopes their prayers come true, the men carrying offerings of flowers on their head, and pushed our way through the door to stand alongside the 'grave.' The Imam then did a blessing over our heads using a certain kind of cloth that had been placed on top of the grave. Then he tied cords for protection over our heads.
It was Incredible India at its finest!
Now, most Hindu gods are pretty groovy. One of them is even often depicted smoking hash. It is no great surprise that a place like this one would be a primary stop on the hippie trail. Times may have changed, but the amount of foreign hippies in this place certainly hasn't! This is the kind of town with one lane roads, lined with bulls and cows, Hindu priests all making their rounds, and white Europeans buying bongs.
Unfortunately, we didn't have much time to spend in this town before we went to Ajmer. In the morning, while we all sat down to discuss the plan, Pallavi's dad mentioned that there is a Durga located in Ajmer. This Durga is a holy place for almost every one of India's religions, and is the 2nd most holy place for Indian Muslims to Mecca. It contains the 'grave' of a sufi saint, who apparently sent his disciples away for a few days and stayed in his room, and, when they went to check on him 10 days later, discovered that a bed of flowers had replaced his body. They didn't even know he had died!
This place was absolutely mad! Now, Pallavi's family used to live in Ajmer, where her Dad was the commanding officer of the local military unit. As such, her Dad still has contacts there, so he had arranged a police escort and an Imam to help us break through the throngs of crowds. This was Islam meets India meets other religions. I haven't been so fascinated by India in a few trips. We moved through a heaving throng of people, past huge 400 kgs pots filled with food and money, past the Hindi wedding-style music playing, the men all sitting and sing/praying in the courtyard, the women tying cords to the edge of the grave in hopes their prayers come true, the men carrying offerings of flowers on their head, and pushed our way through the door to stand alongside the 'grave.' The Imam then did a blessing over our heads using a certain kind of cloth that had been placed on top of the grave. Then he tied cords for protection over our heads.
It was Incredible India at its finest!
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