Thursday, November 9 Bhubaneswar in Orissa

The train was an hour late reaching Bhubaneswar, the capital of the East Indian state of Orissa. Riding through the countryside in the morning was awesome. It was humid and overcast, but pleasant comfortable weather. Coconut trees towered over the completely green rice fields making up this tropical coastal area. It was completely rural, and Orissa is one of the most backward areas in the country. ‘Backward’ meaning old-fashioned and with the least development. This came to international attention when two Australian missionaries were burned alive for trying to convert the kept-down Dalits. The history of Orissa is somewhat of a mystery, but the area has become a center for the arts, especially carving and embroidery work. It also has one of the holiest festivals of the year in Puri. It has retained its autonomy, especially in the tribal areas, and was one area that took Ashoka and the Muslims a long time to capture. It’s a laid-back destination where few tourists venture to. Men in towel skirts were burhsing their teeth with sugar cane sticks, villagers were squatting in the fields with pails of water, kids were playing, and women carried buckets of water on their heads. The area is lush and fertile, and enjoys a wet tropical climate. As a result, rice is the main staple, and houses are constructed of mud, bricks, woven palm leaves, and universal scrap metal. It’s more like what I expected India to look like, actually. Plus, since it’s one of the poorest and most rural areas in India, all the buildings were simple and small, if not slums. The east is very backward in comparison to Western India. Delhi and Bangalore form the boundary; as a general rule of thumb, everything west of that line is more developed and wealthy, wheras everything east of that line tends to be more rural, backward, and poor. There are exceptions, of course, but when discussing economic development, many times this is the classification used. I got to Bhubaneswar around 7am. Bhubaneswar is a newly-planned city with wide avenues, however, it a very holy place for Hindus, and there are over 50 very fine temples. I booked two tours from Orissa Tourism (the state-run tours aren’t very good, but they’re cheap, take you to all the major sights in a short time, and give you some idea of what you’re looking at, plus they’re the only ones who do regular day tours instead of package tours). I got on th bus, and was the only tourist who was non-Indian and below the age of 60. We first went to Nandakanan Zoo, which sounds lame, but was awesome. I had to pay the standard Non-Indian price for everything because I couldn’t use the excuse that I’ve been using all along. Since it’s so close to Assam, the languages are similar, so they can understand the Assamese. Odissi, the local language of Orissa (although everyone speaks Hindi and many know English) is Dravidian (not related to Sanskrit) and has a cool script, which looks like a bubbly version of English, with tons of 3’s, @’s, and skull-looking letters. The zoo had tons of Royal Bengal Tigers (only one per cage since they’re solitary animals), which are awesome animals, so powerful and majestic. The zoo featured a family of white tigers, which is actually a genetic mutation, but who cares, it’s beautiful. If I don’t see any tigers this trip at the Sunderbans, then I’ll have to sette for this. The zoo also housed lions, leopards, deer, peacock, emu, alligators, snakes, rhinos, hippos, and monkeys. They had an orangutan, which pursed its lips when I stuck my tongue out, and walked back inside after I left. This is because I’m a foreigner, and it’s trained for movies in Australia, so when it sees white skin, it follows commands. It was like a was Dr. Doolittle. Some of the deers were called Blue Bull because of their bluish color (or because of the sexual problems) of the males. We drove through more hut-lined streets and coconut groves to the Udayagiri and Khandagiri Caves, meaning sunrise and sunset caves, because this is where the Jain rulers established the city at sunrise. The caves had some nice Jain carvings, and were chiseled out of a stone hill. After seeing World-Heritage Ellora and Ajanta caves, I wasn’t really impressed. The highlight of the tour and of Bhubaneswar for Hindus is the huge Lingaraj Temple, dedicated to Lord Jagganath in particular, an incarnation of Vishnu who has developed almost a cult following. The most famous festival in Orissa is the Rath Yatra in Puri, where huge floats are carried through the streets of the town, and the crowd of devotees covers the entire street. Only Hindus are allowed in the temple grounds, but apparently they don’t check (and how can they?), so I snuck past the five (useless) security guards and went into the complex. It contained huge embellished Hindu temple towers, each one devoted to a different god of the Hindu pantheon. Face-painted Brahmin priests in loincloths stood beside each altar, taking and offering the prasad to the deity. There were tons of Shiva lingas and statues of gods inside each tower. In the center of the complex was the dominating spire of the Jagganath Temple. I was ushered inside by some priests, and gave 11 Rs to the linga. But the priests demanded 201 (the extra one rupee is thought to be auspicious). I refused because all the other Indian people only have 11, and I asked why Jagganath needs money in order for me to worship him. It’s actually a really good question and one of the reasons over which I disagree with Hinduism. He replied, “You’re paying for the priest to give him flowers for Jagganath to smell.” I refused, and they made a scene in the actual inner sanctum of the temple. Very unholy. Four of them crowded around me and harassed me, asking me for more money. One asked my country and I said “Korea”. As soon as those words came out of my mouth, I was pushed by all of them and they yelled in Hindi, “Get out of here, you dirty untouchable”. I was escorted out of the temple by a security guard and was stared and scoffed at by everyone around. I was pretty embarassed. This is a Hindu temple, the religion that teaches that there are many paths to god, and that there is a deity within everything. And what makes it annoying is that by just glancing at me, they encouraged me to worship. But then, because I wasn’t specifically an Indian Hindu, I was automatically ostracized and booted out. What makes it even more frustrating is that Jains, Sikhs, and Buddhists are all allowed to enter the temple, because they are all religions derived from Hinduism. But most Koreans are Buddhist; I didn’t get a chance to tell them that. So instead, I was forcibly removed, excluded, and humiliated. After that we rode up to Dhauli Hill and ate lunch thalis. On the way, there was some graffiti; boyfriends had written they loved their girlfriends: “Anand loves Sita, Vijay loves Geetanjali, Ashish loves Pusi”. Hahahaha. We walked up the hill to the Shanti Stupa, a large white dome with alien-antennae-looking umbrellas on top. It was built in 1972 by the Nipponji Society of Japan, who advocate peace after seeing the aftermath of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The stupa marks the spot where, 2000 years ago, the warrior-king Ashoka won a bloody battle. It was a battle so bloody that the rivers ran red. He was so mortified that he turned the political conquest into spiritual self-conquest and converted to Buddhism, fostering religious tolerance and advocating peaceful coexistence and nonviolence in his vast empire. He is the model for future Indian ideals and leaders like the Mughals and Gandhi. This is why the lion-headed “Ashoka Pillars” are the official symbol of the Republic of India. Next of the sightseeing circuit were Mukteswar and Sidheswar Temples, also Vaisnavite temples with spires, intricate carvings, priests, and adorned idols. These are the first temples I’ve seen that don’t allow rubber products (I’m guessing because you’re hurting the rubber tree to extract its sap…but who uses rubber post-WWII?) The last stop was the state museum, which was actually pretty interesting. It had old Sanskrit, Persian, and Oriya scripts, old coins, amazing brass, ivory, soapstone, and wood carvings, prehistoric fossils, stuffed wild animals, and exhibits about Orissa handicrafts and tribal peoples. Orissa has a wealth of tribal Dravidian peoples, still living as they have for millenia. However, as globalization is slowly creeping into all corners of the world, their traditional way of life is under assault. It sprinkled a little, and after the tour I walked down the street in search of a hotel. After a few unenthusiastic “No Vacancy”, “400 Rs”, and “No Single Rooms”, I finally found a random one in the center of town with a clean bathroom and towels for 150 Rs. Stuff here in Orissa is much cheaper than in other places in India. Dinner, for example, was only 30 Rs. I had a full south Indian thali at a restauarant which is to Sarawana Bhavan as Fiesta is to Haldiram’s. It even had the same logo. I slept comfortably tonight. I have to take advantage of the nights in hotels, as compared to in sleeper trains. My hotel, actually, was kind of weird. I saw a cockroach, and the owner was like “There’s only one, no more in the room”. And it had an open-air vent to the outside, perfect for mosquitoes. And it’s so humid here that I was eating some crackers, and an hour later the crumbs had turn to mush.