Holy Cow! an Indian Adventure

by Sarah Macdonald

  Anu bids me goodbye, saying, ‘Just be taking your picking, all is for one and one is for all.’

  Dollie waves me a welcome home, hoping I’ve chosen Shiva.

  There’s also infinite variety in the ways of devotion. As the hospital cleaner, Indian Jim, told me a year ago, doing one’s duty by living a life still largely dictated by caste is the most common. But at the camp dinner some pilgrims advocate meditation, others ritual fasting and a few the regular chanting of ‘Om’(the first word of the universe and the perfect vibration). One elderly woman, Gayatri, recommends I walk one hundred and eight times around a certain tree to find faith; her daughter suggests I feed a cow for a year. They will take some Ganges water home to place a drop under the tongue of any family members who die. This will guarantee heaven. Yet Gayatri insists heaven can also be found within.

  ‘I like your Jesus and such, and there’s no doubt he was a great sadhu, most likely trained in India, but you know, he was wrong about God. God is not a judgemental giant sitting up in heaven, it’s a force within us all – we are light bulbs in the electrical system of the universe.’

  But Hinduism’s inclusiveness and its respect for all religions are at risk from extremists. The next day on my morning walk I meet a young disciple of the VHP – the Vishwa Hindu Parishad. This is the World Hindu Council, a body of fundamentalist-leaning Hindus closely aligned to the BJP – the Bharatiya Janata Party or Indian Peoples’ Party that currently dominates India’s ruling coalition. This young VHP soldier is keen for me to see his organisation’s showroom. Inside a tent patrolled by armed guards is a model of a mandir, or temple, the VHP wants built on the ruins of the mosque at Ayodhya. The group claims the site is the birthplace of Ram and is unapologetic about its role in the mosque’s destruction. The mandir model looks like a cross between the Vatican and a Disneyland castle. Its construction would be uglier – undermining India’s secular constitution and defying Hinduism’s basic belief that any path to God is divine. Until now the mosque’s destruction could be dismissed as a mindless act by a mob of minority extremists. But if a temple is constructed, the extremism would seem sanctioned by the government. Extreme Hinduism seems to be an oxymoron but in this country the nonsensical often triumphs.

  At other times detachment wins over. Neeraj marches Titi and I to the filthy backwaters of the Ganges to interview some sadhus about the state of the holy river. They tell us, ‘The river is not dirty, your mind is dirty.’ Only one admits there’s a problem: ‘Yes, the river is dirty, but you must detach from the senses.’

  I find it hard to ignore the swollen corpses of dead dogs and the occasional bobbing baby (babies are not cremated in India and their disposal in the Ganges guarantees their souls a place in heaven). There’s also masses of floating garbage and a stench of sewage. I agree with the Sikhs: sadhus can perhaps be too detached from their surroundings.

  Yet tonight I cleanse my mind of such thoughts. I sense a spiritual purity in the putrid air. The big bathing day is tomorrow and the crowds are pouring in. The clerks, the farmers, the teachers, the workers and the housewives of northern India are having the times of what may now be the last of their millions of lives. Tonight they will party, for tomorrow will bring salvation. Walking amongst the mob I feel like I’m on acid at the Big Day Out. There are balloons, weight measuring machines, elephant blessings and camel rides. Naked sadhus stand stunned as neon robots tell them their future, a motorcycle daredevil zooms around a tin circle of death and couples hold hands as they eat fairy floss.

  All night the music and singing and chanting builds like a massive rave with dancers fuelled by the ecstasy of devotion. At four o’clock it reaches a crescendo as the main DJ, God, takes the stage. The earth begins to tremble as the millions begin the slow march towards the sangam, the place where the Ganges and Yamuna Rivers meet.

  I join Titi and Neeraj (who’s now carrying a compass and a canteen) onboard a boat bobbing on the black Ganges. We pass small huddles of floating shapes softly singing to the splashing of oars. The soft first light falls upon a tide of pilgrims patiently and quietly walking along the bank towards the holy spot. Some stop to shave their heads, for every hair shed is ten thousand lives that don’t have to be lived. Piles of black hair stain the sand.

  The winter season, global warming and water mismanagement mean the rivers meet with a trickle not a bang. Huge sandbars of black mud stick out of the waters, and after Neeraj salutes a huge floating flotilla of policemen, we are allowed to stand on a big spit facing the main riverbank. We shiver in the grey air and look across to a blur of beings chanting for the godly games to begin. Akhara bodyguards in white G-strings ensure that the sadhus get to touch the divine waters before the inferior – they form a barrier across the sand and those who try to break it are belted hard on the head. The masses murmur as they feel a slow and steady shaking of the sands.

  A trumpet sounds, the crowd cheers and hundreds of naga babas march over the hill like an alien cavalry. The dawn light gives the warriors a ghostly glow and while some seem huge and terrifying as they perform ninja-like moves with sharp tridents and swords, others are as emaciated as supermodels doing heroin-chic. Their guru sits on a golden chariot under a brass umbrella surrounded by flag bearers. The Press Officer has warned us the sadhus are angry, that there’s been aggression, breaking of cameras and anti-foreign fury. We’re eighty metres from the bank and in the middle of the river, but out of respect and fear I put my camera down; Titi keeps focused with the big Betacam TV camera but looks nervous. As Neeraj checks his watch and calls ‘oh-five hundred’ the babas prance down to the river, throw their garlands of flowers in the water and then squat like racers at the starting line.

  A whistle blows and about five hundred sadhus charge into their Ganges goddess splashing, screaming and waving their swords. But they don’t stop to wash away their sin, they keep running straight for us. It’s as if they are walking on water. The river is only ankle deep and we have nowhere to run and nowhere to hide. A wave washes over us and the sandbank is flooded. They’re still coming. I adopt the Hindu fatalism – at least if I die I’m going straight to heaven.

  They’re here.

  Throwing the swords down, the naked blue-black sadhus jump and dance around us and the camera. They are waving, shaking my hand, shivering and doing all too revealing cartwheels. Their faces split into huge grins and their dreadlocks glisten with drops of water. Neeraj stands at attention, Titi films on and I laugh nervously like an adventurer being welcomed to another world. It’s a meeting of the primal and the prim, the faithful and the foreign, the devotee and the doubter. I breathe in the rapture and joy on their faces, and for a moment I feel their ecstasy. Together we wade in the waters that form heaven on earth.

  After the sadhus, the bald initiates dip and then the pilgrims begin to bathe. The women maintain modesty by being diligently dexterous with their saris, while the men put on an exhibition of Y-fronts – high-waisted and saggy, daggy and occasionally leopard skinned. One family gently leads their blind father, making sure he doesn’t slip in the mud. Another celebrates a boy’s coming of age, hoisting him up on their shoulders and yelling ‘hip hip hurray’ in the most English of voices. Everyone coats themselves with river mud, rubs themselves free of bad karma and dunks three times. They pour water through their hands, pray, burn incense, sing prayers and then snot into the holy nectar. It’s a scene of incredible gentleness, patience, purity of spirit and faith.

  But I’m in pants, I’m freezing cold and I’m too scared of hepatitis to share the Hindu faith in the Ganges. Neeraj refuses to even let me consider a bath and pulls me towards the boat and breakfast. Before I board, something stops me. Before I even know what I’m doing, I’m kneeling down and splashing a little water on my forehead. It’s an impulse that feels right and it pays off. I sense strength and grace; I swoon with a dose of the divine and a feeling that I’m part of a universal force.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Suffering My Way to Happine
ss

  I return from the Kumbh on a high, and rave to an earthquake-shaken Jonathan about the crazy party that’s made me feel that this country and its many religions have something wonderful to offer me. He needs to hear it; he’s been sleeping under a tree for two weeks watching homeless, shattered people search for their dead beneath miles of rubble. Jonathan wants to know that India is not just a land of disaster, that at its best it can show a mass display of patience and joy.

  Unfortunately, I then ruin all my good vibes by descending into another downside of the country: its tourist trail. My mum, her friend Val and I travel through Rajasthan. While we stay in divine palaces converted to swanky hotels and our tours are beautiful, fascinating and fun, I become outraged anew at the rip-offs and scams and constant hassle. I vow to stop doing this kind of travel in India; it’s too well worn a path with nothing new for me to find. I don’t tell my mother I’m heading off on a different track that may get transcendental; I don’t want her to worry about my sanity. She’s worried enough that I have lost the ability to look after myself; Rachel is on maternity leave after having a beautiful tiny baby-doll girl and I’ve forgotten how to cook. Mum and Val leave hungry just before Holi: a Hindu festival they would not have enjoyed. Holi is a festival of lust rather than devotion; it hails the end of winter by indulging in spring fever.

  Jonathan and I awake to the smell of smouldering bonfires, the sounds of screams and the telephone. Simi and Vivek are calling to invite us around.

  ‘Wear something old and disgusting,’ Simi warns ominously.

  I’ve never had an Indian tell me not to look nice and I begin to worry. I’m not the only one; Abraham declines an offer of extra pay to drive us to the party, it takes an hour to find a taxi driver who will work and he insists on double the usual fare.

  ‘Adj Dilli bahoot paagal paan he,’ the driver mutters darkly – today Delhi is very crazy.

  We nervously drive through streets strangely quiet and devoid of the usual chaos of cars, cows and commuters. The only beings around are strange chameleon alien invaders with green hair, purple faces, pink clothes and red bodies. They stagger and lurch, shooting each other with water pistols. Holi is the day when the authorities turn a blind bloodshot eye to bung (marijuana), and the boys with toys are off their heads.

  Our car pulls up at Simi’s flat and is suddenly surrounded by her screaming neighbours. They open the doors and pull us from our seats; a young girl rubs orange powder into my hair, a brash boy paints my cheeks pink with his hands and his mate circles my breasts with red. Screaming blue murder, I run for safety, dodging streams of coloured water fired from balconies. I’m not safe yet. Simi opens the door yelling, ‘HAPPY HOLI’, and pours yellow powder down my top, while Vivek rubs purple into my forehead. Jonathan staggers in like a creature from the blue lagoon with his mouth laughing shocking white teeth. We gulp a sweet marijuana milkshake for courage and join in.

  Touching, chasing and flirting is normally considered outrageous behaviour in India but today sensuality is sanctioned. Even Simi’s mother gets into the action, scooping bright green powder down Jonathan’s pants and giving him a kiss. The bung is deadly. Within half an hour I collapse against the wall laughing hysterically, despite feeling that my head has split open and bugs are crawling out all over my body. It’s an even more toxic high than that given by the Kumbh gear and it gives a blistering bung-hangover.

  As I recover at home the next day, I miss attending mass ceremonies taking place on the Yamuna River. On the TV news we watch as thousands of Hindus quit their faith and convert to Buddhism. It’s hard to see what this involves, as the camera gets knocked down in the jostle, but it appears they shave their heads and bow to Buddha. The ceremony is more political than religious; the converts are Dalits (low-caste untouchables) who are making a statement about Hinduism’s caste system that puts them at the bottom of society and way down the path of spiritual evolution. While the Buddha was a high-caste Hindu, he rejected the caste system and the Brahmin ownership of knowledge to embrace do-it-yourself enlightenment by meditation. While the Mogul invasions wiped out Buddhism in its country of origin, the faith is now making a comeback, largely due to the rise of activism among low-caste Indians and perhaps thanks to its modern day prince, guru and spiritual leader: a refugee living here called the Dalai Lama.

  At the Kumbh Mela I heard that the Dalai Lama is about to give his annual Indian teachings. It’s an opportunity just too good to miss. After only a week’s recovery time, Jonathan is heading off again – this time back to Afghanistan – and I need an adventure to keep my mind from worrying about his safety.

  Upper Dharamsala, or McLeod Gunj, is the spiritual centre of exiled Tibetan Buddhism. I’d passed through the town on my way home from Vipassana and I’d found it peaceful and pretty, but as I head back to the tiny settlement perched on a ridge of the Himalayan foothills, I’m shocked to see it bursting at the seams. It takes hours to travel up the packed potholed path on a precipice. Finally my bus splutters over the hill, farts a toxic cloud of black diesel smoke into the air and unloads monks, nuns and tourists. The town no longer looks as it did when I came down from Dharamkot with stars in my eyes and love in my heart. It’s developing dramatically to match the exploding western interest in Buddhism and, at the moment, it’s not big enough to cope with the largest influx of spiritual tourists in history.

  Waterfalls of plastic bags and bottles cascade down the slopes. Red-arsed mangy monkeys and rabies-ridden dogs graze on huge piles of garbage. Steel pipes snake the paths, and faded prayer flags wrap around barbed wire fences. The thin mountain air is clogged with dust and the stench of sewage; facemasks sell alongside silk scarves. Goan trance music, screams of chainsaws and the throb of jackhammers drown out the gongs and chants from the monasteries. The sunken faces of squatting lepers plead up at me and the Dalai Lama’s face peers down from massive advertising billboards. I have to walk a long way out of town to find a room.

  ‘Ladies Venture’ looks like a sweet and cheap guest house. Inside, a woman wearing a beautiful Tibetan tunic dress with a striped apron shakes her long plaits in a nod at my inquiry and laughs at my relief.

  ‘Hello, lovely lady, there is not much water, and no power at night, you have a great time.’

  In my bare room that looks up to the snow-capped Himalayas I have my first existential crisis. There’s a centipede in my sink. Buddhists should not kill and in their town I should honour that belief. It takes me half an hour to get the creature onto some paper and out the door; it takes seconds for a monk to walk past and unwittingly stomp on it.

  I head out for dinner. The Tibetan shops and restaurants are crowded, and the muesli cafes, chocolate bars, Italian restaurants, internet centres and video theatres are full. Walls are covered in layers of posters advertising courses. There’s reiki, aura reading, Thai massage, yoga, Tibetan cooking, clairvoyance, plant healing, tarot card reading and Jewish mysticism. At the moment, the Dalai Lama’s annual lecture course is king. I sit in a cafe and eavesdrop on raves about His Holiness – one of the few heroes on the planet. A Swedish girl says ‘HH’ speaks the most wonderful wisdom, but a dopey-looking hippie with an incredible cockney accent admits he’s having trouble.

  ‘I’m dropping out, man, the three days of emptiness are killing me, just how empty can you pleading be? I’m going to watch Terminator in the movie cafe.’

  At dawn I’m up as the rain comes pouring down on the wettest town in India. Slipping and sliding along the brown mud path snaking atop the precipice, I join a steady stream of sombre devotees. Beneath the black umbrellas and amid the maroon robes flash a pair of purple flares, some bright tight t-shirts and bindi-brightened belly buttons. The crowd pools at a defective metal detector below ‘Little Tibet’, the Tsuglagkhang Temple beside the Dalai Lama’s Palace. Rocks painted with bright yellow mantras purify the earth and huge red-painted barrels spin prayers into the sky. Inside a temple room, young monks are chanting to clashing cymbals and rolling dru
ms. It’s a strange sound, resembling a symphony played backwards on half speed; the voices are so low, slow and resonant that they vibrate my inner organs.

  We enter a huge whitewashed auditorium that’s fast filling up. I squeeze onto a corner of a sodden cushion next to one of the Dalai Lama’s bodyguards. He offers me butter tea; it’s salty, greasy and awful and he laughs at my grimace. I share small talk with those around me – an Irish teacher, a French Buddhist nun, a Swiss grandmother and an American monk with a green tattoo of a dragon snaking around his arm. The Tibetan refugees slouch patiently while westerners sit ramrod straight, holding tight to their crossed legs like kids on the first day of school.

  After an hour of waiting, the crowd twitters. It stands and bends on one huge hinge. But there’s not much room for full prostration to the ground; the monastery resembles a giant game of twister. Breaking the bobbing sea of bent backs, a couple of young guys jump up and wave at ‘HH’, giving each other high fives when he looks at them. The Dalai Lama giggles as he shuffles past; looking older in real life than on the telly, he is slightly bent but still sprightly. The serene smile is the same. When HH sits inside the temple and out of sight for most of the huge crowd, there’s a groan of disappointment. I tune my transistor for the translation, shake my head free of piercing feedback and settle down for some enlightenment.

  There’s no doubt the Dalai Lama is a good teacher. Respectful of all religions, he somehow manages to explain the vast complex teachings of his faith relatively simply. He starts with basic human truths and slowly builds up to complicated notions of time and space. Some Taiwanese are crying with the pleasure of his presence, Tibetan monks listen reverently, refugees occasionally nod off, and most westerners seem to be in awe. An emaciated girl behind me is in the lotus position, eyes closed and swaying while attempting a beatific smile; she looks sick and sweaty with fever. The Dalai Lama talks about good living.