It’s the run-up to Christmas. You can’t miss it at the airports. You can’t overhear it either. But I was surprised to hear that Emirates plays Christmas pop songs from the on-board loudspeaker when disembarking in Delhi and that Muslim prayers are no longer said on departure as they used to be. Maybe much earlier, I don’t know when it might have changed. But this time I noticed that it used to be.
In any case, it felt like at least 90% of the people on the plane were Indian – I didn’t consciously notice any other travellers. But that doesn’t mean anything, there were a lot of people on the plane, I didn’t see them all.
Nothing else to report. I am now travelling in an organised way and that is actually quite nice on the one hand and somehow strange on the other. There was a friendly little man at the airport to welcome me. And so I experienced half of what customers usually experience. But this also helps me to take a different perspective. How is it all perceived when you arrive for the first time?
He has been the contact person in the company for 10 years, partly because he speaks a pleasantly understandable English. He could also be a guide, but that requires a licence and he doesn’t have one. He used to do something completely different. But this job suits him quite well, he says he’s happy. And it’s a good fit – he’s a nice first contact.
After all this sitting around, I was feeling restless and had already found out that there was a very popular temple round the corner. So I set off straight away. And on the way I came across two more temples. One was a Buddhist temple:
The other was a tree. There are several of these in India, most of them are just places where pictures and statues stand and people pause for a moment. But some are also looked after, like this one. However, the woman was hanging up laundry or other fabric, I don’t know if it was a religious activity.
The big temple I was aiming for is called ISCKON and is a Hare Krishna temple. I don’t think I’ve ever seen one like it in India. It was quite interesting decorated and it seemed to me that they were busy collecting money at various levels. But they were also generous in handing out religious scriptures and so on. They even tugged at my clothes to ask me to take something with me. But I was resistant.
But you could also just walk around and pray and prostrate yourself, etc. The outdoor area was quite colourful:
I have never really dealt with the Krishna cult. The basis for the community is the Bhagavad Gita, an important part of the great Mahabharata epic. Krishna is seen here as the avatar of the great god Vishnu and has a conversation with the disciple Arjuna. This was written down as a religious-philisophical didactic poem and is the basis for learning and reflection, as it represents different approaches, e.g. whether nature-spirit or man-god are to be seen as a duality or a unity. Or it is also a matter of interpretation. That’s just briefly – I don’t know yet whether I’ll look into it in more detail. The Bahgavad Gita has been translated into many languages and you can buy it.
What I found really bizarre in the temple was that people go to the priests and then maybe get a alu hat held on their head for the blessing or something. One was silver, the other’s was gold.
In any case, Krishna is a very fun-loving god or avatar or whatever. There are cheerful stories about him and there were also various ceiling paintings here where he or someone else was depicted dancing (he actually plays the flute and beguiles others with it).
Again I knew exactly why I like India so much: there is so much to discover! And I will continue this the next day. For now I was exhausted for the day I arrived.