Yesterday I had two very high-power religious experiences: at the tomb of the great Sufi saint Khwaja Muin-ud-din Chishti in Ajmer, and here in Pushkar, where I was taken (without my ever exactly consenting to it) through a complicated puja at the sacred lake. So now I have a red daub on my forehead with grains of rice in it, a maroon and yellow string around my wrist (from Pushkar) and (from Ajmer) another yellow and red string around my neck, the gift of my driver. I'd take them off except that the wrist thingie, known colloquially as the "Pushkar passport," protects you from harassment by Brahmins and their innocuous seeming touts (they hand you a flower and say you should place it in the lake out of respect, at which point a Brahmin shows up and starts leaching your money - but if you have the wristband you can brandish it with your fist).I would be marveling at the demonstrated ecumenism (if that's the right word) of Indian religious life - my driver is a Hindu, but was as delighted to have a chance to make an offering to the Sufi saint as to circle the Pushkar lake - except that, garlanded and bristling with sacred power though I be, I've finally been found by diarrhoea. I suspect it was the fingers of the man in the tomb who pressed rose petals into my mouth to eat, with quite possibly the same hand with which he was ten seconds later demanding money. (At the time I just found the rose petals fragrantly tasty.)
The idea that a religious spot might be a respite from the endless press of demands for money is quickly, brutally refuted here - though I've been spared the truly cruel priestcraft which befell two of our Intrepid group in Varanasi: after beckoning them into his tent saying "no money, no money" a sadhu prayed for them and had them write out the names of their family members, then demanded a big pile of money from each of them; when they refused, he started shouting at them, joined by a chorus of surrounding nearly naked sadhus, then followed them out, cursing them and their families, whose names he knew! Horrible. The only religious spot I've been where nobody pressed me for money was the Pushkar gurudwara. I almost wanted to make a donation out of relief!
