A Very Religious Experience

So I can no longer wait for pictures in order to blog about my experience going to the Birla Mandir Temple and a Sikh Gurdwara in Kolkata. I went with a few of my fellow study abroaders and some very nice Indian students from St Xavier's to explore the Hindu and Sikh faiths. Our first stop was the Birla Mandir, which is one of the biggest and most majestic Hindu temples in Kolkata. The entire building was hand-carved and I especially liked the elephant statues carved into the walls outside the gates. On first entering the temple there was a beautiful hanging chandelier and underneath the chandelier was a statue of Krishna with his wife. The jewelry that adorned the statues in the main part of the temple were all made of gold and silver. Upon going closer I realized that each of the statues had a monk sitting next to them in which offerings could be given or you could receive a blessing. We each went up and received a blessing from the monk by putting out our hands and him giving us some type of sugar granules which we ate. After leaving the main temple Kanwar (our fellow Xavieran who showed us around) rang a bell which is supposed to signify that you are leaving the temple after offering your prayers.

We strolled around the entire complex and many gods and goddess were strewn about the premises. When we went over to the monkey god, Hanuman, we received a bindi (otherwise known as the red dot by Americans) from the monk. The monks seemed unperturbed by our presence and were relatively silent throughout the whole enxhange. As we were leaving we were asked to collect our shoes (you leave them outside the gates to the temple when you come in) and took a nice picture in front of the temple (excluding the surly guards at the gate). I know I will be visiting Kalighat and Dakshineswar temples while I am here, but I hope to try and visit a few more as well.

After our visit to the Birla Mandir, we headed off to a Sikh gurdwara, we were instructed to also take off our shoes as well as cover our heads. Sikhs do not cut their hair, so often Sikh men wear turbans or other head coverings in order to tie up their hair. Kanwar, who is a Sikh, explained that he did not have long hair because when he was a young boy he got an infection from swimming with his hair wrapped up, so he was forced to cut his hair (many Sikhs were upset with his decision even though it was a health issue). Anyway, we climbed up the stairs and emerged into a smaller room with an altar in which a man was chanting and waving a fan over incense. After standing for a few minutes, we were instructed to sit down and after awhile a man came around with an offering (we think it was some form of ghee, which is a type of butter used in religious services) and we ate it as a blessing (it did not taste good at all and I was happy I was able to swallow). After a couple more minutes of sitting and having the man pray, we were instructed to leave. As we washed our hands (the ghee was very sticky) and put our shoes back on, Courtney realized that she had lost her camera in a taxi. Unfortunately in India, taxis are as abundant as in New York, so the odds of finding a lost item are rather slim, even with the taxi number. She was not able to find her camera (3 people have either lost, damaged, or had their camera stolen so far on this trip) but we had all had a good time and were extremely thankful that Sam and Kanwar, our Xavierian friends were able to guide us around Kolkata for a day.

*Seeing as I forgot to bring my camera along, I will upload pictures of our religious experience as soon as my fellow study abroad students upload them.