PUJA

My ears are still ringing. I did something very cool last night. After dinner on the beach (kingfish Provençal with sliced potatoes sautéd in butter and garlic, with three dogs sitting at my side staring at me the whole time) I went over to the Hindu temple at the end of my dirt road. Monday's are always quite raucous there. I could hear the noise from quite far away as I approached. Inside, there were a bunch of people sitting around on the floor making music.

It was a puja (pooja?), a Hindu worship service. I'm pretty sure this one was for Shiva. He's the big guy. Everyone may have a favorite god (around here Ganesha) is pretty popular (duh! How could you not love a god who's half chubby kid with an elephant head, who broke off one of his own tusks so that he could finish writing the Mahabaratha). But Monday's seem to be dedicated to Shiva (Ganesha's father, and also the one who lopped off his head and had to go out and look for the first creature he could find, to get a replacement head... Hence the elephant head).

So I slipped off my shoes and went inside the temple, intending to just stand by the far wall and watch. Nothing doing. They waved me over to come and sit with them, so I did. There was a main bunch of guys in the middle, playing instruments and chanting, and the rest gathered around them, many playing little hand bells (the kind you hit together like castanets). There were microphones and amplifying equipment so that it was all REALLY LOUD. Once I figured things out, I saw that there were three microphones for the chanters, with one main guy doing most of the chanting and a second guy taking over from time to time to give him a break. The third microphone was being passed around between two or three other guys, sort of guest chanters. These were bajans they were chanting, I believe. The main guy was so great, he chanted the bajan, but as he did so, he was making hand gestures at the harmonium player or the tabla player. So, here he was chanting words of adoration to Lord Shiva, but acting as though he was singing a love song to one of the other men. It was really funny.

What I loved about this was that it was a real community event, not just a bunch of old men worshipping in a dying faith. The chanters and the musicians were all young men, and there were young and old people there, women also, with children running in and out, cell phones were being used and texts were received and answers.

I began to just sit back and let the music take over and I was in a bit of a trance. The volume had something to do with this, as you could feel the music in your bones, as well as hear it. It was so loud, that when one of the older kids set off a whole set of fireworks and firecrackers literally two feet from my ear (I was sitting by one of the open doorways) I barely noticed. It wasn't until I smelled the sulphur from the fireworks that I realize what it had been. No one else in the temple took much notice of this either.

It was really loud in there.

But it was a joyful noise.

Throughout this whole thing, people came in and out, did their little worship thing in the temple, lit incense and waved it around the altar, or left an offering for one of the gods or brought in a garland of marigolds and draped it somewhere inside the temple or rang one of the big bells hanging from the ceiling. Again, any one of these big bells clanging would have been heard for a mile, but with the bajans being chanted, you could barely hear them.

Now during the day, there are a bunch of taxi drivers hanging out in front of the temple (as there are everywhere here... In front of every hotel, on every corner, all waiting for a fare, but not trying that hard) and I talk to these guys every day. They were the first to call me Mangol Pandey on my very first day. Well, these guys all were part of this Hindu congregation, so they would all smile to see me there, wave to me and put their hands together to wish me namaste (that is a traditional Hindustani greeting, it means "reverence to you" and it's what I've written at the bottom of my emails). Some would even come over and shake my hand. It was very nice.

At one point, one guy came in, I think he may have been the priest, and lit some oil lamps and waved some incense, and rang some bells and a number of elaborate gestures with the help of his wife. It was hard to tell who was the priest, since they were all wearing jeans and button-down dress shirts. Come to think of it, I was the only one in the temple dressed like a Hindu priest.

After about two hours, the music wound down and they began packing up the instruments. I got up and began to leave, but the priest gestured for me to stay. His wife had brought food for everyone in a stainless steel pot. She had ready made little plates of sliced fruit and sweet porridge with fruit inside and cooked amaranth, I think. I ate it (with my right hand of course) and it was delicious. The priest brought me a cup of chai (sweet milky tea). It was quite an experience.

And as an added bonus I couldn't hear the dogs barking last night due to the ringing in my ears!!

नमस्ते

P. S. In case you have no idea what this sort of thing could possibly sound like, here is an example of a Shiva bajan being chanted, although this looks to be inside a community centre in Manchester, rather than on the dirty floor of a temple on a dirt lane in Goa.