When you make the turn from the main road onto the street that leads up to the temple, things start to change. The goods in the shops go from the average burlap bags of rice, bottles of coke and packs of cigarettes to goods like stringed flowers, miniature statues and framed photographs of the holy structure. The people change a bit, too. Suddenly I’m bombarded with uncommonly friendly men pointing me towards "Kali temple this way, sir." They’re not trying to get me into a taxi or gain a fare for their rickshaw, they’re just offering help. "Such a nice surprise," I thought to myself as I made my way through the ever-chirping metal detector at the entrance.
Once inside, I immediately was greeted by an English-speaking man who introduced himself as "Bapi, Brahmin of the temple." He even showed me his I.D. card, which began with the large heading of "Official State Brahmin," Brahmin being the highest classification or "caste" in Hindu society. Bapi told me that there are 51 Kali temples in India, but this one in Calcutta is the oldest and the biggest and that the god worshiped here, Kali, is the goddess of destruction. He was friendly, this man in his loongi (a sort of skirt/bath towel worn by men) and untucked dress shirt pushed out by his gut. Bapi also had about two inches of hair growing off the sides of his ears, a rather common if unsettling fashion trend among older men here. He seemed understanding of my being a writer, even halted his spiel each time I hurriedly scratched in my notebook.
We walked around the inside of the temple walls which were no bigger, really, than the inside of a basketball court. He showed me a small, fenced-in area with two sets of vertical poles, set up in such a way that they looked a bit like the stocks you see in movies about the Old West, the kind they would put traitors and bandits in so that they were permanently bent over with their heads stuck between the pieces of wood, in a perfect position to be jeered by the public. In fact these were not stocks, but something similar. One was used for the sacrifice of goats and the other, larger set for the sacrifice of water buffalo. I had thought they seemed stained a bit red, and now I knew why. A buffalo is only sacrificed once every year, in October, for the Durga Puja celebration. Goats, however, are sacrificed daily.
"The goats are brought in every single day by the faithful … unless they aren’t here by noon, then we just go buy one," said Bapi. He said they only sacrifice male animals because the females need to be around to give milk to the children. I said I felt glad not to be a goat and he smiled at me with the genuineness of a used car salesman. After the sacrifice block, we made our way down a small corridor between the two main buildings. Halfway down this corridor, there was a break in the fence that ran along my right side and I saw a man standing up, calling towards the patrons rather like a circus conductor to his elephants. In one hand he clutched a stack of 10 rupee bills and with the thumb of the other he was daubing orange paste dots onto people’s foreheads. Bapi said something to the man, announcing my presence, I believe, and the man quickly went to shoving the praying faithful aside, people whose eyes were closed and whose heads were rested on the marble ledges, so that I could have a view up the aisle "into the eyes of the goddess Kali," a statue with three black, teardrop-shaped eyes.
"Um, very nice?" I said as Bapi smiled at me. The man then went back to herding people through the area in front of the statue as fast as he could, calling to mind many the elementary school field trip to the museum. I saw one man there with his wife and mother in tow, getting his wallet out of his back pocket and digging through it as one Brahmin stood over him, awaiting his share while another tugged at his arm, pulling him toward the next holy display that needed donations. Now that I think about it, it really did feel like a carnival, and I could see in this man my own poor father, being tugged this way and that by my brother and I as we rushed to spend money on all the food and rides.
Next, Bapi and I visited the holy tree which, he told me, was the birthplace of Kali, making it over 300 years old. The tree was set inside a sort of cage and was cemented in about the first four feet up. Bapi pointed out the small stones that were tied with string all along the tree’s branches that came from "The Ganga," which is the Bengali name for the Ganges River, a sacred flow for the Hindus that runs from the Himalayas into the Bay of Bengal. He gave the same origin for the water he then poured on my hands. He said it was holy water, but, knowing what I do about the Ganges and its contents (they dump more than 1 billion liters of waste, including hundreds of partially cremated bodies in it every day of the year) it somehow made my hands feel a bit less purified. After my cleansing, Bapi took a small dish of the holy water and brought me along the backside of the tree. Taking a bit of the water in his fingers, he flicked it onto the tree, saying "Lord Kali, please make blessings to Andrew and his journeys." He then said "What is your family name, sir?"
"Prinsen," I replied.
"Kali I ask you would bless the family Prinsen and make long life and good things for them. And the name of your wife Andrew?"
"Nope, no wife."
"Lord Kali make wife for Andrew and bring she to him soon, for he is lonely man. And what is your job Andrew?"
"Um, no job either."
"Lord Kali find for Andrew a job and bless his labor and make him very rich and successful man."
After my apparently much-needed blessings (leave it to a temple Brahmin to point out how sad your situation is) I was brought a small book that was a guest registry where I was told to write my name, my country, and how much money I was donating to the temple. Of course the three or four entries above mine had given anywhere from 1,000 to 2,500 rupees (about $25 to $62). I told Bapi that I hadn’t really planned on making a donation and that I hoped the blessings weren’t dependant on a generous gift. He said, "People give what they can give. How much can you give?" I told him that I could probably scrape 50 rupees together.
My tour ended promptly.
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Once inside, I immediately was greeted by an English-speaking man who introduced himself as "Bapi, Brahmin of the temple." He even showed me his I.D. card, which began with the large heading of "Official State Brahmin," Brahmin being the highest classification or "caste" in Hindu society. Bapi told me that there are 51 Kali temples in India, but this one in Calcutta is the oldest and the biggest and that the god worshiped here, Kali, is the goddess of destruction. He was friendly, this man in his loongi (a sort of skirt/bath towel worn by men) and untucked dress shirt pushed out by his gut. Bapi also had about two inches of hair growing off the sides of his ears, a rather common if unsettling fashion trend among older men here. He seemed understanding of my being a writer, even halted his spiel each time I hurriedly scratched in my notebook.
We walked around the inside of the temple walls which were no bigger, really, than the inside of a basketball court. He showed me a small, fenced-in area with two sets of vertical poles, set up in such a way that they looked a bit like the stocks you see in movies about the Old West, the kind they would put traitors and bandits in so that they were permanently bent over with their heads stuck between the pieces of wood, in a perfect position to be jeered by the public. In fact these were not stocks, but something similar. One was used for the sacrifice of goats and the other, larger set for the sacrifice of water buffalo. I had thought they seemed stained a bit red, and now I knew why. A buffalo is only sacrificed once every year, in October, for the Durga Puja celebration. Goats, however, are sacrificed daily.
"The goats are brought in every single day by the faithful … unless they aren’t here by noon, then we just go buy one," said Bapi. He said they only sacrifice male animals because the females need to be around to give milk to the children. I said I felt glad not to be a goat and he smiled at me with the genuineness of a used car salesman. After the sacrifice block, we made our way down a small corridor between the two main buildings. Halfway down this corridor, there was a break in the fence that ran along my right side and I saw a man standing up, calling towards the patrons rather like a circus conductor to his elephants. In one hand he clutched a stack of 10 rupee bills and with the thumb of the other he was daubing orange paste dots onto people’s foreheads. Bapi said something to the man, announcing my presence, I believe, and the man quickly went to shoving the praying faithful aside, people whose eyes were closed and whose heads were rested on the marble ledges, so that I could have a view up the aisle "into the eyes of the goddess Kali," a statue with three black, teardrop-shaped eyes.
"Um, very nice?" I said as Bapi smiled at me. The man then went back to herding people through the area in front of the statue as fast as he could, calling to mind many the elementary school field trip to the museum. I saw one man there with his wife and mother in tow, getting his wallet out of his back pocket and digging through it as one Brahmin stood over him, awaiting his share while another tugged at his arm, pulling him toward the next holy display that needed donations. Now that I think about it, it really did feel like a carnival, and I could see in this man my own poor father, being tugged this way and that by my brother and I as we rushed to spend money on all the food and rides.
Next, Bapi and I visited the holy tree which, he told me, was the birthplace of Kali, making it over 300 years old. The tree was set inside a sort of cage and was cemented in about the first four feet up. Bapi pointed out the small stones that were tied with string all along the tree’s branches that came from "The Ganga," which is the Bengali name for the Ganges River, a sacred flow for the Hindus that runs from the Himalayas into the Bay of Bengal. He gave the same origin for the water he then poured on my hands. He said it was holy water, but, knowing what I do about the Ganges and its contents (they dump more than 1 billion liters of waste, including hundreds of partially cremated bodies in it every day of the year) it somehow made my hands feel a bit less purified. After my cleansing, Bapi took a small dish of the holy water and brought me along the backside of the tree. Taking a bit of the water in his fingers, he flicked it onto the tree, saying "Lord Kali, please make blessings to Andrew and his journeys." He then said "What is your family name, sir?"
"Prinsen," I replied.
"Kali I ask you would bless the family Prinsen and make long life and good things for them. And the name of your wife Andrew?"
"Nope, no wife."
"Lord Kali make wife for Andrew and bring she to him soon, for he is lonely man. And what is your job Andrew?"
"Um, no job either."
"Lord Kali find for Andrew a job and bless his labor and make him very rich and successful man."
After my apparently much-needed blessings (leave it to a temple Brahmin to point out how sad your situation is) I was brought a small book that was a guest registry where I was told to write my name, my country, and how much money I was donating to the temple. Of course the three or four entries above mine had given anywhere from 1,000 to 2,500 rupees (about $25 to $62). I told Bapi that I hadn’t really planned on making a donation and that I hoped the blessings weren’t dependant on a generous gift. He said, "People give what they can give. How much can you give?" I told him that I could probably scrape 50 rupees together.
My tour ended promptly.