Ayodhya & Faizabad

24-Jan-2012

I arrived in Ayodhya at 3:30 am after sleeping only 3 hours on the chilly train ride from Varanasi. Initially I was afraid of arriving at a train station when it was still dark out, but when I got there I saw many Indian people (men and women) camped out right on the floor, either waiting for a delayed train or for the sun to rise. I found a spot on a bench and tried to snooze, but couldn't sleep. No wonder those beggars look so tired--anyone would after spending even one night on concrete.

As I was waiting for the ticket station to open at 8:00, I joined some ladies doing puja around a tree. Literally, yes, they were worshiping the tree like people worship a Buddhist stupa or Hindu statue--walking round and round it in a clockwise direction, grabbing handfulls of dry rice and touching them to the trunk before offering the rice to the tree again. Many fruits, incense, and even bangles had been offered and were sitting at the base of the tree. Unfortunately the small amount of rice I was carrying in a bag became prey for a local monkey as he fiendishly snatched it out of my hands. Gotta remember those monkeys--they are devilish little bastards around these parts.

I booked a train ticket for three days in advance to Chitrakut by way of Varanasi. Then I headed into the town to look for accommodation.

Hotels were not so easy to find! The rickshaw driver took me to the only four hotels in Ayodhya, and they were all full. Hmmmm...Darn. I had to do some thinking. No place to stay, a train ticket booked for three days later, and not super excited about the rinky dink town of Ayodhya. I went back to one hotel, had them store my bag for the day, and headed back to the train station to change my ticket.

My plans morphed into taking a train the following night to Jhansi, which was a short 15 km bus ride from the small town of Orchha, which I'd heard other travelers swooning about. It sounded amazing: only 8,000 people, next to a river, easy access to walking in the countryside, old palace rooms to explore, cheap rooms and food, laid back atmosphere. As far as I was concerned, I could spend 2 weeks there until I made my way to Delhi via Agra (for the Taj Mahal) to catch my plane for Kerala, South India, on February 14. With my new train ticket in hand, I headed out to explore Ayodhya's temples. I had resigned myself to spending the night at the train station if no other accommodation could be found.

Walking around Ayodhya, it became clear to me that this town had seen far fewer tourists than the placed I'd visited so far. Regardless of age or gender, everyone stared at me. I'd never been stared at so much in my life. It made me uncomfortable, but I knew that it was simply fascination and curiosity. A few people were courageous enough to approach me with basic English and ask, "Hello! Where you come from? What your name?" The difference between here and Varanasi was that these people weren't trying to extort money from me, they were just fascinated by the presence of a white person in their town. I only saw one other white person that whole day, a middle-aged man. We smiled knowingly as we walked past each other on the noisy street amongst bleeping car horns.

I paid a visit to Hanumangarhi, the busiest temple in town. Hanuman is the flying monkey god who served King Rama (also a Hindu god). I have to say I did not feel particularly comfortable in this temple. I sat at the edge and meditated a bit while throngs of pilgrims, men and women, stared at me as they walked clockwise around the temple's inner sanctum. I wondered at their intense fascination with me during a time when they were supposedly worshiping Hanuman. Each person carried a small box of sweets which they offered to the god, then received back again as prasad. In total, I received four sugar/butter balls as gifts from friendly, curious Hanuman worshipers.

This all sounds lovely but does nothing to describe the discomfort I felt. Try as I might, I could not harmonize my energy with the collective. This was very different from being with the Buddhist pilgrims, who I'd felt right at home with. There was a more agitated, nervous, even angry energy about the people here. No one seemed to be very calm. This has been my experience so far at popular Hindu temples--they seem to be an expression of the chaos of India itself.

As I sat there and watched the throngs of Hindu pilgrims crowding close to the Hanuman statue to offer sweets and marigolds, I tried to consciously allow myself to be different. To notice the contrast between how I was and how my environment was. It started to creep me out a little, how everybody was doing the exact same thing when worshiping their god. How ALL the women wore saris. I let myself feel uncomfortable for a bit, then found my way out of the temple.

It's interesting how in most of the India I've seen so far, I never see Indian women walking about after dark. It is only men, and a few tourists. Indian men have so much freedom compared to Indian women. It seems that women can't do anything by themselves except be inside the house. It startles me to see this pattern all around me, and to see how starkly different my values are from this society. I can't even imagine what it would be like to live in a place where arranged marriage is the norm, where a young girl being seen alone with a man at the market without her family tarnishes her reputation and her chances at a good marriage, where women have a skimpy chance of finding work that pays enough to feed and clothe them, and where parents must fork over a hefty dowry as payment to the family of their daughter's future husband. Sex before marriage is still a "sin" in most sections of society, so basically everyone is a virgin until marriage. No wonder the men are so crazy here. I've heard that they watch western porn, which is mostly white women, and then when they see white female tourists that's what goes through their heads. I am so glad that I don't live here.

Anyway, back to Ayodhya...After visiting the Hanuman Temple and having some lunch, I made my way back to Ram Janam Bhumi, the temple marking Lord Ram's birthplace. On the way, I met some lovely Hindu people who spoke very good English. One of them was getting his Ph D in Sanskrit - studying Vedic Literature like Rig, Sama, and Atharva Vedas, and knew of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. Another was there with her two cousins, and worked as a professor teaching MBA students about Human Relations. Her hands were covered in henna from her recent engagement. When she heard that I had no place to stay, she said she'd take me to Faizabad at the end of the day, a town only 20 minutes away, where there were many good hotels. Her name was Sunanda.

I went with Sunanda and her two cousins to the Ram Janam Bhumi temple. The level of security there was astounding. It says in the Lonely Planet that until the '90's, a mosque stood stood in that place, but then a group of Hindu extremists bombed it and build the Ram temple that stands there today. They claimed that the mosque had been build over an earlier Hindu temple. As it stands now, the high court of India decided that the land belongs 75% to the Hindus and 25% to the Muslims, based on archaeological and historical data. Apparently there is or will be a mosque built nearby. Still, the Hindus are in constant fear of a Muslim terrorist attack at that site, and employ thousands of army and security forces, armed with guns, to guard the place. In addition to checking all my belongings at a locker by the gate, I was patted down in a private enclosure no less than four times at locations spread out along the long line to the temple.

The whole experience was strange, intense, and a little eerie. The pathways are all enclosed in cages, bars, and sometimes barbed wire. In addition to heightening security, this also prevents the vicious mokeys from stealing prasad out of people's hands. At festival time, the line of people waiting to enter the temple can stretch up to 45 kilometers long, and everyone is barefoot. For this reason, the pathways reminded me of lines at an amusment park ride - snaking around in long, winding patterns. At every turn, male and female security guards in uniform glanced at me imposingly. The air held a feeling of fear mixed with anger and anxiety. Or maybe that was just my own reaction to all the bars and security guards.

The other people waiting in line allowed me, Sunanda, and her cousins to cut in line. Sunanda said this was because I was from America, and they were being respectful to me because I'd come such a long way. When we finally reached the temple site, we were only allowed to glance at it from 20 feet away, again behind bars. I said a prayer of peace, offering sweets as prasad and receiving some in return. Then I made my way with Sunanda back through the maze of caged pathways to the main road.

The whole experience showed me an outer reflection of what an inner reality of fear and stagnation looks like. The temple's inner sanctum had an energy of sacredness and light - I felt that my prayer there was well-received. But at the same time, that light-filled place was encircled in miles of cages and armed gunmen. This seems to present a startling image of the situation of light and spirituality in our age, and of the religious ideas which so many large groups of people vehemently cling to. The light is innocent, clean, pure, and longs to free itself from the shackles imposed upon it by mankind's unnatural violence.

It had been a long day, and I was tired. I was overjoyed to finally arrive at a spacious and clean hotel room in Faizabad (after forgetting my bag in Ayodhya and going back to get it). I slept hard for 12 hours and laid in bed all morning.