June 14, 2001

OLD DELHI, INDIA (June 2, 2001)

Dear Friends and Subscribers,

When we arrived at the Delhi Airport, it was oppressively hot. I was reminded of the August night many years ago when my family and I drove into Tucson, Arizona, at 1:00 in the morning and saw a bank sign registering the temperature at 119 degrees. I have never experienced such heat again, even in the daytime, until now. It dominates everything. In the middle of the day people sleep wherever they happen to find a patch of shade. In their rickshaws, on the sidewalk, in the porticos of the temples and mosques. We are constantly stepping over people, and it doesn't seem to bother them or even wake them. At night, everything comes alive: Children play, locals bargain, lorries caravan from city to city, and scooters fill the roads.

Don't get me wrong--scooters and cars fill the road during the day, too, and people are everywhere. But during the day, with the heat pounding down, everyone instinctively conserves energy, working as necessary but resting in shady spots whenever possible. At one point today, with all the merging and purging of the traffic lanes, our driver hit another car. No one was injured, the dents were minimal, and both vehicles were still mobile. Without even stopping, the two drivers glanced at the damage, looked at each other, shrugged, and kept driving. It just wasn't worth the effort to get out and argue. Compare that to our taxi driver in Brussels!

Our first stop today was the Lakshmi Narayan Temple, a red sandstone temple inlaid with white marble built in the twentieth century to the Hindu goddess of wealth. One enters the temple by passing beneath a bell, which the faithful ring as they enter by leaping up to reach the clapper. Mark, who will never outgrow his boyish love of games and challenges, leapt up to show that he could do it and looked around for a high-five. Our guide, a follower of Vishnu, explained that to the Hindu, everything is about energy and vibration. One comes to the temple to regain energy from the gods, and it begins with the vibration of the sound waves set in motion by the bell.

Yoga is about energy too--the lotus position in yoga lengthens and straightens the spine so that energy travels by the most direct route from the tailbone to the top of the head. Not quite what Mark had in mind, but he definitely gains energy from competition and challenges, so indirectly I suppose the same effect was occurring...

The temple was filled with faithful worshippers--Mark and I may have been the only tourists. One couple was having an audience with a priest, and seemed quite happy with whatever he was telling them. I have always had a keen interest in comparative religions, and after having just visited Egypt, Greece and Rome last month, I was especially interested in the similarities with Hinduism. Recognizing my genuine interest, our guide enthusiastically showed us through the entire building, explaining the duties and personalities of the different gods and goddesses displayed. I noticed that many of their goddesses shared the same icons as the Greek and Roman goddesses: I saw Athena's owl, Leto's swan, Isis and Aphrodite's mirror, Hera's peacock and her cow, Poseidon's trident, and Apollo's quiver, to name a few. The Hindus also have a flood myth (as do 500 other cultures around the world). It convinces me that there is a core religion somewhere, if we could just trace the branches back far enough.

Next we visited the Jama Masjid or Friday Mosque, a seventeenth century edifice capable of holding 25,000 worshippers at once, set on a hill near the Red Fort and the old marketplace of labyrinthian alleyways. Required, as always, to remove our shoes, I was grateful for the woven mats that were placed on the steaming red sandstone plaza to protect our feet. Even then, we kept to the shadows as much as possible, stepping over the sleeping visitors and around the praying believers as we toured. By this time we were desperate for some water, but of course avoided the public fountains where local people lined up and shared the metal dippers. Our guide took us to a small store that seemed safe enough for our western stomachs, and we remembered to we check the seals before drinking the cold liquid. Our guide opened his throat and downed half a liter in one guzzle. This is a hot country!

We visited the Raj Ghat, a peaceful park that has become India's Shrine Gardens, with memorials marking the cremations of Mahatma Ghandi, Indira Ghandi, and Rajiv Ghandi, all killed by assassins, reminiscent of the Kennedy clan. Like the Kennedys, Ghandi's memorial is marked by an eternal flame. We also went to the home where Ghandi was living when he was killed, and walked in the footsteps that mark the path he took on that final day. Our guide told us that several years ago he led a group of young men who seemed more interested than usual in the details of the assasination. It turned out that they were the grandsons of the assasin!

Outside the house I had my first experience with a cobra: a snake charmer was teasing it out of a basket, and it faced him fully hooded. He also had a rat snake and a python. They finally convinced me to pose with the python, with the cobra and rat snake securely enclosed inside their covered baskets, but even then it still gave me the willys to be so close! (It wasn't until later that our guide told me the cobras are defanged. Eventually the fangs grow back, but by that time the snakes have been let back into the wild--the snake charmers' religion requires them to let the snakes go after three months.)

My favorite stop of the day was the Qutab Minaret Complex, where twelfth century Moslem conquerors dismantled and remodeled a tenth century Hindu temple to build a vast Mosque complex. The 72-meter five-tiered minaret of intricately designed sandstone is all that remains intact, but I enjoyed exploring the ruins even more than I enjoyed seeing the working mosque and temple this morning. There is something about exploring the rubble of a once-bustling city that allows me to sense the history and atmosphere of a previous civilization even more than seeing it fully restored. Our guide pointed out the obliterated images where the Moslems, offended by idolatry, had removed the Hindu action scenes before reusing the materials for their mosques, and then he showed us one undamaged scene up in a corner that had been overlooked by the conquerors. He also pointed out the way one can tell the difference between the coffin of a male and the coffin of a female Moslem (you may already know this, but I found it interesting): a man's coffin will have an instrument on it, while a woman's will have a slate, the idea being that a woman's life is a blank slate until and unless a man writes upon it. (!) He also gave us his opinion of the Moslem requirement for women to cover themselves: "Women must cover themselves in Moslem culture to avoid stimulating the man who might see her, even accidentally. Hindus teach that a man should control himself, regardless of what he sees." I'm sure that's an oversimplification, but I like the Hindu implication of self-control, self-determination, and personal responsibility.

After spending the day in 115 degree temperatures and 90 percent humidity, we felt sticky, dusty, and grateful for our rooftop swimming pool. Several Indian families were splashing, playing, and swimming laps when we arrived to cool off in the refreshing water. I think we are the only Americans at our hotel. Everyone is very friendly and kind, and we feel quite welcome here in India.

Early to bed tonight--tomorrow morning we leave at 6:30 for Agra and the Taj Mahal!

-- Jo Ann Skousen

email: jaskousen@mskousen.com

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