Waiting for Ganesh

Yesterday’s adventure was a journey to Chidambram, a Hindu temple complex 2 hours from Pondicherry. I’ve been quite eager to visit one of these “mega” temples, and I read good things in Lonely Planet about this one. This bus ride was pretty quick, as in the driver was a madman and had little regard for lanes and/or other vehicles. However, it was amusing that one of the songs on his mix was The Rock’s WWE theme music. I had to use all of my willpower to not burst out laughing, thus attracting many more stares than I was already getting being the only tourist on the bus. When I began to wonder how close we were I spotted three towering gopurams in the distance, seemingly atop the low horizon of buildings.

The bus dropped off right in front of the temple, and I walked through the 1st gate and into the outer courtyard area. There were the gopurams flanking each end and I went to scope them out. They were packed with gods and goddesses of all sorts. Goprams can be so over stimulating, there is so much going on with the hundreds of statues, their expressions, poses, and each is painted with multiple bright colors. It’s hard to know where to look first, much less take everything in, in one viewing. Maybe that’s why I like them so much, the organized chaos. All of these things are going on at once but it is all contained on these gradiating steps to the sky.

This temple in particular is akin to the Natarjha Siva, or Dancing Siva. This is the reported location of where Siva won a dance competition to become Lord of the Dance. The gates are decorated with some of the 180 poses that Siva used to win his title. I entered the main temple and my goodness it is huge. It was definitely the largest I had ever seen. The entrance had two “L” shaped platforms on either side, with many carved pillars calculatedly spaced along them. I meandered around taking in the many shrines and marveling at the pretty well preserved 1000 year old carvings in the walls and on the pillars. The place is quite cavernous and can make you feel kind of small with the high ceilings and platforms. The amount of detail in these temples is astounding. Pretty much every inch of the place is covered with this deity or that lotus or that animal. A few of the statues had melting ghee on them, in offering, they were melting slower than I’ve seen ghee offerings lately since yesterday was the first in forever that the temperature didn’t make me sweat profuesely the moment I stepped outside. I think I only took one shower that day. Hooray!

After exploring the many areas and crevases of the temple, I asked when the fire ceremony was. I had read about this ceremony in my guidebook and thought I’d check it out. Apparently I had 30 minutes or so before things got started so I picked a largely empty spot, not a hard thing considering that regardless of the many people at the temple that day for worship, some parts were quite peaceful and empty.

I began writing and a couple curious people stopped by to chat, ask what I was doing, where I was from etc. One of the many white sheathed, powder caked, top knotted priests even stopped quickly to ask my country of origin. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary until that same chunky priest came to me again, this time holding out his cell phone, saying that there was someone on the other end who wished to speak with me.

Confused and with trepidation I took the call. On the other end was another priest, named Ganesh, who began chatting with me, asking the same introductory questions, how I was liking the temple and so on. He requested that I stick around for a bit because he wished to meet with me and show me around the temple. I had been looking for a guide, to little success (of course the one time I’m looking to hire one they’re nowhere to be found) so I decided to chill. I went to watch the fire ceremony, which was much less grand than I expected, but still interesting to watch. A crowd of people grouped up in front of one open set of doors of the “altar” area, or at least I assumed that’s what it was because it had the most candles and priests positioned around and on otp of it. There was a sudden cacophony of bells of all sizes as things began, to wake up the gods. The priests chanted their mantras as the worshippers mumbled theirs softly. Afterwards there were many blessings passed out.

I headed back to the station where the 1st priest was, to wait for Ganesh. We talked amongst ourselves before the man himself came and apologized for his tardiness. He was tall, thin and muscular. He had a beaky nose and perched on top were very thick lensed glasses, covering one lazy eye. His hair was in the typical top knot with shaved underside. He was wrapped in white cloth and a red sash and had white powder streaks up and down his arms and torso. Since we were in front of the shrine he gave me the tikka and the blessing himself. He referred to it as just doing his job.

We sat not far away in between two pillars and he told me how he came to talk to me earlier on the phone. I guess the 1st priest knew that he wanted to get in touch with a friend (Ganesh has 3000) of his from America, but he had lost her details. Seeing that I happen to be from the states he thought it was me and gave Ganesh a call.

He also generously gave me a small bottle of jasmine perfume because he just likes to give things, he said. He talked for a bit about God and all things otherworldly and divine, what you might expect from shooting the shit with a Brahman in the middle of the afternoon in a 1000 year old temple in India. He asked me what I thought of these things and I replied truthfully. He also wondered why I chose this temple, and I told him my guidebook. He insists that no one chooses to come here, but they are guided by the Natarjha. To his credit, the link to Dancing Siva is one of the reasons that this temple interested me. That particular form of Siva in art is one that I am quite keen on. After all, the love of dance is a thing that Siva and I have in common, with both love to bust a move. Ganesh did some astrology/numerology for me, it was very positive. He said that this will be a good year for me because one of my lucky numbers is 6 and since I will be 24, the two numbers individually add up to 6. Also, upon noting that my birthday was next week, he told me he’d send me spiritual sweets and prayers via the moon and that I should watch out for them. I told him most definitely, and thanked him for the gesture.

When we were done talking he explained further about some parts of the temple and took me in his auto to the hotel that I intended to have lunch at. From there I headed back to Pondi.

This was quite the interesting day for sure, one I am not likely to forget anytime soon. I’m very happy that fate lead me to Ganesh and he to me because he is a kind and interesting dude, no wonder he has so many friends. At least I can check off, chat spirituality with a Hindu priest off of my India bucket list.