Quiet possibly my strangest day yet

A dinosaur outside the Vellore museum. I told David there is never a shortage of large, green fiberglass dinos in the world.

As an aside, I have learned the cow is holy because she is selfless. After feeding her calf, she continues to give milk for the whole community to enjoy. She is a symbol of one who gives unconditionally and without protest. Some say why do these starving people not slaughter the cow to feed their bellies, but then you would be out of milk and have nothing to help plow the fields. Just in case you were wondering, cows have the right of way at all times.

The Medical:

So... We have a lot to talk about and unfortunately it isn't really CMC related. We went to CHAD, the community health hospital, in anticipation of travelling into the communities with nurses to see the villages and tribes. Well, this is a festival week so our opportunities were limited. We spent the morning in clinic where I saw a case of mumps and mitral regurgitation, a common ailment after rheumatic fever. Otherwise uneventful, but interesting to learn about their community initiatives. What started as an outpost for primary medical care has morphed into a social and community center that helps with job placement, social conflict resolution, and even sex education for the youngsters. Arranged marraige is still the norm here, so you can imagine the social strife that arises from that and the false promises between families of a dowry, which is still quite prevalent. They employ "the differently" abled from the community to run phone boothes so foreigners like me and locals can make phone calls. It was quite impressive the scope of services offered, Dr. Scudder's vision has really grown. Long story short, I will be going on nurse rounds tomorrow but today was kind of slow since afternoon clinics were cancelled.

The Strange:

So we had the afternoon off and this is where it all started. Another student was told about a golden temple nearby, the largest of its kind in India and just opened last August. How did we miss this? I don't know, but we figured with a few hours to kill it wouldn't hurt to check it out. We hailed a rickshaw and took the bumpy backroads to Sri Lakshmi Narayani Temple, outside of Vellore. You know if you are going to the outskirts of Vellore you are really off the beaten path. Once there, we checked in our shoes and cameras to be permitted inside. We walked several hundred yards, like cattle, up to the temple grounds. Thousands of people were coming to the temple, and we were placed in cages, each holding several hundred people, where we gathered and waited to be released onto the grounds. It isn't as bad as it sounds, just crowd control. There are seats inside the cages and people are nice. Once let out from the cage we walked up to a metal detector and placed all belongings into an xray machine.

Finally we had arrived and it was a pretty incredible sight. There was a large golden buildling surrounded by a path in the shape of a star. You had to walk along the path, mostly granite and marble, which took about 20 minutes. Along the sides of the path were posters with vedic quotes such as "God is Love, Unconditional Love" and "Your reincarnation depends on your karma" and all sorts of things. The temple was blinding! Pure gold, nine to twelve sheets deep, around the entire building. A total of over 1500 kilos of gold or 1.5 tons. Once we reached the ornate temple we were pushed to the front to see the inside of it. I guess we looked so foreign they figured this was our only chance. I will not lie, it did cross my mind that maybe I was to be sacrificed or something but I quickly remembered that Hindus are not violent, in fact they won't even curtail the mangey dog population. All in all the trip seemed to be entertaining, especially for an anthropologist wannabe like myself.

After further lollygagging around the temple we went in search of a brochure, as we weren't allowed to take pictures and we wanted some memoir. A side office which sold relevant books was nearby and we flooded into it. There we found a Canadian woman behind the counter who took interest in our story as to how we might find ourselves at this temple on this day. It was very refreshing to find a local who spoke perfect english, so we began talking. She looked at her watch and said "Oh, we must go now, and get the blessing from omma, the time to get a blessing is nearly over, would you like to come?" Well, I am not in the business of refusing blessings, and I was intrigued by her enthusiasm so we all fast walked, shoeless across the street to a nearby less golden temple. The time was short so there was little explanation, I figured this was some customary Hindu ceremony that we could take in. She told me to cup my right hand and walk up to omma, then drink the water and pour the rest on my head. I assured her that I was Christian and not Hindu and wanted no part of disrespecting their faith, but she said it was not a problem. Apparently these blessings are few and far between, usually people line up by the thousands to meet omma, including the President of India who has met omma several times. We were the last ones allowed in for the day.

So I walked up to omma, a 31yo man, who poured a ladle of water mixed with spices into my open right hand. I drank just a sip then poured the rest on my head and then watched my friends do the same. We met up with Canadian lady's husband, a family practice doctor from Canada, and walked outside to talk further since we had so many questions. She said omma liked us, and wanted us to have a book usually reserved for heads of state and people of the hightest status. So, she began to explain that omma is not a man, but the incarnation of three female Hindu gods who has come to earth to do good. WHAT?/!!?!? This Canadian had several phds, one in world religion, so it was interesting to talk to her. She said we were given special clearance and he must have thought we were all benevolent spirits. She continued to talk about the vedics/hindus/ etc until I nearly shouted "Oh my God is that an elephant?" Literally as she was talking an elephant walked by randomly, apparently she lives there and just walks around. She gathered some food for us to give to the highly decorated elephant. I stuffed my hand deep into the elephants mouth with a cookie for her and the elephant blessed me by putting her slobbery trunk all over my head and face, it was pretty awesome. Elephants are very holy in these parts.

We were invited to their dwelling near the temple for tea, which I was happy to attend with my friends because this was pretty much the strangest sequence of events and needed further explanation. He explained that they are devotees of omma, a human incarnation of god, and are in line with ommas vision for mankind to surrender themselves and devote their lives to the betterment of all. They have built orphanages, hospitals, water facitilities and more. Omma procures funding only from people who gained wealth by honest means, nobody involved in gambling is allowed to donate to the causes. This doctor become a devotee when omma made rice fall from his hands and his wife became a devotee when omma manifested a crucifix out of thin air. We met other devotees, mostly educated Westerners, many of them doctors, all living in a complex near the temple. Maybe more like a compound as I look back on it. Mostly from California.

So I always thought Canadians were a little strange, but this was way out there. I hope my story does not make you worry for me, I am still as Christian as the day I was baptized. I will always though be fascinated by people, their decisions, their lives, their pathways and this was quite possibly the strangest yet. If you can get past the "miracles", women gods in male bodies, and rice/crucifixes falling out of nowhere their way of life is quite beneficial to the local community and fits in well with the surrounding Hindus. Also, we had great conversation about Indian healthcare which answered quite a few of our questions. He talked about how CMC faces the decision, when given a large sum of money, to purchase a CT scanner to attract the richest of the rich (Arabian princes frequent the hospital) to fund their charity, or should they spend any and all funds on just providing as much charity as possible. Difficult situation I can imagine.

We talked about why build a golden temple when money could be used for schools and healthcare. Omma says that the temple is meant to inspire other people to go out and build schools and hospitals, etc. Tea time was over and it was getting dark, so we headed out and thanked our host for his time and patience while fielding our probing questions. For whatever it was worth, it was the strangest four hours of my life by far and pretty exciting. I have spices and elephant saliva in my hair. God does work in strange ways. I am very content with my Christian spirituality, which I think makes it easier for me to learn about others without feeling like my own salvation may be threatened. I am glad Christ did not encourage us to build golden temples because it seems like a poor use of limited resources and I am proud of our own heritage of selflessness. I hope that all people some day run into some vedics or omma devotees and you may find that they are a little strange but soon you realize they are people too, who were searching and searching, then found something, and moved half way across the world because they believed in it - which makes for great conversation.

I found this website, the temple is now finished but here are some pictures:

http://www.myistop.com/blogs/fordac/golden-temple-tamil-nadu