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Travel to India. Part II: Delhi (India Gate, Hindu temple, Sikh temple)

The trip to India was a circuit employed with a company from Valencia. We thought we'd go on a bus with a group of Europeans, but it was not. Leaving the hotel we found a large Toyota with a driver and a guide, only for my wife and me.

Although the streets are wide, three or four lanes in both directions, traffic in Delhi is a mess, if we thought that Bangalore was bad, every city we were then it got worse (perhaps the fact that cars and motorcycles have to share the street with elephants and camels have something to do). Delhi is a huge city, full of people, motorcycles and small cars and noisy. The most common and inexpensive taxi is the tuc-tuc, a motorized tricycle, green and yellow very characteristic. It is a very polluted city, it was clear something from the hotel window: a cloud of pollution hangs over the city, like fog, but are not. At the end of the day we felt, with eye irritation and soot in the nose.

starting our trip in India Gate, a monument similar to the arch of triumph, which I think is also the same symbol. Is set in spacious gardens, by way of Elysian fields, ending in the presidential palace in India, home to the President of the Republic of India. India is actually a federal republic (I did not know), with a President and a Prime Minister, and is divided into federations or states.

The next visit was to a Hindu temple. It is a building of distinctive architecture, forming spaces or rooms, and each is an altar of a Hindu god. According to the guide told us, the Hindu religion has three main gods: Brahma (the preserver), Vishnu (the creator) and Shiva (the destroyer). Shiva represented as a naked man with a snake around his neck. These three gods are women, who are also goddesses, and these three gods can also be reincarnated, and each incarnation is a different god, concluded in summary that the Hindu religion has many gods. In the temple had altars with statues, but also had engraved on the walls, representing so many gods. We saw the statues of Vishnu, the creator, of Lakshmi, goddess of money and wealth, of Durga, goddess of war (and bride of Shiva), sitting on a tiger and eight arms, each holding a different weapon; Krishna, who is the handsome god of love and the many girlfriends, and his shrine is in a hall of mirrors (very appropriate), and it is a reincarnation of Vishnu, Shiva, in a particularly large room, which is mounted on a bull, and who must pray every Monday; of Hanuman, the monkey god, which must be the employer of the drivers because all his cars have a prayer card, and Ganesha, the elephant-faced god is shown seated on a rat, which is the god of prosperity and good luck.

All that we saw, and unfortunately it was forbidden to take pictures (other than you have to go barefoot walking on the cold marble), so the only ones I have are from outside the temple. Our next visit we

lead to a Sikh temple. Yes there we could take pictures, and there also we had to be barefoot, and also take off our socks, and covering the hair with a scarf. The Sikh religion was apparently prosecuted and put away until a time. According to our guide, today many of the devotees of this religion are merchants, and they all have to devote a small portion of their profits to the maintenance of the temple and a supportive chair is in the back, where da to eat every day to anyone who wants. Also according to our guide, in the Sikh religion all men and women are equal, unlike the Hindu religion formerly dominated by a caste system that still today remains deeply rooted. The caste structure from the highest of the priests, to the lowest, that of pariah, and within these the sub-caste of untouchables, who had reserved the dirtiest and most unpleasant, and should avoid contact ( to visual) with all others who were not untouchables. Returning to the Sikh, told us that extremes are vegetarians, and you can not cut hair, so the men wear turbans, because underneath their hair wrapped.

The temple is spacious, yet el suelo cubierto de alfombras. En el centro hay un altar con el libro sagrado, y en un lateral tres personas entonan cánticos todo el tiempo. En la parte de detrás está el comedor, en un espacio diáfano cubierto de alfombras, bajo las escaleras, pegado a lo que sería la cocina. Y cuando ya creía que había visto el templo entero, a un lateral se abren unas escaleras que llevan a un estanque inmenso, donde la gente hace sus abluciones diarias.

 

Y así fue la visita a un templo sikh. En la siguiente entrega, una crónica de más lugares que vimos en Delhi, como un paseo por el mercado, y una visita a dos mezquitas: la más grande de India and the oldest. my flickr page I have more pictures than they are here, if you want to take a look.

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trip to India. Part I: Wedding in Bangalore

This is my American friend, who now works in the U.S. to the World Bank. Shamir She and her boyfriend decided to marry, and wanted to celebrate in the birthplace of Shamir: Bangalore, India.

and invited us to their wedding. And off we went.

Bangalore is located in South India. It is an important technological development (although I really do not think so.) When you arrive you are typical of what you can expect: a big city, full of people, it seems that has no defined center, with wide streets in which nobody pays any attention to the rails or preference, and traffic is a chaos, mainly of small motor vehicles. Following is a very noisy city, as all drivers moving to blow the horn. Still, Bangalore was best kept to the following cities that we visited on the trip.

The wedding was a Hindu ceremony, but an abbreviated version, because apparently the Indian weddings last for days, and this "only" The ceremony lasted about three hours (with a lunch break included). Was held at the Taj West End hotel in Bangalore, a luxury hotel surrounded by gardens, in a large room that had a box of chairs and a square altar, adorned with flowers.

The ceremony went more or less as follows:

First, the couple sat outside the altar in a ritual of welcome and acceptance by the families. America by participating parents, and by his mother and sisters Shamir. This ritual consisted mainly of the priest sang songs all the time, and family threw rice at the bride and groom in the head.

After the couple have raised and have left each one to a room. Then in the back of the room served food, buffet style.

After eating, the couple returned to the room with different clothes, and go to the altar. Then the priest is chanting the whole time and telling them what to do. Shamir's sister was in charge of making the translation into English, so that the bride and her family heard what the priest was saying.

At various times during the ceremony as the priest, as the parents of America, as the mother of Shamir, rice has dropped over the heads of the couple. On one occasion the couple have stood and been tied with a rope, broke out after.

At another point, the couple and the father of America had to hold a bowl and American mother filled it with milk, and then threw flowers inside. Then

has come to believe that was the focal point of the wedding, though, as I say, do not we learned anything. Have put America and Shamir standing, facing each other, separated by a veil spread to the height of the nose. After the priest sing some songs, have lowered the veil, and Shamir has made America a lei. After the turn has come to America to do the same, but at that moment a bastard Shamir Friends have raised shoulders and poor America has had to score the garland on the head of her boyfriend (hopefully got it).

Later, another ritual has been that have brought a brazier and some wood and made a bonfire, where they laid flowers and other things such as rice and bananas. Shamir has caught the smoke with his hands and has sucked up to four times.

Another ritual that seemed important was when the couple have raised and given seven times in a circle on the altar, holding hand. It seems that each of the seven laps was to achieve a specific purpose. Ending

and have brought a container with water and rose petals, and launched into a ring. The couple had to compete to see who was before the ring. Apparently it was the first to dominate in the marriage. I think I found Shamir.

Finally, married women have been up to the altar to bless the couple. This blessing is that they first pass a lighted candle in front of the face, then throw them in the head rice.

The ceremony, the couple, as husband and wife, have come down from the altar and one by one they have stooped to all his family, touching their feet, receiving a blessing patted on the head.

And so much the ceremony, leaving many details and many other things to tell. Then there was a buffet dinner (at 19:30), and then to the apartment. The next day we were soon at the airport in order to retrieve our luggage, which had not yet arrived from Paris (thanks, Air France), and then we left for Delhi to start a circuit that would take us six days of incredible places in Delhi Jaipur and Agra, ending at the Taj Mahal and then back to Delhi to catch a plane that brought us longed back to Europe. The chronicle of this trip in future editions of this blog.

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