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The following day, I had a free morning to do a bit more exploring by myself in Chennai, again helped by Ola Cabs to reduce some of the difficulties of getting around in a new and foreign new city. First stop was the Kapaleeshwarar Temple - according to my travel guide, Chennai’s most active and impressive Hindu temple – and located just a few minutes ride away in Mylapore, quite near to one of the Slum Soccer locations I’d visited the previous day with Pankaj. The temple is dedicated to Tamil Nadu’s most popular deity, Shiva. Legend has it that in an angry fit Shiva turned his consort Parvati into a peacock, and commanded her to worship him to regain her normal form. Parvati supposedly did so at a spot just outside the north east corner of the temple’s central block, where a shrine commemorates the event: Mylapore takes its name from this event – the “town of peacocks”. After being dropped off in a bustling side street, I could easily see the temple’s rainbow coloured gopuram – the gateway tower – about 100m away so I made my way past various street merchants to the entrance. I’d thought that I would need to remove my shoes before entering so I’d made sure I was wearing easily removable flip flops. However, rather than leaving them amongst the hundreds of other discarded pairs at the way in and risk losing them, I thought that I would carry them with me inside. That soon turned out to not be an acceptable idea as one of the temple wardens gesticulated and told me that “slippers” needed to be left outside, so I had to go back to the entrance and take a chance that I’d be able to find them again later on! This was my first visit to a Hindu temple, so once I’d got back inside, I made another error by trying to circulate the temple in an anticlockwise direction, against the accepted flow! Again, thankfully, I was put right by the temple warden and so spent a few minutes wandering round in the right direction, trying to fathom out what people were doing and what I was looking at! I was very obviously looking like a stranger and tourist at this point, so much so that a girl approached me and asked whether I would like her to show me around the temple and explain more about what I was looking at. So, after being taken back to the entrance again, this time to sign in as a foreign visitor (!), I was given a more informed tour. Although her explanations were clear, I’m afraid I was soon feeling rather bamboozled by talk of the various “gods” and their family members whose “houses” I was being shown and the different forms they take, seemingly according to their circumstances and mood. From what I could gather, faithful Hindus go to visit each deity’s house in turn to offer puja or worship (usually by making a financial donation) and seek the positive energy and blessing of each deity. As a non Hindu, I wasn’t allowed to enter the houses but could peer in from a distance to see what each “god” was up to (not a lot as far as I could tell!) My guide kept telling me in a slightly apologetic fashion that the stories which she was telling me were those that everyone is brought up with: I think she was trying to say that for many visiting the temple is a cultural phenomenon as much as a religious one, although there were clearly some very devoted worshippers at the temple too. After we had passed the different houses of the deities (and also those of what I understood to effectively be temple "hangers on"), we came to a large gold flagpole, before which many of the faithful were prostrating themselves. This, I was told, is considered to be the source of the positive energy being sought. My credulity was stretched somewhat further when it was explained to me that the large tank of water attached to the temple complex was, as far as I could understand, somewhere the "gods" are taken (aided by the temple wardens) during the festival season for an elaborate boat ride. There are also ceremonies each day for waking them up in the morning, bathing them in milk (?) and putting them to sleep at night…. Of course I need to reflect a little more on my experiences and do some more reading, but my experience at the temple certainly left me agreeing with a friend who had told me that Hinduism is very much a religion of works whose multiplicity of “gods” and their forms, which are effectively made in the image of man, allow every kind of behaviour to be justified - there is a "god" for you who will justify and affirm the course of action you wish to pursue! After taking my leave of the “gods” and gratefully recovering my flip flops from amongst the masses at the entrance, I made my way to the seafront to visit the Chennai Lighthouse. The lighthouse is at the southern end of Marina Beach, one of the longest natural urban beaches in the world (its average width is 300m and its about 4 miles in length). I was at Marina Beach a week before it hosted the state funeral of the charismatic five times Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu state, Jayalalithaa Jayaram, who died on 5 December 2016. Many thousands of people attended, including the President and Prime Minister of India. Whilst I was in Chennai I saw the image of the Chief Minister on the streets quite a bit and I learned afterwards that she was revered by many, being known as “Amma” or “Mother” and having almost a god like status amongst the people of Tamil Nadu. She was a Tamil film star before turning to politics, and as far as I can tell, she was especially popular amongst the poor for giving them state handouts to ameliorate their poverty. She certainly also did well to succeed as a woman in a male dominated culture. Sadly, she did face recurring allegations of corruption over the years and fought various court cases to clear her name – apparently over 10,000 expensive sarees and 750 pairs of shoes were once found when her home was raided by the police! More about Jayalalithaa's death can be found at www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-38218232.
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AuthorJonathan. Chartered Accountant from Newcastle upon Tyne, UK. Spending a couple of months as an AfID volunteer working with Slum Soccer in Nagpur, India. Saved by grace through faith to do good works. ArchivesCategories |