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Rajdhani
Mandir by Logan Murphy |
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To help plan my encounter I e-mailed the temple, explaining that I was taking a religion class and wanted to experience their service first hand. They got right back to me, saying I was more than welcome to stop by any time during the day and that they would be having some kind of all day event. To get a feel for the temple and how I would be received, I skimmed over a couple of the other encounter reports and was quite encouraged by what I read. It was about 8 eight o’clock when I got to the temple, which was later than I had planned. The place was packed to the gills with cars parked all along the street in front and a long line leading into the parking lot. I did not think I would be able to find a parking space but one opened up right next to the front doors. From all the other encounter reports I had read I was expected a handful of cars even with this special even that had been mentioned in the e-mail but people were coming and going everywhere. I was more than a little intimidated. Inside the front doors was a small, crowded foyer with a help desk off to my left and a big cauldron with a woman passing out shot sized plastic cups of soup to my right. The man at the help desk pointed us in the direction of the shoe room but was otherwise rather unhelpful, saying he was too busy to answer any questions. As with the parking lot the shoe room was pack with shoes spilling out into the foyer. I hung my coat up in the coat room and headed for the inner worship room. A long line snaked through the room, bunches of people sat and talked on the floor, and on a raised dais up in the front a cluster of people sat around a pair of priests who where singing and giving out wristbands of red yarn. The first thing that hit me was there were no pews. My whole life I have associated pews with church, maybe more than any other object. Literally every church, even churches without buildings have had pews, and I’ve been to some strange churches. I pointed out Ganesh to my friends and told them a little about Hanuman. Later on I noticed Durga, Rahda and Krishna but I could not identify most of the statues. I got into a conversation with a man a little later, and he told me that it was Shiva’s birthday. They celebrated it every year like a human birthday. He invited me to wait in the line to get the whole experience and assured me that I would not offend anyone if I did. As I waited in line I watched the priests giving out the red yarn wristbands and listened to the chanting. The temple had a peaceful, party-like atmosphere and the chanting was more than a little hypnotizing. My friends and I did get a few dirty looks from the older crowd as we waited in line but I tried not to let it faze me. I was nervous as I neared the head of the line. I watched the people in front of me to figure out what was going on. They poured milk from little pitchers over a small sculpture. The man in front of me touched the sculpture and touched the back of his head when he was done pouring his milk. Once again, since I had gotten some dirty looks while in line I asked the woman if I would offend anyone if I poured the milk. She assured me I would not and poured me a small brass cup of milk. As I poured the milk she told me a prayer, I assume was in Hindi and a great sense of awe settled over me. I felt like I was taking part in something very special. I repeated the prayer over and over as I poured the milk, making sure to get the whole statue wet as I had seen the man before me do. When my milk ran out she told me to make a little bow with my hands pressed together. I waited, feeling peaceful and relaxed as my friend mimicked me . I think he felt the same sense of awe as I did, slowly pouring the milk and repeating the prayer. When he finished the milk, he did the little bow and we proceeded to a short hallway behind the small dais where the priests were still chanting and passing out red wristbands. In the hallway behind the dais there were three alcoves in the right hand wall (the one that made up the back of the dais). A small statue of Ganesh about the size of my first was in the first alcove, and a woman was deep in prayer in front of the middle alcove. I did not want to disturb her or the people that had followed us and began praying in front of the other alcoves so we hurried on. Back out in the main room we watched some people pray in front of the individual statues and began getting headaches from the incense . We stood around, talking about what we had just done for another fifteen or twenty minutes . I wish I could have talked to some more people, but I did not want to intrude on their prayer. I felt it would have been like someone coming and asking questions on Christmas Eve and that would have just been rude. I felt unwilling to leave, I had had such an interesting time I wanted to stay, but I had gotten a good headache, and it was getting late. As we were leaving I once again marveled at the party atmosphere. As we made our way to the exit two men came in with big platters of coconut that they carried up to the dais. We hung around for a few minuets trying to see what they were going to do with the coconuts, but they had disappeared behind too many people, and my headache was getting worse. We found our shoes and our coats and made our way back out in the rain. I felt a little sad leaving the temple, it had been a fun, relaxing time away from my normal life. |
| Created by Laura Ellen Shulman |
Last updated: March 2003
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