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| Mandala Lesson |
I visited Durbar Sq with the Palace and the temples around it. On impulse and because I liked the shop owner, I bought mandala paintings (four!!) . Mandala literally means circle. They are beautiful geometrical paintings depicting deities, lotus flowers, Buddha and mantras. Their main purpose is to aid meditation. And that in my book counts for spiritual retail therapy!
Then I went to see the Kumari, the Living Goddess. The Kumari is a little girl, before puberty, who is believed to be the reincarnation of the Goddess. The fortunate unfortunate little girl is selected from hundreds of other little girls through being subjected to secret ,weird and scary tests by the priests. She is then taken away from her family and lives in the house in Durbar Sq what I would imagine a lonely existence with all the privileges and deprivations of a godess.She is not allowed to play in case she falls and bleeds. Once she bleeds she can't be the goddess anymore. And hence, when puberty arrives, she is sent back to her family. It is said, that ex-Kumaris make lousy wives, because they are spoiled and do not know how to keep a house.
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| The Kumari's house |
The little girl that graced us with her presence on the central window of the courtyard, looking down on a bunch of voyeur tourists, was around 9 years of age. She had exaggerated kohl painted eyes and looked at us sourly for a few minutes, before she abruptly moved away. I was left with a feeling of deep pity and outrage for a young life wasted in the name of religion and tradition... or is it in the name of tourism these days?
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| Rapport with the sadhus |
Building rapport with the sadhus...not!
After that I went back to the ghats of Pashupatinath to talk to the Sadhus. When I arrived there was a cremation for a rich man going on and it was rather crowded. I asked the Sadhus a few questions but they were busy taking 100 rupee notes off tourists for photos and not much interested in talking to a weird foreign woman who wanted to know why they became sadhus, what they do all day, whether they see the spirits of the dead, whether they practise magic and why they choose to sit all day on the ghats.
I guess it would take a while for someone like me to build rapport with a bunch of Nepali men who rub ash all over their naked bodies and then paint geometrical, mystical and religious designs all over it, have long matted dreadlocks, smoke marijuana and hashish and hang out on the burning ghats.
On the other hand, given some rupees and a slack period without too many tourists might help. Too bad I don't have time anymore to find out. On Sunday at 6am I set off for the mountains.
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| Sadhus and me |
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| Cremation |
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| Cremation |
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| Sadhu |
The next 2 weeks
A 5 hrs bus drive and a a couple of hrs walk will get me to Photang where I will spend 4 days talking to the village shaman- and frankly whoever else will talk to me- to try to collect some stories. Then from there I will trek for 3 days to Bigu Gompa to collect stories from the nuns, the Rinpoche and the villagers, before trekking and busing it back to Kathmandu. All in all I'll be out there for 2 weeks.
Sitting alone and in the dark in the cold house I was trying to figure out what I am most apprehensive about. The answer is ridiculous. The phone, or lack of it. Or to be more precise the lack of texting takes away my safety blanket and leaves me imagining all sorts of disasters and evils, that it could not prevent or cure even if it worked!
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