Pushkar: A Holy Place
Boye and I arrived in Ajmer (one of the larger cities in Rajasthan) early in the day. We found ourselves a taxi, and drove straight to our hotel in Pushkar. The road from Ajmer to Pushkar is a road climbing up a hill, and then after passing by some large rocks the smaller town of Pushkar reveals itself over the landscape.
We were a bit tired after travelling and went straight to the hotel. The hotel was like a resort with a large lawn, decent swimming pool and butlers serving us tea and drinks. I think we very much enjoyed the comfort and not least peace. The last few days in Bundi had been quite exciting, but maybe a little noisy with the festival going on throughout the evenings. We rested out well the day before going for a quick sightseeing trip in the evening.
The next day we headed out early. Just seeing the town the evening before, as we drove into town, had already filled me with excitement. Similar to Bundi, this was not a particularly large town. If anything Pushkar seemed a bit smaller than Bundi even.
Here again we met the famed Indian camel, which we hadn’t seen since Jaisalmer. One of the locals driving this camel, stopped next to Pushkar lake, and I caught this picture. It was wearing quite the rudimentary reins and tack, and I didn’t envy the camel as it didn’t look comfortable, but it turned out to be a nice picture nonetheless.
Pushkar houses a lake, which is holy to the Hindus and the Sikhs. Thousands go on pilgrimages to this holy lake and town each year. We arrive unwarned and unaware of the religious scams that apparently are all too common these days. As we visited one of the many temple complexes surrounding the lake, some Indians were maybe too eagerly dragging us with them down to the water to perform some kind of rituals.
Boye and I played along, we simply thought this was some special Brahmans, who although a bit too energetically and eagerly wanted us to pray with them, was just performing a typical ritual for Hindu pilgrims. I got a bad feeling when the “brahman” started to ask how much money I was gonna donate. He convinced me I should give at least 500 rupees, but then he pointed out that if I had a large family I should give 500 rupees for each family member to make sure they were all protected. When I refused to give more than 500 rupees two of his friends came to talk with me, and they seemed quite threatening. I said, okay I have to go to the ATM. They followed me as I left around the corner back into the town streets. I pretended to use an ATM. I said to them I had forgotten my bank card, but that they could have the 500 rupees (that I had already shown them).
I understood very well at this point that something was really fishy, but I was a bit intimidated by these two large Indians that had followed me to the ATM machine. Also Boye was still down by the temple complex. I rushed back to Boye and explained to him in Norwegian that it was about time to get the heck out of here. I think Boye handed the brahman 1000 rupees, that he had been convinced to part with, and we rushed out of there. We both agreed the whole situation had been quite uncomfortable, but in the end we hadn’t parted with too much cash and got out of the situation without too much hassle.
I want to point out that everyone else we met the rest of the day, such as the pilgrim Boye is depicted together with here, were very friendly. The pilgrim explained to us a thing I had been wondering about. There were several women walking around the town selling bundles of straw. The pilgrims buy the straw to feed the holy cows roaming the streets of Pushkar, thus increasing their own karma. You could also say the pilgrims increase their karma just by buying the straw, as it is understood that the women are in need of this money to feed themselves and their families.
Next day we went to a special temple in the town centre that Boye had read was a famed temple in Pushkar. In the temple we ended up talking to the brahman Manish, which similarly to brahmans we met earlier in the journey, talked calmly and with a more friendly tone. He wondered which temple we had been to, to get the holy wristbands we were wearing. We explained what we had experienced the day before. Manish’s face turned to gloom as we elaborated on our uncomfortable experience the day before. He explained to us that these people who had done the religious ritual with us were not real brahmans, but simple thugs and scammers.
Manish had been very friendly to us, and his oratory skill in retelling stories from the vedic texts was inspiring. We wanted to donate some token amount to the temple after he had done the rounds with us, but he absolutely refused to take our money. He explained that as we had given money to the brahman impostors our karma was already good, and it was not our karma but the thieves karma that was negatively affected by their scamming of us.
The next day we decided to go for a mountain hike. Pushkar is certainly a place of natural beauty. Walking up to the top of the hill South West of town centre, we saw both many pilgrims but also what looked more like Indian tourists. The hill houses the Savitri Devi Temple, but also large flocks of roaming monkeys.
The view was beautiful from the top of the mountain. We could see mostly all of Pushkar from up atop, and the town looked so serene. Far away in the distance to the West we could see the more arid and sand filled planes, and the local camel safaris were all converging towards this area. We had a good time just sitting, talking and enjoying the view up on this small mountain. Being a Western Norwegian I’m quite used to mountains, the whole experience felt weirdly reminiscent, although there were so many ecological differences I could have pointed out as well.
We took it easy the last evening. We ate at a pleasant restaurant in the town centre, and just took in what we had experienced in the last few days.
I sit back thinking of the spiritual energy in Pushkar. The pilgrims, the many, many temples, the Brahman Manesh and the women selling their straw bundles. There is also such a contrast in the experience of the scammers tricking and intimidating us, and all the rest of our experiences in the town. I hope all my readers have a great weekend. Cheers!