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If I were Brahmā, ‘the all pervading, imminent and transcendent (Hindu) Godhead’ as described in the Bhagavad Gita the holy book of the Hindus, I would choose to be the element of water, and the exact coordinates of my birthplace would be the middle of Pushkar lake in Rajasthan, India. If I had known that temples and palaces with sky blue and white-washed walls would be built around my birthplace, I would name this exact spot in Pushkar lake. I would not mind incarnating as the waters of Pushkar if I had been told that beautiful Rajasthani women in brown skin and long hair of dark coal would surrender themselves to my being ‘… like the leaf of a lotus floating clean and dry’ (Bhagavad Gita).
When Hindu gods released a swan which dropped the lotus in its beak to create the area where Pushkar lake is today, Brahmā, being a Godhead, must certainly have expected the construction of more buildings for the increasing number of tourists around this beautiful lake. He might have also been able to forsee the sewage from these buildings with dog urine, cow dung and pigeon droppings sneaking down into the lake water within each second of the day.
After Brahmā performed a grand yagna – a ritual of sacrifice – which accelerated the formation of the lake area where the swan dropped the lotus, the waters of Pushkar lake, unlike the one today, was probably more crystal clear and turquoise blue, and the green hills looked even more charming against this pure body of water. Undoubtedly, Brahmā also knew the holy lake and its surroundings would slowly be sacrificed to degradation in the name of economic development.
There was one more fact that Brahmā must certainly have predicted about the Pushkar lake after the yagna: when a soul sits on one of the 52 ghats around this attractive lake, s/he would easily lose itself in the magic of sandalwood incense, an inseparable companion of the lake, coming from all directions. At the same time, one would be mesmerized by the sunset caressing the lake and the ghats, and the chanting of the sādhus – the Hindu holy men – and the sounds of drums coming from different temples around the lake would move him or her to embrace the Hindu gods.
This is exactly how I feel when walking on the ghats crawling down into Pushkar lake. I lose my soul to its beauty and musical sounds and smell of incense, all urging my spirit to turn into a Hindu.
The same spirit momentarily takes me back to an unlikely place, to Atlanta city, Georgia, in the United States where although a Turkish Cypriot born into Islam, I almost became a Christian after listening to the intoxicating choir at Martin Luther King’s own church, the Ebenezer Baptist Church. I could easily have walked up to the priest of the church and converted, but it is not as easy to instantly become a Hindu.
‘In fact, it is almost impossible; you are born a Hindu – you do not become one,’ my Rajasthani friend Prakash from Pushkar explains later on as I tell him how Pushkar lake and the atmosphere around it are enough to lure one into moving from one spritiual dimension into another.
When I am pulled back to walk again around the circular holy lake moving from one ghat to another, I am fortunate not to be stared too much, being a tourist and a solo Western woman. However, I am very conscious of particular eyes which imprison me in every step I take. The eyes belong to some of the most fantastic and artistic creations I have ever seen: the several statues of Hindu gods and goddesses that guard the steps of Pushkar lake ghats.
There are millions of different gods and goddesses in Hinduism but the ones, whose eyes scrutnize my every move, are those of Shiva, the destroyer of the world, and Ganesha, the elephant-headed deity and remover of obstacles. They seem pleased with me, I feel, especially after I take off my slippers on the lower steps of the ghats, required of everyone who comes close to the holy lake. I am as happy as Shiva and Ganesha, as I feel I am now holy too walking with several devoted Hindu pilgirms around the lake, not minding at all the crust of dog urine, pigeon droppings and cow manure under my bare feet.
Having circled the whole lake and feeling blessed enough with visions of the holy lake, in different shades of orange during the sunset, and with the smell and ticklish sensation of the holy cow dung on my soles, I wear my slippers onto my feet fresh with the discharge they have cruised through, and start following a wedding procession of only men in the back alleys of the small town of Pushkar with a population of 14,789.
Sometimes, I lose sight of the men in the procession who are dressed in white pajamas and thick red Rajasthani turbans. The traffic of cyclists, cows, cars and vendors in the alleys block my vision. The out of tune sounds of wedding trumpets and drums, however, help me catch up with the procession and get a glimpse of the groom, also in white pajamas and a red turban, sitting solemnly on a horse taking him to the party where the bride awaits the wedding procession.
‘A wedding without a horse is incomplete,’ I remember my Rajasthani friend Prakash talking about one of the most important ceremonies of India.
“It brings bad luck,’ he adds, which instantly reminds me of strings of green peppers with a lime in the middle, dangling from the top of stores and thresholds of houses back in the alleys of Pushkar. This string is what nazar boncuğu or the evil eye stone is to Cypriots, Turcs, Greeks, Israelis, and many other cultures. It protects you against eyes that envy you for your business, success or for merely being you. However, seeing this ‘veggie protector’ against the evil eye in Pushkar, one of the five most sacred pilgrimage sites in India, surprises me, especially at it is by the holy lake itself. Once you have entered Pushkar, and especially the holy lake, I would expect one to become invulnerable to any bad luck or the envy of evil eyes. The locals in holy Pushkar, not satisfied enough with the sacred power the Godhead Brahmā has given this town, seem to want to derive even more protection from skewers of green peppers and lime.
A third day, and I am drawn again back to the holy Pushkar Lake to sit on one of its ghats called the Kishan Ghar Ghat. Right below the steps of the ghat, I cannot help but notice a western woman’s milky white skin among the brown bodies of Rajasthani women washing themselves in the lake.
She is the first westerner I see in the lake. The westerners usually sit on the ghats by the lake, like me, staring at Hindus in water washing themselves or doing pooja – the ceremonial act of showing reverence to a god or goddess through invocation, prayers, songs, and ritual.
When the western woman finishes washing herself in her kurta – a loose green shirt falling below her knees -, she says ‘good-bye’ to the other women in the lake by bowing, her palms held together in front of her chest. She walks out of the water with a smile on her face and inner peace radiating from her eyes. She suddenly spots me and comes to sit next to me on the steps of the ghat.
“There is something about this lake that many people do not know about,” she says, later introducing herself later as Jean from UK.
‘It harbors a legendary love story which is a ‘big no, no’ in Indian culture.”
I find Jean odd – like many other foreigners who come to India to become ‘hippies’ or escape from realities of their own culture. They might feel more at home, in a foreign land among foreigners. Odd, I say about Jean, but in a positive sense: ‘eccentric’ is perhaps a better word for it.
Jean, about 50, looks beautiful in her green kurta with long straight blond hair and antique silver Rajasthani jewelery ornamenting her arms, fingers, toes, ankles, neck, ears and nose.
“A western woman with a skin of pure milk used to live in Pushkar, long long time before,” Jean says, catching me by surprise. She seems to have read my thoughts about her own skin.
“She had fallen in love with a Rajasthani man, as attractive and delicious as a plain dark bar of chocolate, with sleepy green eyes of a tiger,” she giggles, covering her bright white teeth with the fingers of her right hand. They had been a secret couple, Jean continues telling her story, now using her right hand to continue drying her hair with a small white towel.
“In Indian culture, especially in small towns like Pushkar, an Indian man cannot dream of marrying a foreigner, out of fear of being an outcast and losing his family and place in the society,” she adds, reminding me of my friend Prakash from Pushkar giving me information about the same dilemma one of his friends went through a couple of years ago – he had to say good-bye forever to his family to be able to live with his western lover abroad.
”So,” Jean goes on, “the couple – ‘the chocolate bar and the milk’ – meet secretly every night in one of the back rooms of the ‘chocolate bar’s jewelery store, which is frequently visited by his family members and especially by his father who comes to the shop every morning to pray to the powerful Laxmi, the goddess of fortune. The father lights an incense stick and jabs it into the bosom of a deepak, the sand pot of the shop altar and prays for the health, happiness and prosperity of his family and himself.”
One night, Jean continues telling her story, ‘the chocolate bar’ and ‘the milk’ meet at a tiny eatery to eat chapatis, dal and chhana – a dish of flat wheat flour bread, mashed lentils and chickpeas the Rajasthanis in Pushkar eat even today. They stuff themselves as usual with the food and the happiness of their togetherness, away from the eyes of everyone else. At midnight, they go back to ‘the chocolate bar’s room at the back of the shop to spend the night but both, on this night, do not feel well and slowly fall into the arms of sleep and eventually death brought onto them by Shiva, the god of destruction and shedding of old habits.
The same night, in his dreams, the father of ‘the chocolate bar’, is visited by Vishnu, ‘the great compassionate, sustaining god of the Hindu faith’ as described in Bhagavad Gita. Vishnu, the preserver, orders the father to burn the corpses of both his son and his lover lying on the bed in the back room of the jewelery shop and spread their ashes in the middle of Puskhar lake.
“With panic,” Jean continues her story, this time with sadness in her eyes, “the father wakes up indeed to find his son and the lover on the bed, in eternal sleep, in each others’ arms.”
‘”Angry at his son for having cheated him and his culture with a white woman,” Jean moves on with a smile on her face, “but with terror of Vishnu’s order in his heart, the father burns the couple by the lake and spreads their ashes on the lake.”
My storyteller stops for a moment to greet a sādhu walking by and continues from where she left her account.
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Copyright © 2009 Sezgi Yalin
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