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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