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A few nights ago there was a group of people singing and drumming in the ashram where I’m staying to commemorate an episode in the mythology of Krishna and Vrindavan. This episode is said to have happened on that day:
Radha, Krishna’s lover, was sitting at the bank of the Yamuna River, at Brahma Ghat (where the ashram is now). She was with eight of her closest girlfriends, and she was upset because Krishna had not come to see her. Actually, he came in the form of a bee, flying inland from the river, and sat on her toe, though she didn’t recognize him at first.
Robyn (my advisor and host) told me this story, and it has been confirmed by others: In 1992 on that day, the same song was being sung at Brahma Ghat to celebrate this story, and a bee flew in from the Yamuna River to that spot. Robyn saw it – she said people went nuts! They understood the bee to be Krishna. They built a shrine there, and the bee returned and flew inside the shrine, and hung out there for awhile before it left.
To top it off, bees really aren’t common in Vrindavan. People say they usually live further north. There are tons of yellow wasps, but I’ve only seen bumblebees here on one occasion.
Here is a photo of a tapestry illustrating the story and also one of the shrine.
Here, religious waste is treated differently than household waste. Broken statues, incense packets, song books, and other items are saved and accumulated in the home, sometimes for years. On a certain day, the lot is finally released into the Yamuna River, which is considered to be a goddess herself. Robyn came upon this scene in Agra this summer.
Smaller versions of this take place daily at the river. Men and women come with plastic bags full of ashes or garlands. They either chuck the bag into the river unceremoniously, or they empty the contents and save the bag.
These women sell little bowls of flowers with a candle that you can release into the water.
David Haberman wrote a great book about how massive environmental damage to the Yamuna is affecting its identity as the “goddess of liquid love”, preparing all who bathe in her waters for loving devotion of Krishna. One interesting thing that Haberman observed is that environmentalists get the best results when they tie working for the health of the river to service of the goddess. Also, some see the river’s divinity as protecting it from pollution, while other see the pollution as killing the goddess.
A few days ago I went with Robyn and Ravindra to some temples to see statues of Durga the festival Navaratra. I read an article, by Patrick J. Finn, about the process by which these statues are made. They are sculpted out of local mud and then elaborately painted, dressed, and accessorized. They are installed in temples all over the city for nine days. Parties are thrown with lots of food. At the end of Navaratra, the statues are taken in a procession and submerged into the Yamuna River. The mud statue dissolves.
Look at all the food! 51 different kinds of sweets.
We were given a tip that one of the statues was going to be taken to the river tonight. We went at around 6 PM, and waited for over an hour. It was getting dark, and we had expected the statue to come by then, so we gave up and started walking home. On our way back, we met with the procession, which consisted of a music-playing-vehicle in front, then a crowd of dancing young men, then women walking, and then a tractor with the statues and some kids. Everyone was celebrating. We joined the procession and followed it to the river. The statues were set on the river bank, given puja (worship with food, incense, and candles), and then some young men waded with them into the river and submerged them.
Here are some photos. Try also to imagine the sound of singing and drumming and the smell of incense and sweets and smoke, as well as the commotion of a crowd of happy people.
The boundary between inside and outside is more porous than in the US, where everything is hermetically sealed. Hallways are open to the air, sometimes uncovered, so it rains inside. There are little holes at the base of walls where dust from sweeping is pushed outside, and where chipmunks enter and exit. Ants, frogs, small lizards, and mice all live in the ashram. Once I was sitting in the main hall and a pigeon was repeatedly swooping in a wide arc in and out of the main door. It was building a nest inside. No one has tried to take the nest down. Yesterday in the stairwell there were all these tiny crickets chirping and jumping around.
They do have bars on the windows to keep out the monkeys, but a few days ago, three monkeys somehow got into the kitchen. This 100 year old woman chased them out:
This morning I went for a walk to take pictures of this ancient-looking tree near the ashram. It’s the Kadamb tree where, according to legend, Krishna mischievously hid the clothes of the gopis, his cowherd girlfriends, while they bathed in the Yamuna River.
I got this from Wikipedia. That's Krishna in the yellow and his wife, Radha, next to him. Those are Kadamb trees.
While there, someone advised me not to take my shoes off or else monkeys would steal them. Sure enough, I saw a woman take off her shoes, and a monkey stole one immediately. I took my camera out to take some pictures, and while I was taking some, a monkey bit my foot! He was trying to steal my sandal with my foot still inside! People around there asked a boy to take me to a local doctor. The doctor turned out to be an older dude in a yellow waistcloth and no shirt who has his own little informal storefront clinic. The man cleaned my wound and put iodine and a bandage on it, secured with black electrical tape.
Then I went back to the ashram and found Robyn in her office. I told her what happened, and that I should get a Rabies shot. She made some calls, and we went to a more western-style clinic where I was given the first of a course of five shots that I will take over the next month.
After that, Robyn was telling me how surprised she was at the boldness of the monkey. She had never heard of a monkey attacking someone’s shoe with their foot still inside. She said she was scared of them, and she recommended that I walk around with a stick to fend them off. She stopped to look at canes, to buy one for each of us, and at that moment, a monkey emerged from the gutter and bit my other foot! We purchased the canes, and warily walked back to the ashram. The medicine I’m taking will conveniently work for both bites at once!
