Monkey See, Monkey Douche

Fun fact: everyone knows monkeys can do it doggystyle, but did you know that monkeys can do it doggystyle while breastfeeding a hanging baby? Gems of knowledge, gems of knowledge. The only good thing about my extended stay in Faizabad was my growing acquaintance with the 50-strong pack of monkeys that lives at the train station, apparently subsisting on discarded fruit and stolen family-size bags of Indian Cheetos. Though watching the antics of this pack was greatly amusing and partially redeemed the otherwise atrocious experiences I have with that train platform, their brethren down the highway were not so endearing...

I will concede that Faizabad has a very nice colossal mausoleum, but it is otherwise the Indian equivalent of Scranton, Pennsylvania, which is to say that you should never ever go there if your interests include fun. My real reason for being in Faizabad in the first place was to visit the nearby Hindu and Jain holy city of Ayodhya. By now I should really know better.

According to Jain legend, Ayodhya is where five of the tirthankaras were born, including the first, Adinath, who lived there in a mighty city of gold. Of course, this occured an incredibly long time ago as Adinath lived for a modest 593 quintillion years, which seems about right based on the amount of decay necessary to reduce Ayodhya from a golden city of gods to its current condition. Ayodhya is, of course, a dusty little city full of Hindu pilgrims and temple spires dotting the skyline. Most of all, it is completely overrun by monkeys to the point that priests may actually insist you bring your shoes inside the temple proper, lest they be stolen by Ayodhyan simian miscreants. When a stuck-up brahmin priest tells you to break the holy rules, you know there is a problem.

I toured the various temples and they were quite impressive, although the Golden Temple (not "the" Golden Temple, this is just what Indians understandably call any temple in their hometown that is full of gold) was closed. I was constantly implored to visit the temple of Rama, where Rama was supposedly born, but I declined as the temple is not ancient and dates only to 1992 when the mosque that previously occupied its location was conveniently misplaced amidst an angry Hindu mob. As a result of this, religious violence swept the country. I did get lured into one mediocre temple where apparently several people were killed in a bomb blast and ensuing gunfight a few years ago.

The building of the new temple was promoted by politicians of the BJP political party. The BJP, you see, is a powerful, militantly Christian nationalist party that wants to "take back" their country, idolizes the security forces, and lies in bed with big business and unrestricted industrial development that befouls the environment and enriches industrialists without really doing anything for the people, who still vote for them anyways because, hey, fuck Muslims. Oh, wait. Excuse me, I was talking about the Republican Party. The BJP is a militantly Hindu nationalist party...

Anyways I wanted nothing to do with this temple, which I hear sucks anyways, so I spent most of my time in the hilltop castle-like temple of Hanuman the monkey god. A word of advice to aspiring religious architects: if you simply must have a single ceremonial entrance and you reside in a country with more than a few hundred million people, said ceremonial entrance ought be more than six feet wide. Climbing the many steps up to the temple door I became engulfed in what could most accurately be called a throng. Thousands of pilgrims shoved their way up the ever-narrowing stairs and tunnel like sand through an hourglass until finally after a long period of mutual exchange of sweat and body odors, I was propelled through the final gate like a bull being released into the rodeo.The temple was like the inner courtyard of a castle, with numerous brightly colored shrines on the periphery and great lengths of Hindi or Sanskrit text adorning every wall. Though I can read a bit of Hindi I did not even try to decipher these writings, because to do so would be like trying to interpret the Old Testament with a first-grade education, and as I am not from Arkansas I am not inclined to attempt this. I hastily bolted for the side of the temple as the crowd swarmed the central shrine where a troupe of laborers presided over the scramble to perform worship. The scene resembled  the frantic trading of the New York Stock Exchange, except with more throwing of flowers at statues and the added urgency of believing that if the trade is not made you will earn the unholy disfavor of an extremely powerful and displeased monkey, like Diddy Kong wielding the Hammer of Thor. It would probably be unwise to fuck with this entity.

I for one did not see fit to engage in this flower donation because I appreciate not having my ribs crushed by hordes of little old ladies and men with sub-par porno mustaches. To hell with the monkey god I thought, I'm not dealing with this mayhem. Perhaps not coincidentally, I spent the next four days trapped in fucking Faizabad.

Next time I'm in a Hanuman temple I'm doing what I'm supposed to. I'm not getting this deity any more pissed at me than he is already. I've read Congo.