Photo: Flickr/Pavangupta
Pushkar Lake in central India is unnaturally vibrant green in color and has a visibility no greater than half of a foot down. An accumulation of tobacco wrappers, cardboard boxes, and diapers clog the shores which sit stagnant and breed mosquitoes. This is India’s holiest lake.
To devout Hindus, the lake represents cleanliness and creativity. While the idea of physical purity is fundamental to Hindu belief, the notion of such freedom from contamination also extends to the metaphorical purity of mind, body, speech, and action. Ironically, although 60 percent of India’s population is Hindu, visitors to the subcontinent find economic corruption rampant, treatment of women atrocious, and environmental degradation to be some of the worst in the world.
While Pushkar is indeed a place of pilgrimage, it is also home to the biggest camel mela– or trade show– in the world. In recent years, the mela has become an enormous fair-like celebration week during which many of Pushkar’s traders make enough money to sustain themselves for the remainder of the year. The spirit of the fair also created an enormous influx of drug trade, turning the small town into one of India’s largest drug hubs, in turn increasing Pushkar’s popularity among travelers. Bhang—the dried leaves and shoot of marijuana leaf— are readily available in any form, and restaurants in the Sadar Bazaar offer tourists treats like the ‘special lassi’, to make their visit ‘more spiritual’. Thus, Pushkar has also become a popular resting place for washed-up, new-age hippie travelers attempting to discover a spiritual meaning to life. The result of such a combination is a town crawling with con artists, bustling with holy men, and with an economy created to connive money from two of India’s easiest targets: tourists and the pious.
Making my own way down the steps of the Pushkar Lake, I was immediately confronted by a man in a white Indian-style suit who began to explain the mystic powers of the water before me. According to Hindu belief, Brahma—the God of creation, time, and all causation—dropped a petal of a lotus flower on the site of Pushkar after avenging the murder of his children by the evil demon Vajra Nabha. From the petal sprang the lake and the city, a holy site for Brahma.
The priest also informed me that it might be of interest to visit the famous Brahma Temple, one of few in the world, located in Pushkar. He explained that, in mythological literature, Brahma used this site for a self-mortification sacrifice that required that his wife, Savritri, be present. When she failed to join him, he married a girl from a nearby village. Out of anger, his wife swore that he would never be worshiped anywhere else in the world, and she nearly succeeded: the temple remains one of four in the world.
When he finished his story, I noticed that he had led me down the staircase of a ghat–a small temple with stairs used to access the lake waters– which was white marble and spotted with cows that roamed freely and left a trail of excrement trickling into the lake. While the cows deposited their digested meals at the feet of the holiest lake in India, the man insisted I take of my shoes quickly as the Hindu’s believe shoes to be impure. Amused, I removed mine, and followed him across the stairs to a covered area.
Like so many places in India, the scene was an odd mélange of the holy, the tourist, and those trying to take advantage of the two. Aided by the priest who had told me the story of Brahma, a flower vendor handed me a tray, and together, the two men piled it with three bowls, a stack of wilted flowers, and brilliant red powder. Before I could question, I was hurried down the steps to the lake’s edge. The priest pushed me into sitting position and ran down to the water to fill the bowls. Returning, he quickly recited Hindu mantras and demanded that I repeat after him, reprimanding me for stopping or contemplating. I stopped short when I recognized the words, “and you will pay me 350 rupees”—or $8 American. I skipped over those words and allowed him to dip my fingers in the filthy water and then apply the water and red powder to my forehead. Tying a red string around my wrist, he demanded, “350 rupees for the good wishes of your family.” I smiled at him and told him that I owed him nothing because I hadn’t repeated that line. Sensing impending anger, I stood up, dropped a five-rupee coin onto the tray, and ran up the steps, side-stepping the enraged holy men who yelled after me, disturbing all those who sat in prayer.
The pilgrimage, which occurs simultaneous to the camel mela, also attracts tourists from across the world. As a result, ‘false priests’, such as the friendly character I met, make a living by conniving unassuming victims into paying for a faux religious experience.
Following the false priest’s advice, I made my way along the Sadar Bazaar to the Brahma Temple. At the entrance, yet another man in white thrust flowers into my hands, whisked me up the steps, and explained that he would be my guide and assured me I only need pay him, “as I wished.”
He then led me up the stairs and to the top of the walls of the temple. From my vantage point, I could see Pushkar’s 52 palaces and 500 other temples representing the Hindu, Sikh, Muslim, and Buddhist faiths, as well as the lake, rippling from the bathing pilgrims. Beyond it all, I could see the outskirts of the Islamic neighboring city of Ajmer where, five days later, Bangladeshi extremists would detonate a bomb in a mosque and kill two and injure seventeen.
Leaving the temple, I was forced to pay a small boy who had stolen my shoes at the entrance for their return. While I waited, a man asked me for my donation. Reluctantly, I dropped another 5-rupee coin into the tin, slipped on my sandals, and began walking down the street. As I walked, I could hear the calls of my guide, “ma’am, your money! You have forgotten to give me your money!”
About the Author : Annie Hay is a student in Portland, Oregon where she is majoring in International Affairs and writes for the student publication, The Pioneer Log. She has just returned from her second study abroad experience, this time in India. When she is not traveling, she competes in triathlons, plays classical guitar, and paints.