(Written January 2)
I thought I’d find India to be a very spiritual place. From the vibrant, colorful pictures in my “Discovering Hinduism” textbook from Hinduism 210 at Northwestern, I thought India would just glow with devotion, spirituality and wisdom. By my count, four major world religions got started here (Hinduism of course, along with Buddhism (many forget this), Jainism and Sikhism (much smaller by comparison)).
So there must be something about this place. It’s incredibly vibrant, as it has, as far as I can tell, representation of basically all major world religions. The vast majority are Hindu and Buddhism has a small following as well, but there is a substantial population from the Abrahamic religions as well: Islam is the second largest religion, and Christianity has a small, but in pockets appreciable, presence (schools and hospitals built by missionaries, etc. Surprisingly to me, there are almost three times as many Christians here as Buddhists). Even Judaism has a few adherents here and there. We were in Fort Kochi, a city used by the Portuguese (or Dutch?) to trade with India. After the fall of Jerusalem and the sacking of the Temple in 70 CE by the Romans, a population of Jews fled here. Amazing. Jews have been living in this part of India for about two thousand years. We visited the synagogue in the old Fort Kochi, in the “Jew Town” neighborhood. And we have felt this diversity of religions the whole trip: when we visited a cathedral in Patna, we did so as the call to afternoon prayers was being sung from the mosque across the street.
In Kochi (Southern India) – Jew Town
Dave and Saumya stroll through quaint, colonial Jew Town in Fort Kochi.
What has really surprised me is how much people get into Christmas here. While we were touring in southern India, we saw Santa Claus, Christmas trees, reindeer, fake snow, Christmas Lights, snowflakes, huge lit paper stars, etc. It seems Christmas just becomes part of the national calendar, even though 2.3% of the population is Christian. This may come from the fact that Christmas has such a strong commercial component in the West.
Scary, red-faced (boozy?) Santa Claus in the Kochi airport. You see this same Santa mask all over the place. I found it creepy.
We’re certainly on the tourist route, and that may explain a lot why the bustling consumerism of Indian cities has drowned out the quiet, spiritual places. The India we have seen so far is loud and crowded and pushy and dirty. Hinduism is everywhere, but in a diffuse way. Every home has an altar, and there are altars on street corners, and embedded into recesses into walls you’ll find a little Ganesha or Vishnu with some flowers, fruit and a dull incandescent bulb. Mandirs, or temples, of various sizes and sophistication pop up all over the place. I guess I imagined that I’d have to push sramanas and yogis and gurus out of my way just to get a decent cup of chai. I suppose I naively expected to see the wise masters of Hinduism and Buddhism venerated under the trees where they would meditate and levitate and exhort the people on matters of the soul.
When I got my boarding pass in Kochi to fly to Patna, the printer cuts off at the sixth letter of the first name. My full name was thus shortened to “Christ Orvin.” I appreciated the compliment (?). Later, in Patna, Saumya’s grandmother, Dadi, had trouble with my first name and sanctified my English first name further: she called me “Krish,” short for Krishna. Let’s put the Krishna back in “Merry Krishmas!”
Oh, Jet Airways, you flatter me (?)!
India has been, of course, a mixing of the spiritual and the material, as the whole world is. I thought to myself on Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving and HighHoly Day of capitalism, that early Christians took a pagan holiday (winter solstice) and decked it out with Christian imagery and called it our own (Christmas trees come directly from pagan practices). We also did this with Easter (I think eggs, bunnies, etc. are pagan signs of fertility). I realized that our modern paganism of capitalism has taken the holiday back.
On Christmas Day I tried to find a church with English services in Patna. I couldn’t find one, although I did find a closed church, with a courtyard swimming with people. A large statue of Mary was being venerated with candles, fire and garlands of flowers. People just seemed to be chilling out on the steps of the church; kids were playing games and the teenage boys were either trying to look cool or flirt with the girls. The door was locked, but the church was decorated for the season. Long strands of blinking colored Christmas lights were draped from the roof and down the walls. The statue of Christ with arms raised was surrounded with by blinking lights and an LED sign wishing everyone a merry Christmas. Viraj, Saumya’s irreverent brother, who was tasked with finding a church for the Christian, said it looked like a casino. Maybe this is the complete union of the material and the spiritual, when our churches look like casinos.
I thought I’d find India to be a very spiritual place. From the vibrant, colorful pictures in my “Discovering Hinduism” textbook from Hinduism 210 at Northwestern, I thought India would just glow with devotion, spirituality and wisdom. By my count, four major world religions got started here (Hinduism of course, along with Buddhism (many forget this), Jainism and Sikhism (much smaller by comparison)).
So there must be something about this place. It’s incredibly vibrant, as it has, as far as I can tell, representation of basically all major world religions. The vast majority are Hindu and Buddhism has a small following as well, but there is a substantial population from the Abrahamic religions as well: Islam is the second largest religion, and Christianity has a small, but in pockets appreciable, presence (schools and hospitals built by missionaries, etc. Surprisingly to me, there are almost three times as many Christians here as Buddhists). Even Judaism has a few adherents here and there. We were in Fort Kochi, a city used by the Portuguese (or Dutch?) to trade with India. After the fall of Jerusalem and the sacking of the Temple in 70 CE by the Romans, a population of Jews fled here. Amazing. Jews have been living in this part of India for about two thousand years. We visited the synagogue in the old Fort Kochi, in the “Jew Town” neighborhood. And we have felt this diversity of religions the whole trip: when we visited a cathedral in Patna, we did so as the call to afternoon prayers was being sung from the mosque across the street.
In Kochi (Southern India) – Jew Town
Dave and Saumya stroll through quaint, colonial Jew Town in Fort Kochi.
What has really surprised me is how much people get into Christmas here. While we were touring in southern India, we saw Santa Claus, Christmas trees, reindeer, fake snow, Christmas Lights, snowflakes, huge lit paper stars, etc. It seems Christmas just becomes part of the national calendar, even though 2.3% of the population is Christian. This may come from the fact that Christmas has such a strong commercial component in the West.
Scary, red-faced (boozy?) Santa Claus in the Kochi airport. You see this same Santa mask all over the place. I found it creepy.
We’re certainly on the tourist route, and that may explain a lot why the bustling consumerism of Indian cities has drowned out the quiet, spiritual places. The India we have seen so far is loud and crowded and pushy and dirty. Hinduism is everywhere, but in a diffuse way. Every home has an altar, and there are altars on street corners, and embedded into recesses into walls you’ll find a little Ganesha or Vishnu with some flowers, fruit and a dull incandescent bulb. Mandirs, or temples, of various sizes and sophistication pop up all over the place. I guess I imagined that I’d have to push sramanas and yogis and gurus out of my way just to get a decent cup of chai. I suppose I naively expected to see the wise masters of Hinduism and Buddhism venerated under the trees where they would meditate and levitate and exhort the people on matters of the soul.
When I got my boarding pass in Kochi to fly to Patna, the printer cuts off at the sixth letter of the first name. My full name was thus shortened to “Christ Orvin.” I appreciated the compliment (?). Later, in Patna, Saumya’s grandmother, Dadi, had trouble with my first name and sanctified my English first name further: she called me “Krish,” short for Krishna. Let’s put the Krishna back in “Merry Krishmas!”
Oh, Jet Airways, you flatter me (?)!
India has been, of course, a mixing of the spiritual and the material, as the whole world is. I thought to myself on Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving and High
On Christmas Day I tried to find a church with English services in Patna. I couldn’t find one, although I did find a closed church, with a courtyard swimming with people. A large statue of Mary was being venerated with candles, fire and garlands of flowers. People just seemed to be chilling out on the steps of the church; kids were playing games and the teenage boys were either trying to look cool or flirt with the girls. The door was locked, but the church was decorated for the season. Long strands of blinking colored Christmas lights were draped from the roof and down the walls. The statue of Christ with arms raised was surrounded with by blinking lights and an LED sign wishing everyone a merry Christmas. Viraj, Saumya’s irreverent brother, who was tasked with finding a church for the Christian, said it looked like a casino. Maybe this is the complete union of the material and the spiritual, when our churches look like casinos.
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