Making a visit to the "Holy Rat Temple" and to the Golden Temple

The last three weeks in India seem a whirl wind of fate and occurrence, of religion and bizarre scenes. In a way the last three weeks seemed to sum up the immensity of India. Both in it’s geography and in it’s peoples, and cultures. The last three weeks took me from the Desert, to the Himalaya, and back to the melting pot of Delhi. The road made its way past the Hindu Karni Mata (Known as “The Holy Rat Temple”), to the Brahman pilgrimage sight of the Golden temple, and lastly to Mcleoud Ganj, the home of the Dali lama and Buddhism’s teachings for India. India came through in flying colors for me in the last 3 weeks. All bets were off to what I would find but in the end many wishs were granted.

Leaving Jaelsamier I headed north to see the last of Rajasthan. The last of Rajasthan was a town called Bikner. A dust bowl town in the desert brewing with exhaust, noise, sand, spotted banana’s, and a few thousand curious stares. I never saw another tourist or backpacker other then “Sarah” the girl I met on the 6 hour bus ride out there. Bikner was a good stopping point to get from one place to another. Which for me was the Himalaya. We hid in our hotel rooms from that small oppressive town known as Bikner and munched on chips and cookies watching “The Academy awards”. Which strangely I have seen away from home 5 years running now and have never planned to watch them any of those nights. They always just seem to find me in towns like Bikner.

The next morning we caught a one hour Bus ride through a swirling dust storm that you couldn’t see beyond 10 meter’s from the bus windows below my elbows and were dropped off literally in the middle of no where. We ran inside to find the Karni Mata amidst all that swirling dust and had to take shelter in it. Although it also was the reason for our small adventure and the hundred stares we endured with weary hot smiles on the drive out. The Karni Mata or “The holy Rat Temple” is exactly as it sounds. It is a Hindu temple devoted to rats…..Hundreds and hundreds of them. It is a small temple with only a few food stands near by and desert beyond. The rats are thought to be story tellers reborn into this life from the last. I wondered if they had ever heard the story of the Pied Piper as story tellers…… They probably wouldn’t care for it to much know.

The interesting part… or what makes the stakes a bit higher is that you have to enter in your bare feet. As it is a holy sight you are not allowed to wear shoes within. And if a rat should run over your toes, then it is a sure sign of your good luck and good fortune. Well I must be lucky. It was as if someone had dipped my toes in chocolate before entering the Karni Mata. Fore I walked out a very…. VERY fortunate individual indeed. I even had a few nibbles on the toes as well. I wonder what sort of fortune that will bring me.

The temple was filled with the smell of rats and rat droppings. It was hard to keep face with all the rats running and jumping all over me but the smell was enough to chase you out as well. There were huge saucers of milk. With rats bent over the rim side by side all the way around the bowls. They’re little whiskers twitching as they drank. There were also deeper earthen bowls of grain that looked like bowls of swarming rats and worms with they’re tails thrashing about everywhere. The walls had hundreds of gutter size holes along the base of the floor that disappeared into a Holy Rat city and an underground unseen beyond the courtyard and halls. So rats were constantly appearing and disappearing through the maze.

Within all this chaos was the worshipping Hindu’s. If you see the white rat in the “Holy Rat Temple”, then you are exceptionally fortunate. So every few minutes you would hear the scream “White Rat!!!” and all the Hindus from every corner of the temple would run scurrying through the halls, rooms , and courtyards in they’re bare feet to the source of the yell and the hope of great fortune. In 20 minutes this happened 6 -7 times. It was very fun to watch. Even as much as all the rats. I never saw the white rat though. 20 minutes was enough for us. We grabbed our sandals and made a run out of the temple into the swirling desert winds and back onto another hot bus with no room to sit and a hundred eyes staring for the next hour till we were dropped back in Bikner.

Three hours later me and Sarah went our separate ways and I boarded a bus in an old food market on a dirt road along the red walls of the old fort. Cattle walked with people up and down all the cart stalls eating old tossed vegetables or nibbling them away from farmers with they’re backs turned. Of course they’re were those who were chased away with brooms or threatening carrots. Shadows lengthened and I boarded a bus over night heading for the city of the Sihks; Amritsar.

Some time late in the night the bus pulled over at a desert roadside food stand. I disembarked under the eyes of every Indian and sat leaning against the bus sharing my orange with a huge black bull alone. His big black muzzle would devour every small slice of orange I held out. He was actually a little intimidating and I think I ended up passing over more then I intended to as we stood eye to eye together. All the Indian men and women stood laughing and pointing. It didn’t bother me. It was nothing new to be laughed and pointed at in India. But as they all walked by several asked my name or shook my hand. One of the last guys to get on the bus clapped me on the back and said ”He likes you, surely this will bring you good fortune!”

I just scratched my head and got back on the bus and fell asleep. Some hours later at four in the morning I awoke in Amritsar. I stepped out of an empty bus on a back street in the cold and the rain. The streets were deep with puddles and a steady cold sleet was falling. I stepped into a bicycle rickshaw and wrapped my Khadi blanket around me and heading into the empty streets of the city. After 4 hotels and guest houses we found a room (Smelly!) and I hide under my blankets for 3 hours to snatch a bit of sleep before waking and to keep the stench out.

Amritsar was cold and gloomy. It didn’t have the most hospitable feeling to it. So I walked the muddy streets as soon as I woke to the bus station and after a lot of hassle and asking around I found a bus that would leave at noon. Three hours to kill. I hired a rickshaw and set out for the golden temple.

The golden Temple is a pilgrimage sight for all brahmans. About 30,000 a day stop by to pay they’re respects. When I showed up at the entrance they stopped several people and said they couldn’t enter without covering they’re heads but that I was fine with my bandana. I have been kicked out of many places for wearing a bandana but this was the first time that it actually bought me right of passage to get in.

The temple really is made out of real gold top to bottom and is surrounded by a pool of water and bathing ghats. The white marble courtyard and walls that surround it are washed with milk every morning. And there is a lane that connects the temple to the surrounding walkways. It is a temple that holds a air of respect and of holiness unlike any other Hindu Temple I had seen yet.The woman are colorfully dresses and the men wore bright turbans with curled mustaches and an air of dignity and respect.

An hour later I left on the worst bus ride of my life to see one of the insperatios of my life one last time before departing India. When I would reach the end of that road I would find an insperation I hadn’t counted on, a dream, fate, and Godliness. But that is another story.