Carnival Folk

We leave out shoes with the shoe man outside the temple, cover our heads (the women), then walk up the stairs and through the stone doorway. The temple’s loud with singing and drumming – all coming from a large crowd of people congregating in front of the Krishna shrine. On the stairs, most of people bend down to touch the floor then their foreheads or lips.

“So, touching the stairs is like crossing yourself when you go into a church?” I ask Jason, who has just bent down and came back up.

“Basically,” he answers.

All I can say is, “oh.” But I want to say more.

When I was a kid, I’d always have a good time going with my friends to their Christian churches. But I would never ever cross myself because it would have felt like betraying my own faith – or just plain silly for me to do it. When I walk up the stairs here, I can’t bend to touch them. And, for some reason, it kind of bothers me when people I’m traveling with do it.

After walking through a large, dim room where a stray dog wanders, we walk up another flight of bendworthy, touchworthy stairs. We make it to the area in front of the Krishna shrine, which is hidden behind a curtain. The women sit in a large group in the center of the room, singing a chantlike song that is powerful, but not quite entrancing. When they see us, a few women immediately motion for the females in our group to sit.

Some of them are eager to talk to us. To use their English. To explain their religion. The men move in the area around the women. My fellow travelers were worried that we wouldn’t be welcomed like this. But I’m not really surprised. I’ve never felt unwelcome at anyone’s religious events; expect, actually, for my own religion. They are happy to see us.

There are young professional looking men in button-down dress shirts and nice work pants. There are old men in dhotis and plain shirts. Some of Krishna’s devotees are shirtless too. No matter how they are dressed, they bow down to stone statures or pillars throughout the room. They kiss or bow to the colorful paintings on the walls. Men and women receive water from a man in front of the shrine in the front.

A couple men do this prayer-type thing like I’ve never witnessed before. They stand, then take a couple steps. Then put their hands in prayer position, go down to the floor and lie down all the way on their stomachs. After staying there for a couple seconds, they get up and do it again, making a semi circle around the shrine....

After a few minutes, it all abruptly stops. Two men begin to rhythmically and reputedly bang on plate-sized gongs.

"Ladies and gentleman! Boys and girls! I now present to you a wonder amongst wonders. A one of a kind! You've never seen anything like it!" Says the ringleader.

He swooshes the curtain away. There, in all his glory stands a statue of Krishna...which I can only describe as looking a little like Gonzo the Muppet wide-eyed from crack and dressed up for a drag show.

Hindus I’m sure, would find this description extremely disrespectful. But I’m viewing this all for the first time from an androcentric perspective. I’m used to “idols” looking emaciated and hanging off a cross with blood seeping from the wrists – nothing so cheery and animated as this Krishna statue.

The crowd goes wild! All the women stand to join the men and they all throw their palms up to the statue. While the bongs are being hit, another man makes offerings to Krishna. He holds up water, an oil lamp, a banana leaf, and fabric. The man also throws some water over the devotees.

There’s also this long hallway that goes from one side of the shrine to the other around the back. It’s full of colorful paintings depicting Krishna, his wife, and his incarnations. And you have to walk through it left to right.

At the time, all I can compare the ceremony to is a circus or carnival. People throwing their hands up looks like a roller coaster and the water the man splashes to the crowd reminds me of a log flume. The dots and lines of pigment that’s worn on their faces comes from a face-paint booth. The man making offerings is the ring leader. When they walk left to right through the hall around the shrine, they are walking through a fun house. Even the God doll looks like a circus clown or side show freak.

I have the sudden urge for a bloomin' onion or sno cone...

I wonder what they would think of our Western services – so solemn and serious all the time. And what about our books? This is the first time in my life I’ve witnessed a religious service at a temple that has nothing to do with scriptures at all.

It’s weird – the Hindu religion is just as meaningful to them as any of ours are to us. Yet, we are taught to see these sorts of religious displays as primitive – less evolved than ours. The idols, the chants and offerings, the lack of scripture; isn’t it all a little whichcrafy? A little paganesque?

Not to them, of course. I have to try hard to remind myself this is contemporary worship and it’s just as meaninginful as any other kind that someone actually has faith in. But, Hindus should stay open minded too. Do you know how many times I’ve been asked here, “Who is your God?” or “Do Americans believe in God?”

I was told by one of our teachers that when we are asked questions like that, they all expect us to answer, “I do not have a God” and “Americans don’t believe in Him.” Well I’m sorry if it’s easier for you to explain yours than it is for me to explain mine.

I think it over a little, and I guess it sort of makes sense why they’d assume we have no God. Basically, on a regular basis Hindu’s do things to show their devotion. They were paint on their foreheads, they fast, they give pooja (offerings) every day. They have shrines in their houses and only eat certain foods. They are even born into a caste that determines how/who they should worship.

The majority of us, on the other hand, rarely publicly display our faith. We do some things (and, actually a lot of the things we do resemble the things they do – same can be said for their temple ceremony), but not nearly as much and when you walk down the streets in the U.S. or turn on the TV, you don’t see expressions of people’s faiths. So if we aren’t doing anything to show our devotion, we must not e devoted to anything. That is what they must think.

It’s strange being in a place where religion – a foreign religion – matters so much on an every day basis. Sometimes it makes me mad. Sometimes it makes me laugh. Sometimes it makes me jealous. Most of the time it doesn’t make me feel anything at all because it’s just life.

And even though I think all religion more or less stems from the same source of human need, we’re never going to understand each other. Not the most of us, at least. And that’s always going to cause a problem or two.