L'Arte di Viaggiare - Art of Travel - Francis Galton
17 July Janaki Mandir
Namaste Nepal En
I wake, as usual, at dawn and I'm hungry. The last meal, apart from a few bananas eaten yesterday, was two days ago.
I get dressed and I go out at six to find a restaurant. Since I don't find one, I go into a tea room to at least have a cup of tea. I observe the original way in which the tea maker fills the glasses. He puts them all in a row then raises the pot to more than a meter high and pours the tea without stopping. In a niche between the various offerings to Shiva, I see light bulbs. Curious! I take a look at one and the filament has blown. I look at the others - the same thing. It seems to me the same practical principle of Daksinkhali: there you eat the meat that is first offered in sacrifice, here is the same deal with light bulbs; when no longer needed, they are offered to the deity. Nothing should be wasted!
With my increasingly empty stomach, I visit the city. First stop, the temple. It is called Janaki Mandir and is the pilgrimage destination for Hindus.
It is dedicated to Sita, the beautiful princess, wife of Rama, celebrated in the Ramayana. It reminds me of those firework models that elementary school children make (or made) from cardboard tubes.
I stop for a while in the courtyard surrounding the temple to observe the incredible passing people. Meanwhile almost all the sadhus here have leopard print tunics -I don't know why. Do they have some symbolic significance? Now a guy with a white Navy uniform goes by, with lots of braid. Where did he get it from? To complete the attire, or perhaps to demystify it, he has a golden chain mail bag hanging from his shoulder on a gold chain. Around his neck he wears a necklace made with those seeds, whose name escapes me now, that all the leading Indian sadhu or gurus wear.
Another curious type is now standing next to me and tells me something I do not understand. He is wearing a pink sari and is smoking. He has very long hair held back by a red band holding a long peacock feather high on his head. Since I do not understand what he says he starts to read a book of verses, half aloud, half chanting.
And now a family group arrives: the very small father carries his daughter, who is twice the size of him, on his shoulders while his wife is following with their household goods. Like Catholics take their incurably ill to Lourdes, evidently Hindus carry them here in the hope of a miracle. How many things in common different religions of the world have! We are here in Janakpur where there are many artisan silversmiths. Whilst I'm in one of their shops a beautiful, tall, young Nepalese man approaches and addresses me. He is wearing glasses and has an intellectual air about him. He is a pharmacist and has his shop on this same street. We go there because I am interested to see what kind of medicines are sold. Meanwhile, we chat and I ask him where he completed his studies. No studies, he says. He worked for two years in a practice run by another pharmacist, then opened the shop. I look at some of the boxes of medicines which are all imported from India but unfortunately they aren't ayurvedic medicines or herbal remedies, but chemical ones. Moreover, they have all expired. I tell him this and he replies that he had been sold them at a lower price by the pharmacist who he worked for before. When you start a business, he adds, it all costs so much money! Sooner or later I'll have to throw them out ...
Finally I come across a restaurant: it is Indian of course, and the waiter tells me that his family lives in Bihar and that every year he comes to work here for six months.
I order tandoori chicken, but when I get it, I realize that, more than anything else, it is tandoori bones! Fortunately, there are rice and vegetables to fill my stomach.
I note that on my table there is a bottle full of water, in which plastic flowers are immersed. What westerner would ever think to put artificial flowers in water?
