One Wish

People have this idea that India is a good place to come to contemplate the transience of all things and transcend one's own thoughts concerning life and death. I, on the other hand, find that it provokes one into contemplating mortality. India is a place where you can suddenly die at any moment for any reason. Here's a list of interesting deaths compiled from today's issue of the Deccan Chronicle alone, not counting the various other stampedes, buses-falling-off-of-bridges, ferry-sinkings, and miscellaneous crimes of passion that have taken place earlier this week.

1) Two killed after being thrown off a moving train by an irritated ticket collector (who has yet to be arrested).
2) Two killed, one injured in axe-murder rampage.
3) One killed, twenty injured after "some miscreants hurled rocks at a bees' nest" in a busy market.
4) Five killed, one injured, all children, secretly poisoned in black magic fertility ritual.
5) One killed after being doused in kerosene and set on fire by a member of the Uttar Pradesh state legislature.
6) One hypothetically killed at a busy train station and/or temple in his dreams and moved to write a newspaper editorial denouncing the inability of Indians to form an orderly line with a statistically insignificant risk of manslaughter.

It was therefore with some apprehension that I today joined a large and irritable crowd of impatient Indian people in a dedicated "Q-ing" building adjoining THE BUSIEST TEMPLE ON THIS PLANET WHICH WE CALL EARTH.

(By the way, this post marks the end of an era, in more ways than one. The first being the world may be doomed, but the other I will reveal in my critical next post...)

Yesterday I crossed out of Tamil Nadu and entered Andhra Pradesh, the huge southeastern state which contains Tirumala, site of the temple in question. The first thing I noticed in entering the general area of the pilgrimage town is the variety of languages on the innumerable buses honking their way along the highway. I saw an Andhra Pradesh government bus and was puzzled to see that it was labelled in some degenerate form of Kannada that had been blended with Tamil and chickenscratch. Then I realized I was having my first exposure to Telugu writing, and much later I realized that the imaginary influence I called "chickenscratch" was the actual influence of Urdu. Oops. Well, Urdu writing is pretty much Arabic and Persian combined with untold amounts of opium, so no apologies.

If I were drawn to cliches, I would say that Tirumala is a veritable Mecca of pilgrim activity, but that would be a disservice to Tirumala, which actually gets more pilgrim visitors per year than anywhere else in the world including Rome and Mecca. Pilgrims flock to the craptacular town of Tirupati at the bottom of the mountain to prepare to visit the temple above, where Lord Venkateshwara (aka Lord Balaji aka Lord Vishnu) grants a wish with his blessings. In a country where people seem to rely on wishes for an awful lot, it is unsurprising that many come here. Of course, I don't buy into wishes. It seems to me that by the time one reaches the later years of childhood one should have noticed that regardless of which benevolent deity/wish-granting force one petitions, one's wishes rarely seem to come true. The merchants of Tirupati have also realized what the pilgrims in general have not, and have built the perfect town for those whom Lord Venkateshwara's blessing fails to materialize. In India, a tirtha is a crossing, a place where heaven and earth meet. Here, Tirumala has its little piece of the heavenly, and Tirupati supplies a marvellous illustration of the wordly. You can go pray to God if you want, but if that doesn't work...well, Tirupati has a lot of liquor stores and a lot of pawnshops.

I rose early in the morning in the vain attempt to avoid the worst crush of pilgrims at a temple so busy it is open 24 hours a day. Allegedly, "At any given time, there will be no fewer than 5000 people inside the temple compound" (which is not that big). Furthermore "On a typical weekday, the temple averages some 40,000 visitors. This figure will be much higher on weekends, national holidays, and during festivals." "100,000 visitors in a day is not uncommon." I visited during the family-trip time school summer holidays. On a Sunday.

First, though, you have to get there, which you do by means of a winding and slightly terrifying mountain road. It's not that the road is bad, it's that the road is too good. The Tirumala temple, also being the richest temple in the world, is so well endowed that it has its own system of access highways, with a separate road for going up and going down, allowing the bursting-full buses to blast up the mountain with no fear of traffic coming the other way, and evidently no fear of careening off a precipice. As the bus swings wildly around the bends in the road, it feels surprisingly like a rollercoaster, an opinion confirmed by the behavior of the children on board, who were either wild with glee or having the most traumatic encounter with Newtonian physics of their young lives.

It's also impossible to notice that a great many people around here don't have any hair, as they have it all shaved off and donated to the deity, though I haven't a clue what the supreme being needs with a bunch of Indian hair. If he really needed hair I think he would at least make a petition to lure more Westerners to the Hindu fold, if for no other reason that the multi-hued Western coiff- with its browns, blondes, and even reds- is a veritable rainbow in comparison with the monochrome locks of the subcontinent.

Dismounting the bus atop the mountain, I got to see what "the richest temple on Earth" really means. Aside from the fact that the inner shrine is literally covered in gold, I was more stunned by the temple administration's achievement which no government entity in India has yet to equal. The temple has infrastructure. Aside from the access roads, which one enters through what is undoubtably the grandest toll booth plaza on the blue marble of Earth, the temple authorities have essentially constructed an entire city on top of the mountain. They have their own bus lines, their own sewage and utilities system (which work), room for thousands of people at massive hotels, shelters, and cottage complexes, free eateries, and even a huge hall of free head-shaving barbers. The holy tank near the temple itself is -get this- blue, thanks to a system of pumps that keeps it from acquiring the toxic green color and microbial stench of every other sacred puddle in this country. There is a massive building just for forming queues for the temple. Hell, there is a qeueing and a free shoe-keeping facility just for the free barbers' complex.

Now, let me state for the record that I had no intention of spending an entire day lining up in metal boxes and jostling with tens of thousands of bare-scalped pilgrims to get my momentary audience with Hindu Santa. No, I had a much better idea. At the very least I would pay for the 50-rupee "special darshan" ticket, a glorified form of cutting. However, at a competitively priced 50 rupees, this was already a popular option with a serpentine trail of shoving, ticket-pocketing pilgrims winding their way into the Dantesque maw of the qeueing facility. But I could do one better. I bought the 300-rupee "super-duper darshan" ticket, entitling me to walk past throngs and throngs of aggravated proles and wait in cramped metal cages with the mere thousands of people who could fork out $6.35 or so to talk to God with minimal interference from the poors.

As I've mentioned, being in any place with lots of Indian people can be hazardous to the health, but anywhere that doesn't have at least two hundred Indian people inside it is not to be found in India. For the most part, thousands of Indians around is just par for the course, but when you have thousands of Indians "waiting" for something, particularly when a line would be advisable, one wishes he could make his wish to God in advance and ask for an exoskeleton.

The temple staff are to be commended for their dedication to safety and having to deal with this crap day after day. They've actually created a system that minimizes the chances of the fatal stampedes that are all too common in these parts. They do this basically by treating the pilgrims as prisoners and segragating them into non-lethal-sized crowds and shutting them in a series of dozens of metal cages, which one has to slowly pass through like a ship traversing a canal full of locks, sitting in a box waiting for the engineers to complete the procedure allowing you to sail onwards. However, if I may mix my metaphors, every time the canal gates open to the next lock, the Indians rush into the next cage like rats from a sinking ship, accomplishing absolutely nothing (because it is impossible to advance or fall back from roughly your deserved place) except ill-treating the meek, demeaning the human race, and shattering any observer's faith in the rational nature of Man.

By the time it's all over, people have spent their entire day (or if you pay the hard cash, just what feels like an entire day) conniving means to force their way ahead of their fellow man. At the bus station for the descent hours later, I watched one bus pull into the station and drive towards the structure at full speed, stopping dramatically at only the last moment, because this would be the only way to actually get the bus parked while impatient throngs tried to get on board. Even this did not stop them. While the bus was still screeching to a halt and women and children were fleeing its dangerous course, young men were hurling themselves at its sides, grasping onto bars and hoisting themselves through the windows. By the time the doors were opened, the bus was already half full. As the remainder of the crowd teemed in (to quote Geeta Mehta "Nobody teems like Indians") the conductor had sharp words for the acrobats, arguing that anyone who could secure a seat in this manner was the least deserving of it and should wipe the smug grins off their faces and let the old ladies sit and... what's that? You said something? GET OFF MY BUS. As the conductor got to me I remarked "Some pilgrims, huh?" and he stopped collecting tickets for some time to hold his head and mutter in Hindi.

Back in the "Q Facility", the teeming was reaching its peak. Indeed, nobody teems like Indians. The Chinese may have the density, and the "Arab Street" may have the intensity, but the Indians have it both in spades. Waiting in one bend of the labyrinth, a few men tried to start a chant of "Praise lord god! Praise lor-", getting knocked off rhythmn by pilgrims shoving them up the stairs, hellbent on their mission to go praise lord god.

An aside - I was at one point taken aside, on account of my "non-Hindu" complexion and compelled to sign an affidavit of my faith in Lord Balaji, to ensure that my intentions for being there were not to cause trouble. I had half a mind to say that if I wanted to cause trouble I would go to a temple where I don't have to pay 300 rupees for a three-hour wait. Anyways, there is now somewhere in the temple archives a sworn statement in these words: "I, ...Ghostface Buddha.................... belong to the ...Narcissist..... religion. Nevertheles, I have faith in Lord ...Balaji... and earnestly and respectfully seek his blessing... SIGNED...GFB..."


People have this idea that India is a good place to come to contemplate the transience of all things... People have this idea that the Hindu religion involves a lot of contemplation. You come to India and you put on cotton clothes and you putter around in gardens, flitting like a butterfly while contemplating your oneness with the dandelions. And there are contemplative forms of Hinduism. There are maths (sort of like monasteries for saddhus) where you can get thrown out for doing anything but contemplating, but these are not the orders to which most Hindus belong. Hinduism is giant lemon-chocolate-peanut-strawberry-coconut-chicken-cucumber-fish-papaya pie of faiths, and the average Western visitor puts a little baby spoon in it and says "Mmmmmmmmmm, I love blueberry cobbler." I'm not saying I'm the all-experienced one here. I don't want any of the peanut-cucumber bites any more than the next Western tourist, but I defy you to find me a Western Hinduphile whose engagement with the religion includes going to a random cement temple near their lodge, ringing a bell and praising God for several minutes, or going to a little street-corner shrine and praying to that deity for their particular aid. Mainstream Hinduism, simply put, is not cool.

Like I say, I'm not above this view myself. I often find mainstream Hinduism outright aggravating. When finally we approached the gate of the temple proper and our accelerated line merged with that of our 50-rupee brethren (I can only assume the free-darshan-seekers starved and were eaten by wolves), the behavior of the devout was such to give this celebrated temple one of the least reverential atmospheres I have ever witnessed. While small groups of shuffling women mustered the concentration to sing hymns to Krishna (that most beloved cuddly-wuddly baby / divine adventuring superhero of a god), the vast majority of the pilgrims didn't even bother to stop in the courtyard but surged forewards to the chokepoint to the next courtyard. The most dangerous place to be was anywhere other than the two crushing lines trying to get to the stone entranceway, as every time somebody imagined another (no doubt much faster!) way in opening, a mad rush of sprinting pilgrims followed. At one point, another opening DID appear, as four or five guards blocked off the crazed surge and a half-dozen temple staff escorted a legless cripple through a special entrance, as he would have been instantly trampled underfoot anywhere else. People began screaming to be let through the special way and the guards rebuked them. "BUT YOU LET HIM IN!" they shouted. "He has NO LEGS", the guards rebuked. "Yeah? Well fuck that! MY legs are TIRED!" the crowd foamed back.

But I digress. I was talking about mainstream Hinduism. The thing about Tirumala, is that it isn't that holy. I mean, sure, it's holy and it has a bunch of legends relating to it, but none that anybody cares to single out. There's nothing like other holy sites boast of, like "This is where God X removed the darkness of ignorance from humanity" or "This is where Goddess Y fashioned the feminine energy, giver of life..." Tirumala is the most popular pilgrimage site in the world because, for some reason, you get a wish. Which gods do you see everywhere in people's homes and businesses in India? Ganesh, giver of good fortune. Lakshmi, goddess of wealth, literally pouring out buckets of gold. I could go on. At any point in history, the foremost and ascendant strains of the Hindu religion have always been a mirror of Indian society (and this is taking the debatable stance of not saying that Hinduism is Indian society), and modern Indian society is largely a crass materialist cult which would make even an American cringe. I won't presume to say how many of the pilgrims there had recently been in deep touch with their souls and how many needed to pray for a high exam score, a raise at their IT firm, an opening at an apartment development that boasts "An aristocratic address to help you scale the echelons of society...", but the number praying for such superficial wishes, I have no doubt, was greater than 0. (And because we're dealing with Tirumala here, probably also greater than 17,937).

A stray thought on this track: if Hinduism had regularized congregational worship, the scale it would reach here would strip America of any right to call its larger gatherings "mega-churches" ever again.

You may be wondering, OK Mr.Ghostface, so when youuuuuuu got your moment with the god what did you in your sublime spiritual purity wish for? Well, I had a number of ideas, some more worthy than others and all of them tempered by my general disdain for wishes. If I'm not going to wish when I break a chicken bone or pray to little fairies or the Christian sky-daddy, I'm not going to start with dear Sri Venkateshwara / Balaji. I finally settled on one fairly noble wish pertaining to this journey, just in case I was somehow suddenly moved to ask the god for something.

Finally I made it into the inner courtyard and from my position in the ruthlessly jockeying pack of pilgrims who were so close they could taste it I beheld a shrine completely roofed, spire and all, in gold. I made the last few turns with little of my own force and was almost lifted off my feet into the gold-paneled shrine itself. I made the final turn, and there ahead of me, in the dark, dark distance was Lord Balaji. I stopped to think "Should I make a wish now?" and got yanked forwards. I saw this happening invariably to every pilgrim. Some tried to stop and pray; others tried a simple "Praise God!" with their hands high above their heads. I was grasped by one of a gauntlet of temple staff and pulled down the wooden ramp in the shrine, being passed from one manhandler to the next. They simply can not allow the pilgrim flow to stop, or some real impatience and chaos would ensue. I could see the pilgrims in their dozens hastening to compose themselves as they tumbled forwards in the gauntlet's clutches and cast a wish to the Lord before being hauled around the bend and out of sight forever. Realizing it was my only chance, and suddenly feeling the need not to wish per se, but to somehow dignify the whole experience by at least addressing the would-be god, I tried to send my wish. I focused on the god and said to him...*bump*. A thrust from behind. A desperate pilgrim tried not to bowl me over. We both recovered. I felt more pushing and then the stern pull of a temple-minder's arm. At the moment I focused again on the wish granter and said to him...*bump**shove**OUCH**shove* "FUCK ALL THIS SHIT!", and I realized that "all this shit" was the world.

...Bit of a prickly wish there. I may have doomed the world. My B.