Shiva's Engagement

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I had stumbled upon n a celebration of Shiva’s engagement on my first night and ended up having one of the temple workers personally escort me throughout the ceremony. His presence enabled me the opportunity to view the festivities up front. I was given permission to stand in the center of it all. This may be due to the fact they thought I was a professional photographer. I had been walking around the temple with my large camera in hand taking photos, unaware that an hour later would be a celebration and so I was invited to join the festivities.

Hindu celebrations are elaborate. There was a procession around the temple complex where they paraded a statue of their God, Shiva. The procession was led by Lakshmi the resident elephant. They then placed the statue onto a floating temple which they created with logs of wood and banana leaves and paraded the statue on a man made lake. As they circled around the lake, young boys, jumped into the water and swam around the floating temple. It was a beautiful scene and I choked up with emotion upon seeing it. The procession then continued when they pulled the statue out of the floating temple and paraded it around the outer perimeter of the temple complex. During this time, the locals brought in puja, which was blessed and given back to them. Lakshmi, blessed me with her humungous trunk. As we paraded around he temple complex, my escort placed a rupee in my hand and motioned me to stick out my hand. I did as I was told and the elephant took the coin from my hand with her trunk, gave it to her mahout then lifted up her trunk and blessed me. She did this by lifting her trunk and placing it heavily on my forehead. It was a magnificent feeling.

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During the second night of the engagement which was celebrated 2 days later, Marc, my new friend from the Netherlands, and I were serenely hypnotized by the illumination of thousands of candles burning in the temple complex. Families lit the candles as offerings and prayers to their God. We then proceeded to the procession, from the Vitalla temple, down an ancient road built of stone to the Shiva temple.

As we sat, listening to the speaker, who by the way was speaking in Hindi, I was given a leaf with 3 brown little nuggets. I wasn’t familiar with the customs and thought it was part of the festivities. The woman had motioned for me to put it in my mouth, leaf included. The three nuggets felt like bark in my mouth but I bit into them anyways. The second I bit into it, a bitter taste engulfed my tongue as it started to become numb. I didn’t want to spit it out in fear of offending the giver and breaking some unknown custom. The giver was motioning for me to continue chewing and so I did and I thought she had motioned me to swallow, but the awful taste and hard feel in my mouth protested. She was really motioning for me to continue chewing then spit it out and so, finally, I did. “You’re mouth is red!”, said Marc after he had taken my photo. “My mouth also has a bitter taste and is numb!” I replied then started to laugh. “I think you had chewing tobacco, Jani and I were wondering how it tastes the other day. How does it taste,” he inquired. “Awful and my mouth is still numb,” I replied. I learned later, it was not part of a ritual for the festivities and I was given betel nuts which are treated like chewing tobacco.

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This was also the night I was sexually harassed by a younger man. He had stuck out his hand for a handshake and so I shook it, he continued holding onto my hand as he shook, Marc’s hand with his other hand. I pried the guy’s hand from mine and he slightly brushed my breasts, and I let it go, giving him the benefit of the doubt. He then proceeded to touch my butt, I was shocked for Marc was right there in front of him. “Is he…?”, Marc inquired. “Yes!” I said angrily as I grabbed the man’s hand, twisted it and sneered “You should keep your hands to yourself!” Marc took hold of my shoulder, “let’s go”, and led me down the hill. I was livid, I was fuming because the man had the audacity to touch me in full view of my friend Marc. But once my anger subsided, and I thought about what I had just done, I felt liberated, that I finally did something. We left the festivities and decided to hang out under the stars in an open air restaurant and we spent the next couple of hours talking until 4 am. At that point we heard music in the distance and decided to go back to the temple complex in hopes of catching the rest of the festivities.

The temple was still alive with some activity in the early morning. There were hundreds of sleeping bodies scattered on the floor of the temple complex and many others sitting around chatting as they sipped their chai. In each corner of the complex, there were musicians that played their music. There was one group in particular, which captivated both Marc and my attention. The were situated near the entrance and clanged janja - small cymbal-like instrument, in perfect rythmn. There must have been about a dozen of them clanging their janjas, feeling the music as they played. It was as though they were possessed and one young boy in particular captivated us, he must have been no older than 8 years old, yet he was keeping perfect time with his older comrades. There was point in the music where everyone clanged faster and harder than before and the young boy closed his eyes, clanged his instrument with so much heart and precision, he looked possessed. Marc and I continued to watch them in awe for the next few minutes. The sun would be rising in an hour and we were both completely exhausted. As the gentleman that he is, Marc accompanied me through the labyrinthe of houses as he walked me back home, he leaned and gave me 3 kisses, the way, I had come to learn, the dutch do, one on each cheek then an extra on the right, he looked at me smiled then walked away.