Templed Out

Templed Out

There comes a moment when I've had one too many temples. That is now, with the final one being a temple to commerce--the Mysore Mall, adjacent to our hotel. 

The biggest and most important temple we have seen is the Chamundi Temple here in Mysore (recently voted the cleanest city in India). We went there late afternoon and into sunset and found burgeoning crowds, along with many sellers of anything imaginable, edible and souvenir. Also cows. We checked our shoes and got into a queue that quickly became a moving mass deep in the temple.

Yes, it occurred to me how one could easily die in an innocent crowd crush, especially if panic set in. I had to focus on putting one socked foot in front of another to stop thinking about stampedes. I felt intrigued both by the spectacle and the very prayerful behavior of most people. The customary offerings of flower and coconuts, supplemented by cash offerings in front of the goddess were abundant. 

Attendants tried mostly successfully to move the crowd along by yelling something to that effect every minute or so.  But some lingered, held their hands over a flame, sprinkled themselves with water, or even got to

present their offerings and prayers directly to a priest. 

Eventually once we were past the goddess the crowd seemed to have more space and it was less worrisome. We made our way back to the shoes. The socks are history. 

Our group guide has quite a challenge to keep us herded together in situations like this. Peter tends to wander or get waylaid because he engages people in conversation (not limited to India). Also we get waylaid by Indians just as curious about us and who want their photos taken with us.

Today I had an experience that my then eight-year old daughter had many times in India. A woman came up to me, pinched my left cheek and said, "Sweetie!" I hope I was as graceful as Stro always was. We then met the whole family and they took pictures with us. The Mysore family consisted of a young male engineer, his wife, mother-in-law, the wife's aunt (the pincher), and his own mother. Like most families present they were dressed in their finest for the occasion.

The mall temple stands 4 stories high and contains a movie, bowling, game room, food court, as well as a grocery store and the usual mix of shoe, clothing, cellphone stores we see in our own malls. Holiday decorations and multi-story banners abound and loud music (a little goes a long way) plays incessantly. 

As soon as Peter secured the costume he was bent on getting and I found more baby powder for my rash, we escaped to 90 minutes of blessed cool and quiet in the hotel. I think we are done with temples now and moving on to palaces. 

After this respite we will visit a food market and see the famous Mysore Palace, which is only lit up on Sunday. We feel lucky. 

Tomorrow is an early departure for Bangalore, the only place we will spend one night and, of course, the one place I wish we could stay longer.