Page 9 - Digital Cornice Grade 9

DESCRIBING A PLACE

Religious Building

By: Kaibalya B. Bista

The hum of Hindu prayers and the ringing bells echo everywhere
around Pashupatinath. Red ‘abhir’ scattered all over the place makes the
temple grounds look like a murder scene straight out of a movie. Bright
‘diyos’ on a wooden table along with joss sticks stuck on fruits with a
relatively strong smell can be seen. Passionate Hindu followers rush to
worship their deities pushing everyone in the crowd.

Meanwhile, I grip on to my mother’s clothes for dear life in an attempt
to not get lost in the crowd or as my mom would put it - get taken by a
‘Jogi.’ Of course, now that I am older, I know that Hindu monks mean
no harm to me. But as a child, my parents would say, ‘Eklai eklai
nabhaga, nabhae Jogi le timlai chorera lagcha.’ My young, innocent self
used to be terrified. Now that I think about it, I guess it was a pretty

good strategy to make me stay close to them.

After waiting in the terrifyingly long line, for what felt like millenia, we
reached the temple. There was a group of temple caretakers to whom
we offered some money. Although we had waited a very long time to
enter the temple, all we did was: put on some tika, bow to the gods as a
gesture of respect (dhogne), walk around the temple, do some more
worship and puja, then proceed to leave the temple. Despite the temple
being made for Hindus, there are many tourists, especially Chinese or
Korean, bringing a pop of colour to the temple with their selfie sticks
and tennis caps. The look of awe and admiration on their faces when
they see the unique Pagoda and Shikhar-style temples brings me a sense
of pride.

It surely isn't a Hindu temple without pigeons and monkeys lurking in
every corner of the place. There is a small shop around the corner where
we buy corn and feed it to the pigeons. The monkeys simply come to us
and snatch whatever we have in hand. Greedy creatures.

Alas, no matter how boring the puja is, and how tiresome the day seems
to be, somehow I always end up having fun. It brings me an indefinable
feeling of peace and clarity that I thought I would never find. Lastly, the
way back from the exhaustingly long trip, also brings a relaxing good
night's sleep in the car.

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