Visiting a Mountaintop Hindu Temple

3/1/12

So after a late night I get up early before dawn (literally this time) and climb for an hour up the hill to this little temple and enjoy the devotion of those around me and sit and have a cup of black chai with ginger and a little sugar - so delicious after the exercise. Here are some pictures. Monkeys often surround Hindu temples in particular the Hanuman Temples. Hanuman has a face like a monkey. These monkeys seemed particularly glad to have their pictures taken.

 

Beawar, Bhim,Todgarh, and Agitgarh

2/19/12

 

So at the crack of dawn, or more honestly and accurately (in sabbatical time) the crack of 10 a.m. J we set out for a second day of looking at churches. Just before we set off from the site of the Diocesan church gathering, I was met by Rev. Stella of Nasirabad and presented with mementos from their recent 150 year celebration of the founding of that congregation. On our day excursion in the car we had with us Paul and the current presbyter in charge at Todgarh and Agitgarh, Rev. Eugene Frederick. We began our visits at the earliest established congregation and church of Scottish missionary founding in Rajasthan, the Schoolbred Memorial Church at Beawar, again a congregation where grandfather (JWD) had served. The name of this township began as a warning “be aware” … of thieves and robbers and was later changed to its present name with the accent on the first a.  The town as well as the church is deliberately built in a cross shape. I was invited to climb the bell tower in order to observe the whole town from that lofty height.  Then we were on to Bhim where Eugene’s family home is and we met his father, wife, and grown up children. His grandfather was a minister in Todgarh and in Nasirabad in the period shortly after JWD served in those places. We were hosted for a  wonderful homemade lunch in Eugene’s home, and his father had recollections from his childhood of JWD. He recalled his reputation as a strict church administrator, and his gifts as a pastor. The local church records indicate that JWD served Todgarh church from 1929- 1938. Todgarh is named for Col. James Todd who, after living with Indian people in very close relationship for a number of years then returned to England and wrote an important history of India and Rajasthan. This town came to be named after him. His account of the warmth and friendship he had come to appreciate among Indian people is widely regarded as being responsible for the interest of British people in coming to India, and to a degree for the missionary interest in India in the late 1850s and 60’s onwards. Todgarh church is perched on top of a steep hill and commands a wonderful view of the surrounding town and countryside for miles around. Rev. Eugene is in an honorary position as pastor of these small congregations, earning his living as a mathematics teacher in the local high school. Agitgarh’s church building  is a much more modest “house of prayer” which is essentially a one room house that was gifted to the congregation many years ago. Pausing to pray in each of these sanctuaries, sometime in silence and at other times alternating in leading prayer aloud was a moving experience. They reminded me of some of the small buildings and church structures of congregations my father served in Scotland in my childhood. The journey that began at 10:00 a.m. finished at 10:00 p.m. with me catching the hotel restaurant just in time for a late dinner.     

 Bishop Warris Masih at his desk

 With Rev. Stella Annandraj, Presbyter in charge of Nasirabad

 Inside Shoolbred Memorial Church, Beawar

 Rev. Eugene Frederick and his family in their home in Bhim

 Approaching this mountaintop church of Todgarh

Inside Todgarh church

 

 Even as a child I liked to get into the pulpit of any church we visited :)

The little prayer room church of Agitgarh. The congregation numbers 4 - 10 each Sunday

Diocesan Meeting, Nasirabad, and Ashapura

2/28/12

Accompanied by Paul Theodore, I made my way to Madar where the Diocesan meeting was being held. I was greeted by more than one hundred fifty church leaders from around the Diocese of Rajasthan. Bishop Warris gave me a warm public introduction and welcome. I was presented in an expression of Rajasthan hospitality with a wonderful bouquet of flowers, and invited to address the gathering with Rev. Jetendra Nath of Jodhpur translating for me into Hindi. 

Then accompanied by Paul (elder brother of former Bishop Collin Theodore) and by Rev. Sunny S. Kumar of St. Mary’s church in Ajmer but formerly of Ashapura we made our way to Nasirabad. [The current pastor, Rev. Stella Anand Ras who has served Nasirabad for nine years now with wonderful leadership was unable to join us for the trip because she was committed to the Diocesan gathering.] We first visited the home of Mr. Solomon Rosario, who is part of a seven generation family of Rosarios to have served the church and Diocese. His father was the chief collector of historical documents and wrote a major history that has yet to be published covering the period 1860 – 1960. His son, Solomon guards that material with great care and is waiting for sufficient funding to embark on the publication. 

It is very hard to put into words the emotional excitement and sheer delight of visiting the school and mission bungalow where Granny served as a teacher and then, stopping by to visit the principal of the school in his home. Then to the beautifully kept and recently refurbished church where Grandfather and Granny were married, where Grandfather was the ministor in charge and where Dad was baptized. From the vestry all the way through to the front door of the church it is a strikingly lovely sanctuary. Sitting there all these years later I felt I could reach out and touch the joy of that wedding day January 15, 1925. Both worship and prayer in that church must be a delight Sunday by Sunday.

Then on to Ashapura. Now a separate charge, but in Grandfather’s day I think it was linked to Nasirabad. This village in the heart of rural Rajasthan was the place where the Mission gathered so many orphans after the great famine in the late 1800s providing those orphans with homes to live in, education, land with which to learn to make their own living and the parental role of arranging marriages among them. All these years later it is one of a very few villages in all of India that is inhabited entirely by Christians. The church customs are touchingly expressive of the devotion of rural Christian life. Shoes must be removed to enter the church, women sit on one side of the church while the men sit on the other. A collection tin is carried around the village from house to house on Sunday mornings so that those who do not plan to attend church for whatever reason that day can still make their offering. That would be a little easier as a project in the village of Ashapura than in the community of West End in Manhattan, though the idea is very appealing from a church stewardship perspective. 

I’ll attach some photos below of my trip today.   

 Meeting with Mr. Solomon Rosario

 Nasirabad Girls' School compound and dormitories

 School Entrance

 Nasirabad Sanctuary -blue curtain is the doorway to the vestry

 Baptismal Font .... Dad, please take note :)

 Ashapura church from the rooftop of the Mission Bungalow (now the pastor's residence)

 Rooftop view of Ashapura village

 Inside the Ashapura church. (after a recent wedding)

Drive to Pushkar through Tonk, Nasirabad and Ajmer

2/27/12

Yesterday I had two brief but prodjctive conversations with Bishop Warris Masih of Rajasthan Diocese, who is based in Ajmer. He was very welcoming. I had previously been unable to reach him becaue he was in the UK on church business. He has promised to arrange church guides to show me around Nasirabad and Beawar in the next few days. I changed my itinerary in order to go directly to Ajmer for four days there, because there is a Diocesan meeting of presbyters (CNI’s specific name for ministers of word and sacrament) on the 28^th and 29^th of February, so that will give me a great opportunity to network a little  to put faces to names and prepare each other for my visits in the next 20 days to so. [ I am typing as we are driving and it is a rather wild because we are on a minor road that Bumpi has not driven in more than two years. I thought it was worth trying because hand writing is totally out of the question.] So today is an important day for me. It marks the beginning of the pilgrimage park of my visit to India. I will be stopping in Nasirabad (my grandmother’s first post as a teacher in India in 1915, the place of my grandparents’ marriage, my father’s birthplace and place of baptism. Dad is among those reading this blog!). Today I will be doing my own look around with the help of Bumpi  my Hindi-speaking friend and driver, before I take a guide in the next day or two. 

PS I arrived at my hotel in Pushkar after a meeting and talk with Bishop Warris in Ajmer. As it turned out there was insufficient time for my own scouting in Nasirabad today. I have been invited by Bishop Warris to preach in Jodhpur (one of the mission stations Grandfather was in charge of ) on March 11 in the morning service with an interpreter into Hindi. I was surprised and regard it as honor which I am glad to accept. I will be Udaipur church for this next Sunday, March 4 and will simply attend the English evening service there. 

Tigers in Ranthambhore National Park and Tiger Preserve

2/27/12

Each year the park expands and families and villagers are displaced.to make way for the necessary territory for the tigers that have grown to 2-3 years old and are venturing out on their own. This means that the as the government displaces villagers, as part of their compensation they are trained in handcraft skills by which they can made a new living for themselves as part of a cooperative. As for the tiger preserve there are actually no fences round it. This is because these particular tigers are not of the human-eating variety that are more prominent in the evergreen forests of South India. Ranthambhore is a semi-desiduous jungle area. Here if a tiger does kill a human being it is considered an accident. In the last two years there have been two human deaths by tigers. In one instance a village woman had unwittingly approached too close to where a tiger had hidden its kill. The tiger killed the woman to protect its food. In the other instance a farmer had been bent over in a field in what looked to the tiger like a four legged animal and the tiger attacked and killed the man. In neither instance was the tiger interested in the humans as food once they were killed. Both these deaths were considered accidental deaths!! The tigers are in significant danger from poachers – mostly contracted from China where the interest in tigers is such that their every part can fetch a high price including its bones. So the practice of burying tigers in the preserve – as a result of natural death  after an average of 16 or seventeen years, or as the result of a fight over territory - has in recent years been changed to cremation like the cremations I witnessed on the shores of the Ganges, to thwart the desecration/unearthing of graves. Another measure to protect the tigers and their habitat unlike in some other preserves is that now there are no transmitters attached to collars on the tigers. The collars while helping the naturalists and staff of the preserve, also made tiger spotting too easy and in many ways destructive of the habitat. Also if poachers were able to discover the transmitter frequency they of course could track the tigers much more easily too. This new way ensures a more balanced approach to preservation and observation. One in three tiger-spotting safaris might be successful. In my case the tigers (if at all interested) were watching us rather than the other way around :) What had been happening was that when poachers were found leaving the preserve with bones it was not easy to tell whether they had killed a tiger or had unearthed a tiger grave. If you are interested in more tales of the tigers in this park there is a documentary (Sorry I don't have its precise name) made and published that follows the story of two particular tigers named “Broken Tale” and “Nick.” While some tigers acquire a name over time the actual census of the tigers assigns each a number not a name. Four tigress territories make up one male tiger’s territory. In our unsuccessful tiger-spotting Safari were on the trail of one particular tigress, observing fresh tracks on the road.       

An unbelievable first drive in Rajasthan … and this is just the beginning!

2/25/12

My introduction to Rajasthan was a comfortable and smooth ride … for part of the way! When we got on to the rutted, potholed, disaster-looming-on-every-bend, stretch of the road darkness had descended (you have to imagine no lights in place whose purpose is to illuminate the highway – none whatsoever!) and we were still 80km from our destination. The traffic was still quite thick including unmarked vehicles with no lights, big trucks, farm tractors and trailors, and pedestrians and animals crossing our path without warning. I remarked at one point,”this is how I imagine the roads were in my grandfather’s time,” to which my driver (who is  aptly nicknamed Bumpi) replied “this is how all the roads in Rajasthan were when I began driving professionally nine years ago.”  For those of you who know my driving and have remarked, with a certain distaste in your voice, on my 'heavy foot', you ain’t seen anything like this! [friends I have 25 more days ahead of me on these roads – don’t worry I’m smiling and some of you may be saying “that’ll teach him”:)]. At times the road simply turned into a dirt track and in other stretches was much more passable. In sections I could have sworn I was on a road in the highlands of Scotland in the pitch black, only it was goats rather than sheep that were liable to cross at any point. In other sections I thought I was in a John Wayne movie in the Wild West with just the shell or front of buildings with balconies looming on either side of the road. We stopped to purchase “Royal Stag” an Indian blended version of Scotch – only with Indian (instead of Scottish) grain spirits. The malts are from Scotland. My driver did not (and I am confident will not) drink and drive :)

 

I was happy to get out of the car and into my hotel room and later to step out and breath in the air of this very rural place.  Tomorrow I will take a 6:30 a.m. Safari and see how the Tigers are faring. The receptionist at my hotel who doubles as one of the park’s naturalists showed me pictures this evening of the young tigers (eight born this season). He vouches for the hope that this habitat is gradually turning things around for their overall numbers. The broader statistics are not in Tigers’ favor.

P.S. The Tigers were hiding. But we had a good time nonetheless!

More Pictures that tell the story !

 One of four entrance gates. - eleven small domes multiplied by 2 represent one of the many ways that the 22 years of construction are represented.

Zoom (if you can) to your hearts content and observe the colored inlays of semiprecious stones in the marble - also note the wonderful optical illusion (one of the many architectural features) by which the arabic verses from the Holy Koran among other vertical lines appear to be as narrow at the top as at the bottom.

 The four Minahs are leaning outwards to ensure that in the case of an earthquake they will fall outwards.

Cloe up of the beautiful inlays that create the floral patterns that glint in both sunlight and moonlight.

Some Pictures

 Ash Wednesday Service

 Burla Temple to Lord Shiva at the heart of the Hindu University Campus, Varanasi

The Team who made my stay in Varanasi so memorable

Two views from within Agra Fort - from the days when it was the Mughal capital of India. Note the eclectic religioius carvings in the doorway

First views of the Taj in the late afternoon from "behind" the magnificent monument. Tomorrow I see it at sunrise.

My first overnight train ride

2/23-24/12

This last evening I reluctantly pulled out of Varanasi by overnight train. The stay and the people there were wonderful. I have a picture of the team that were helping me in various ways (see below). The train was on time in departure but two hours late in arrival. This is not unusual for a slow overnight train. I shared a sleeper compartment with two Danish women and an Indian man. The conversations were pleasant and enjoyable. We chose not to be disturbed by the mouse that was dashing around our feet from time to time. The Danes had travelled third class on a previous journey and they assured me the pleasant contrast on this second class coach was a boon. I had an upper bunk, and was able to sleep in stretches. Hard to know as I write at 9:00 a.m. how tired I really am, between the natural excitement of a new place and the fitful sleep last night. I will find out in due course. We were up and ready for an on-time arrival, being told by various staff that we were 10 minutes away, 15 minutes away, 14 minutes away, all of these well after the previous time had elapsed. As it turned out we had been two hours away from arrival! My new driver, Bumpi (easy name to remember:) was patiently waiting for me. He had driven from Delhi yesterday evening. He seems a really pleasant chap and I think we’ll get along just fine for the next 25 days. He’s also driving a good car. Today after some rest this morning, I’ll go on a guided tour of Agra Fort, tomorrow at 5:00 a.m. Bumpi will pick me up for my guided tour of  the Taj Mahal. (I caught a glimpse of it this morning through the fog that descends after sunrise.) Then after a quick breakfast we’ll head in the direction of Rajasthan for a seven hour drive (not including stops on the way).