Category Archives: India and Asia

Sikhism’s Golden Temple

            The Golden Temple in Amritsar, India, is the Sikh religion’s version of Mecca or the Vatican.  Devout Sikhs make pilgrimages to the Temple to bathe in the huge surrounding Pool of (holy) Nectar.  They claim that about 100,000 people show up every day.  The Temple really is Golden:  it’s plated with nearly a ton of actual gold.

            Sikhism originated in this region – the Punjab state in northwest India — around 500 years ago.  Like Jews in America, the Sikhs are thought of both as a religious group and a distinct ethnicity.  They tend to be physically larger than other Indians.  Traditionally, Sikhs are India’s warriors and they take pride in their military history.  Most Sikhs have “Singh” as their last or middle name, and devout Sikh men wear five special symbolic items at all times:  the distinctive turban (covering long, never-cut hair); a wooden comb; a bracelet; boxer-short-like underwear; and a small dagger.   

            Punjab sits between (primarily-Muslim) Pakistan to the west, and the mostly-Hindu heart of India to the east.  The entire area had been a British colony (the “British Raj”) since 1858. The Amritsar area was the epicenter of the tumultuous partition of Pakistan from modern India in 1947. 

            Sikhism was an offshoot of Hinduism.  This may seem a little odd: Sikhism is monotheistic, but Hindus are famously polytheistic, with thousands of different gods.  Or so we’re told.  But with a billion followers of Hinduism, there are several subgroups with different views on lots of topics.  And while Hindus generally do recognize lots of “deities,” many believe that there is one supreme god (or maybe a three-part ‘trinity’) and that all the other deities are just embodiments (“aspects,” or “avatars) of that one over-arching supreme god.  It’s one real god that appears and acts in and through lots of different forms.  Compare this to Christian “monotheistic” beliefs in a three-part holy Trinity (“God in three persons”), supernatural angels, miracle-inducing saints, and a heavenly-ascended Mary.  The line between monotheist and polytheist isn’t always clear.

            Notwithstanding the Sikh’s warrior reputation, the Punjabis were as conspicuously friendly as all the Indians I encountered.  I recall four different locals wanting to talk and tell me about a family member working in America: one was a doctor; one a computer person of some kind; and two managed convenience stores.  I had to chuckle a little; sometimes stereotypes are true.

           There were “No Photography” signs everywhere around the Temple’s gigantic Pool of Nectar, and we’d received a cryptic warning to that effect before we first went in.  I saw a handful of folks get scolded for using the phone cameras.  But I was walking around with gigantic cameras hanging from each shoulder!  We quickly got comfortable that it was fine, so long as we were respectful (and of course we were).  Mostly they just wanted to make sure teenagers weren’t out there broadcasting a TikTok (whatever TikTok is).  The picture below, of two spear-bearing men in yellow turbans, is the last one I took before leaving Amritsar.  They motioned me over, posed together, and urged me to take their picture.  They’re two of the guards whose job was to enforce the “No photography” rule.

Devout Sikh men wear 5 symbolic items at all times: a turban, a dagger, a bracelet, boxer-short-like underwear, and (not visible here) a wooden comb. This friendly guy wore his even as he took his deep in the holy pool.
The spear-carrying, yellow-turbaned guards (in the two pictures below) were the folks in charge of enforcing the “Photography is Strictly Prohibited Rule” (above).
This wasn’t a pre-dawn joy-ride. His job was to make sure there were no leaves or trash in the hold Pool of Nectar.

Good Karma: Gujarat, India

India’s westernmost state is home to 60 million people and a handful of endangered Asiatic Wild Ass. Gujarat is the birthplace of both Mahatma Gandhi and current Indian Prime Minister Modi. One morning I was at a massive flower market in Ahmedabad, set up on the edge of a busy highway. Across the street was a billboard of Modi posing with Donald and Melania Trump. I looked up from the flower market to see a couple of camel-drawn carts making their way through the rush hour traffic jam. A very ‘India’ sight. My visit to Gujarat wasn’t quite as fast-paced as my time in Kerala, so I had plenty of time to think about the important Hindu principle of Karma.

Just before dawn at the Ahmedabad flower market.

           EVEN IF you don’t know much about Hinduism, you’ve probably heard of “karma.”  Karma means that every action has a consequence.  Your good deeds and hard work will eventually be rewarded.  And your bad acts will somehow come back to haunt you.  The universe will even things out. 





           We all know the phrase, “What goes around comes around.”  That’s karma in a blunt nutshell.  Lots of English-language sayings describe some sort of karma (mostly the “bad” side):  Paybacks are hell.  Chickens come home to roost.  He got a taste of his own medicine.  What’s good for the goose is good for the gander.  If you live by the sword, you’ll die by the sword.  You reap what you sow.  She had that coming.  That’s gonna bite you in the ass.  An eye for an eye.  Karma’s a bitch.





           The word “karma” is Hindu but the concept is universal.  Even the Golden Rule — arguably the most important moral principle for everyone from Jesus to Kant – is essentially a corollary of Karma:  “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”  It’s a nice way of saying you should “dish out” only what you’re ready to “take.” 





           Hindus don’t necessarily think the gods are purposely or actively trying to punish or reward you, though.  Karma is like gravity or physics: an inevitable law of nature.  Even Newton’s Third Law of Motion sounds oddly like karma:  For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.  Nothing personal.





           Hindus believe in an immortal soul with multiple earthly reincarnations, and they believe that the effects of karma can stretch beyond your current life.  A person can experience the consequences of his acts – good or bad karma – even in his next life.  This means that if something bad happens to you, it may be because of something bad you did in a prior life.  Other faiths (like Christianity) struggle to explain why bad things happen to good people — why a benevolent and all-powerful god allows innocent people to suffer from illness, injury, hunger, and handicaps.  Hinduism solves that philosophical dilemma: the person may have bad karma carried over from a prior life.  It may sound a little brutal to imagine karma chasing us down even after we die, but that’s not so different from many Christian and Muslim beliefs about heaven and hell:  Your acts in this life will be rewarded or punished in a later one.





           People who research American political philosophy find that liberals generally place greater focus than conservatives on equality and on “caring” (the prevention of suffering).  Conservatives, on the other hand, tend to place more emphasis on loyalty and on “proportionality.”  Proportionality here refers to a belief that outcomes and consequences should be “proportional” to actions and behaviors – that good behavior and hard work should be rewarded, while bad behavior may rightly be punished.  Which, of course, sounds a lot like karma.  These different moral principles all sound good, but things get interesting when the themes conflict with one another.  An emphasis on equality or on the prevention of suffering will often conflict with the karma-like proportionality principle:  If good behavior and hard work are rewarded and bad or lazy behavior is punished, people will no longer be “equal” and some will literally suffer from the consequences of their actions and decisions. 





           The Hindu belief in an inevitable karma that spans multiple lifetimes takes the concept of personal responsibility to its extreme.  Your present condition is the product of your own past acts and decisions, in this life or in prior ones.  You made yourself what you are.  Whatever good fortune or bad luck you experience, you caused it yourself either in this  or a prior life.  This view partly underlies India’s traditional caste system.  To the Hindus, wherever you find yourself in the socio-economic hierarchy of the caste system—even at the time of your birth – you caused that yourself.  If you’re unhappy with your life, only you and karma are to blame — and karma doesn’t have a complaint department.





          Maybe the belief in karma is why so many of the Indians I encountered seemed so pleasant, happy, and content.  Whether or not you actually believe in karma, there’s a lot to be said for people who do:  People who believe there’s no sense complaining about whatever life brings you.  People who believe that the way to a better world is to be good, do good, and work hard.  Those are folks you’d want to hang out with, even if they live halfway around the world.





The Asiatic Wild Ass. Apparently being “wild” and “endangered” didn’t mean they were difficult to find. Our wildlife photo safari took about 10 minutes.
This little girl lived at a gypsy tent camp. She had a lot of attitude — mostly good. She and her mom and sisters made those bracelets and tried to sell them along the highway.

One of these two “step wells” near Ahmedabad was next to a Sun Temple. They’re religious sites but also functional: you walk down to the level of the water table and scoop out water.

This gentleman’s grandson had brought him to visit the former home of Mahatma Gandhi, the famed leader of the non-violent movement for India’s independence from Britain in the 1940s. That’s Gandhi’s floor desk and spinning wheel in the background. The wheel was a symbol of Gandhi’s movement.

Kerala and Cochin, India

The elaborate theyyams and the fun elephant festival were highlights from the Kerala, India. But even ordinary, day-to-day life there is worth a look.

Kerala is a tropical Indian state that stretches along the coast of the Laccadive Sea (in the Indian Ocean) in southwest India. It’s smaller than West Virginia, with a population almost as big as California. Almost everyone speaks Malayalam as their primary language, but as in most of India, the most common second language is English. Only about half of Keralans are Hindu; a quarter are Muslim and about 18% are Christian. More than half the population works in agriculture and fishing, but the biggest single source of income may be sending millions of educated Keralans to work in other countries and send money back to their families.

A banana merchant in Cochin.
This Cochin produce merchant’s whole operation is about 10 feet wide. He said he took over the business from his dad, whose portrait is hanging on the wall behind him. His own son was working a few feet away.
(Above and below): Chinese fishing nets in the harbor at Cochin. The nets stay mostly horizontally flat under the water until those big levered poles lift it all up. It’s an unusual way to catch fish.
We got a special private Kathakali performance in Cochin. Lots of elaborate face-paint, sort of like the Hindu temple “theyyams” I’d seen a few days earlier, but this is theater, and the theyyams are more like church.
A fish market in rural Kannur.

Pooram Gajmela: An Indian Elephant Walk

There’s a Hindu parable about a group of blind men who encounter an elephant for the first time.  They can touch only a small part of the elephant, so they have a tough time imagining what the larger ‘whole’ of the elephant was like.  My experience with a South India elephant festival was similar.  We didn’t know what to expect, so our arrival and departure timing wasn’t great. We saw only a few hours of an event that would eventually involve dozens of elephants from several nearby temples and villages.  But even this tip-of-the-iceberg experience was a real spectacle.

            A Hindu temple generally honors a specific Hindu deity, and there are LOTS of Hindu deities (more on this later).  Many of these local temples organize annual events and festivals (“poorams”) to honor their deity.  In central Kerala, some of these temple festivals are “gajmela” — elephant festivals. 

At this annual temple festival in Chalissery, delegations from several nearby village or temples converge – each typically bringing a set of 3 elephants, a ‘marching’ band, and dozens (or hundreds) of people.  Imagine a mixture of Mardis Gras, Barnum & Bailey, the State Fair, and a hometown Easter parade.  With pachyderms, of course.  And they’re INDIAN elephants, obviously (the ones with smaller ears). It’s religious-based, but feels like a big party. If that strikes you as odd or irreverent, picture our own Christmas parades (and remember that Mardis Gras and ‘Carnival’ are outgrowths of the observance of Christian Lent).

One curiosity was that the elephants weren’t really the focus of an Elephant festival. They were always lurking around and we all made sure to give them a wide berth, but nobody seemed to pay much attention to the animals themselves. They were all perfectly behaved, too. They seemed unperterbed (and mostly unimpressed) by some very loud craziness. This wasn’t their first elephant rodeo.

            As the pictures reflect, I spent a lot of time with one group that had a huge band with lots of drums, cymbals, big round ‘trumpets’, and oboe-like Shehnais.  This type of Indian music is more about rhythm than about tune or melody.  The trumpet and oboe-shehnai parts were more like chanting than song-playing as we know it.  I think most of the ‘trumpet’ players just played a single note over and over. The rhythms are complex (“weird” might be the technical diagnosis).  Imagine a 15/16 time signature?  Or maybe a repeating cycle of 3/4, then 5/4, then 7/4 measures.  Or… back-to-back triplets and quintuplets?? I’m a decently musical person, and I’d have had trouble consistently clapping along without getting lost.  But obviously it all seemed very normal and natural to them.  I got a quick chance to play one of those trumpets (just an oddly shaped bugle, actually), but didn’t even attempt to mimic their song. Maybe somebody somewhere got some pictures of me joining this trumpet section.

Just like the “theyyam” events I’d seen in the preceding days, the local folks at the elephant festival were enthusiastically open and accommodating to the tiny handful of Americans who’d stumbled into their crowd.  When we first arrived, our local guide showed us a “VIP” section of the viewing area and said we’d be able to come back there. I naively asked if we needed some sort of ticket or pass to get in. He smiled and assured me they’d be able to recognize us. I was again ushered to the front (or middle) of all the drumming and parading — whether I really intended to be there or not.  It’s really striking that these events are absolutely authentic and nothing about them is done for the sake of gawking tourists, yet the people were so completely open and welcoming when we gawking foreigners wandered in.

One family group (easily 100 people in those bright blue shirts) was in an especially festive mood.  As I was trying to get across their parading route, they stopped me to introduce themselves, shake hands, and ask me to pose with them for selfies.  They were so amused by that, I started getting high-fives and hugs (This was all pre-Covid scare).  Then suddenly I was hoisted to the shoulders of several of the teenagers and carried briefly down the parade route.  The only folks not 100% friendly were the police that showed up at that moment to shoo us all along because we were holding up the parade.

These folks were SUPER friendly. I’m not sure WHY they decided to put me on their shoulders, but it was all good fun. They were even more amused than I was! (Photo credit to Dr. Didima Mon. On a trip like this, it’s always good to have a professional on hand to hand us the Immodium and Pepto.)
The Wall of Death! – at the carnival next to the parade and temple grounds. Two things you should know: The walls are completely vertical (ignore the wide-angle lens distortion in the pictures. And note that there is nobody driving that car.
Some people were crazy enough to stick their hands through those rails, holding dollar bills (okay rupees) that the cyclists would grab as they went by.
No, I can’t explain this. Voodoo? Notice that the guy in pink at left is holding a chicken.

Theyyam Season in Kerala, India: Vishnumoorthy and friends.

The first of a series from Southern and Western India.

             My first night in a Malabar Coast beachside cabin ended early — with a 2:45 a.m. alarm and a short 3:00 a.m. hike to the nearest highway to catch our van.  A nearby town was having a pre-dawn “theyyam” – an event that’s both a religious ritual and a performance artform, done mostly in the Kerala state of southwest India.  This theyyam celebrated Vishnumoorthy, who (as best I can understand) is something of a deified disciple of the Hindu god, Lord Vishnu. 

            Two things were happening when we arrived:  A handful of men were stoking a big bonfire, and another group (all wearing white skirt-like “mundus“) were tending to a young man portraying Vishnumoorthy in an elaborate headdress and orange make-up.  The young Vishnumoorthy was eventually covered in dozens of layers of palm leaves and rigged with twisted ropes attached at his waist.  Not long after the (super-loud) drumming started, Vishnumoothy sprang into action.  He gestured frantically in what seemed to be a hurried attempt to bless everyone around him.  Then his posse of handlers ushered him toward the fire.

            We knew enough to expect that Vishnumoorthy would be thrown (ceremoniously and hopefully safely) into the fire, so I got my camera ready for the big moment.  Sure enough, his handlers flung and shoved him face-down onto the pyre, then promptly dragged him out (still face-down) by those ropes attached to his waist.  (By now the bonfire was mostly a large pile of red-hot coals.)  Just as I was tempted to think, “Wow, how many times in your life do you see something like that!?!”, they threw him in there again.  Then again.  And again. . .  I later read that the ritual requires them to throw him in (and drag him out) 104 times.  So that’s what they did – stopping several times in the middle to make sure he was okay and let him dance around the fire .  (104 is a lot of times to be thrown face-down into a fire, fyi.)

Vishnumoorthy’s handlers getting him ready. Notice the fire in the background.

 

 

 

Photo quality was poor for the fast action around the fire in the darkness, but hopefully you can see how it all worked. All 100+ times.

 

 

            I wound up going to three different theyyams that week – one at sunset and two before dawn.  They were each at different Hindu temple sites in villages near Kannur, India.  The sunset event celebrated the Hindu “patron saint” of blacksmiths (and somehow involved a snake temple but happily no actual snakes).  It had only a few dozen onlookers around and loudest drumming I have ever endured.  The third event was huge, with at least 1000 people up long before dawn celebrating 5 different demi-gods (including Vishnumoorthy, Gulikan, and others I couldn’t identify).  Dozens of young boys and girls were dressed up and paraded around; I think the idea was that these deities were blessing the kids. 

            A combination of two things made my “theyyam” experiences special.  First, they were 100% authentic.  These were local ceremonies and our little group of photographers were the only ‘foreigners’ around.  This was not in any way designed for tourists (especially that 4:30 a.m. start).  At the same time, the people there couldn’t have been more welcoming and accommodating.  I knew that these were religious rituals so I initially tried to be discrete, respectful, and out of the way.  But the locals wouldn’t hear of it – I was consistently urged (often ushered) right to the front.  Not only did they have zero objections to our intrusions, they were proud to show off their customs and culture.  So as the pictures reflect,* I was right in the middle the action – except the part where they threw that guy in the fire.

This guy ‘became’ the blacksmith deity celebrated at the sunset theyyam shown in the next two pictures.


 

Late afternoon preparations, pouring lamp oil into each little dish. Thousands burned all at once to light up the two tiny temple buildings during the theyyam.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

*Here’s a photographers’ note:  If I have a consistent photographic ‘style,’ it’s that I often use a very wide angle lens, and/or I shoot from a low (squatting?) or high angle.  It dawns on me that maybe I enjoy these pictures because the perspective – and the location of the camera – is more obvious.  And what’s often obvious is that the camera (and thus the camera man) is very close to what’s going on.  It’s implicit in the image that I’m squatting ( or tip-toeing) 2 feet from the subject – not shooting a telephoto zoom from across the street somewhere.  I’m peaking over someone’s shoulder or shooting under someone’s elbow or eye-to-eye with a kid.  Or – all too often – about to be trampled.   (See below).

This is the last picture I took just before the blacksmith god more or less ran right over me. I was unscathed; he was unfazed. By all accounts, I came up smiling.