Cultural Proof - Bhagsunag Temple

            “Please remove your shoes,” said the sign outside the Hindu temple, though I probably could have figured this out by the pile of shoes at the bottom of the stairs.

I stood outside trying to observe as much as I could about the temple and its attendants before ascending the stairs myself. The temple looked small and even a little run-down, but that didn’t stop its visitors from showing their complete respect.

            After removing their shoes, visitors would touch the first three stairs and then their forehead before beginning their ascension. Some would even bow down, touching their head directly to the stairs.

            Partway up there hung a bell overhead. As people passed under it they would reach up, grab the clapper and ring it against the bell. Children jumped to try and reach the bell, but most could not. Of the teenagers and adults, some rang the bell softly while others gave much heartier rings. One man in attempt to impress his wife and kids, grabbed the clapper firmly and banged it as hard as he could against the bell. He laughed as it rang quite irrelevantly, but if anyone was bothered, they didn’t show it.

            To my left was a table piled high with little plastic gifts: fake flowers, bracelets, and small packages wrapped in newspaper. Here temple visitors stopped to purchase these items to take into the temple with them: an offering.

            I watched person after person go into the temple and tried to get up the nerves to ask someone if I could go in. I was pretty sure I could, as I’d seen several non-Hindu people enter, and it seems as a rule in India that temples are very visitor friendly, but I hoped that by asking someone they might let me go in with them and maybe even explain some of the temple to me.

            So I sat there, watching people go in, and tried to guess who might speak some English. Finally I asked a man, “Can I go in?” He didn’t understand. He called his son over who listened to my question and replied with a simple, “yes” and a head wag.

            Needless to say, I didn’t get the tour I had hoped for, but went ahead and took off my shoes, rang the bell, and went up the steps.

            At the top I entered a medium sized room, with pictures and statues of Gods, animal and human, surrounding the perimeter. Some people went around the room, paying tribute to each of these images, whereas others went straight to the end of a small line, which was forming near the center of the room.

            The line led to a smaller, enclosed room, which seemed to be the most important part of the temple. Just outside was a smaller cow figurine which people would touch before entering the room. There didn’t appear to be any set way of touching it, so each person would do something slightly different. My favorite was a guy who spread his thumb and forefinger and touched them to the tips of the cow’s two horns.

            To enter you had to duck and pass through the small doorway of the little round room. I myself didn’t go in, but from outside I could see that there was another figurine and a Hindu holy man sitting inside. People would go around the room, pay their respects to the figure, leave their offering if they had one, and receive a blessing from the holy man given by touching each of their foreheads.

            From what I could tell, this room was the main purpose people visited the temple. From there, people would stroll out on the temple’s terrace, and relax for a bit before finally heading back down the stairs and exiting the temple.

            I can’t say I understood everything I saw. Later on I asked some questions to try and gain a better understanding of what I had seen. However, I was surprised at how much I could learn and understand simply from observing. It helped that I knew I would be writing about my experience later on and therefore provided myself with plenty of time to watch and take notes, but afterwards it made me wonder, why haven’t I been doing this all along? So many times, whether in India, Mexico, the States, or wherever, I have rushed these kinds of experiences; taken the get-in-and-get-out approach just to be able to say I’ve seen it. But with the observer’s approach I feel like I appreciated so much more of what I saw.

            I suppose this is something I should have learned from my father years ago. When our family would go to museums, us kids would run from thing to thing spending a grand total of 5 seconds at each, while my father would lag behind trying to read all the information given about each item. Back then we just thought he was boring, but now I’m starting to see the value in spending a minute or more to really take something in. I assume it’s a hard lesson to teach to any child, as it is more their nature to try and see everything as quick as possible, but now that I’m growing up and may have kids of my own in just a few short years, I suppose it is only appropriate that I should start to slow down in the way I look at things.