India Travel Diary: Kankalitali/Rampurhat/Tarapith
India Travel Diary: Kankalitali/Rampurhat/Tarapith
Chapter 3, Part 1: Kankalitali/Rampurhat/Tarapith
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January 21st, Bolpur
I get up at 9:30 a.m. "Su pravat" seems to work for "Good morning". Everyone is pleased that I'm speaking Bengali.
Breakfast in the garden. But even before I sit down this Bengali family comes up and one of the sons, about sixteen, from Calcutta, wants to practice his English, or more likely show off his English ability to his family by speaking with me. We chat for awhile, then they leave me to my breakfast. Soon the whole family piles into a jeep and they depart, waving merrily.
I'm feeling a lot better, though not fully recovered. I decide I'll visit the Vichitra museum this morning (which, says the Rough Guide, "captures the spirit of [Rabindranath] Tagore's life and work with a collection of his paintings, manuscripts and personal effects"), then get my train ticket for Rampurhat in the afternoon then leave tomorrow morning for Tarapith, which I expect will be more interesting than Shantiniketan.
I get a bucket of hot water for a shave and a shower. The hotel porter teaches me the Bengali for "hot water" — "garam jong".
I get a rickshaw to the Rabindranath Bhavan, buy an entrance ticket for five rupees, then the ticket seller says I must leave my shoulder bag (containing my camera) with him. No way, I say. He insists. I get my money back. Feeling a bit pissed off and not knowing the appropriate insult in Bengali I do my best in English. I tell him, "Your mother was a whore!" Insulting someone's mother is an Indian tradition. He does not reply.
So it looks like Tagore's personal effects will have to get by without my visit, and instead I walk over to DiDi's Cyberpoint, and spend ninety minutes online.
Lunch is some biscuits and two mandarines. Part of my tooth comes out. Work done during my last visit to the dentist was obviously less than totally successful, though most of the tooth above the gum was missing and it was not an easy job. I'll have to be careful what I chew on for the next few weeks or I'll lose the entire tooth. I don't much fancy visiting an Indian dentist.
I take a rickshaw to the railway station and spend thirty minutes in a short queue at the reservations window, and finally reach the man at the counter, who is helpful. Before long I have my ticket and reservation for the train tomorrow to Rampurhat. It leaves just before 9 a.m., so I'll have to get up early.
The Rough Guide mentions a place called Kankalitala, about 4 km. from Bolpur, it says, where there's a Kali temple and a cremation ground sometimes frequented by tantrics. It's 3 p.m., so I figure there's time to visit it (would have been too late if I'd spent a couple of hours at the Rabindranath Bhavan). I hire a rickshaw, thinking it can't be much further than Shantiniketan, just in a different direction. The rickshaw wallah agrees to 50 rupees go and return. He crosses the river and heads East. We go on and on, passing tiny hamlets. It's much further than I had thought, considerably more than 4 km.
Finally we arrive. I buy some offerings in a little bag made of newsprint and approach the temple. The Rough Guide says that this temple is "unusual in having an oil painting of Kali as its central image", and sure enough there's the picture of the deity. I give my offerings to the officiating priest, who asks my name and recites a prayer, which I imagine requests Kali to bestow her blessings upon me. I get a few pictures of the altar, and leave ten rupees.
I'm the only Westerner here. I talk with a man who tells me that this is one of the 51 holy places called Satipithas where parts of Sati's body fell to Earth. (Sati was Shiva's wife; the story is too long to tell here.) This place, he says, is where her left hip fell. Seems there are many Satipithas in Bengal, often in remote places.
I then wander around looking for the cremation ground, but find only some strange holes in the ground with still-warm ashes. (Later I realize that these are used for cooking food.) I'm about to tell the rickshaw wallah to head back when I notice some flames among some trees in the distance. It's the cremation ground! I wander over, and yes, it's a blazing pyre with the remains of a body, mostly burnt up. There are a dozen of so men there, including the two men whose job it is to burn the body. I take a couple of photos of the group. They're all pleased to get their picture taken. I then get a closer look at the funeral pyre, and take a couple of photos.
Interesting, the skull is the only part of the body still recognizable. The face is blackened from the flames, but, remarkably, the facial features are still clear. It's as if the person is resting peacefully amidst the flames. The cremation wallahs poke the fire a bit. Later I notice that the skull has split open from the heat, exposing the brain.
The old man who is the senior cremation wallah offers me his blessing, and shows me into a little room not far from the funeral pyre where there is a simple altar with another picture of Kali. This one is less accessible to the public. I get a couple of photos of the priest next to the image of Kali, and leave another ten rupees (in retrospect, too little).
It's getting late and the sun is setting as the rickshaw wallah cycles back to Bolpur. We arrive at sunset, and after some lively discussion as to his fee for the trip we settle on a hundred rupees (US$2), not as much as the hundred and fifty rupees he asked for (having, I thought, agreed to fifty when we started out). Later I feel ashamed that I did not give him what he asked for (it was a really long trip). In India it's easy to think a hundred rupees is a significant amount of money (as it is to most Indians, who are poor) but in terms of Western money it's hardly anything.
I pay my hotel bill. For eight nights, plus breakfast and dinner every day, it's about 2200 rupees, less than US$6 per day. Can't say it's too expensive. Cheaper even than Cambodia, though quality is poorer.
Dinner is the usual except there are also fried bananas. Before I know what they are I take one bite, and decide to forgo the remainder.
I pack in preparation for an early departure tomorrow.
January 22nd, Bolpur/Tarapith
I get up at 7 a.m. After breakfast I get a rickshaw to the railway station. While waiting for the Ganadevata Express to Rampurhat I want to buy some fruit juice. There's a stall on the railway platform, open, well-stocked, but no-one there to sell anything, and no-one comes in the twenty minutes until the train arrives. Typically Indian.
Beggars are working the waiting passengers. An old man, 80 years old he says, starts talking to me. He's half-mad. He advises me, if I wish to stay in India, to go to Poona. I tell him I intend to.
The train arrives. I have some difficulty finding my carriage, since most don't have numbers. Finally I find it, and there are not many passengers. The train departs. There's a singer, a Baul? Sounds like it. Nice to listen to. He gets five rupees from me.
The Ganadevata Express rumbles along, though a more apt name would be the Ganadevata Tortise. After an hour we arrive at Rampurhat railway station, where there is an interesting mosaic illustrating religious themes associated with Tarapith.
I get off the train knowing only that Tarapith is 8 km. away. I walk out of the station, crying "Bus, Tarapith! Bus, Tarapith!" A rickshaw wallah comes up and it seems he agrees to take me to the bus station for ten rupees. We go through town. We continue on out of town, pass a sign saying "Rampurhat city limits". I wonder about the bus station. Finally we pass a sign which says, "Tarapith 5 km." and we come to an intersection, where there are some trucks and buses. But the rickshaw wallah clearly intends to continue on down the road to Tarapith. I stop him. Don't want to go another 5 km. in a rickshaw, especially not knowing how much he'll want for this. I talk to some locals and they tell me I can get a bus from here to Tarapith, so I pay the rickshaw wallah twenty rupees and wait for a bus. A tuk-tuk comes along, with some passengers, on the way to Tarapith. There's a free seat — ten rupees. I squeeze in with my large rucksack, my shoulder bag and my laptop.
They're doing the road up. The man next to me is from Calcutta, in the silk business. He advises me to stay at the Hotel Kali. The Rough Guide mentions another hotel and "a pleasant dharamshala near the temple."
We arrive at Tarapith. The man hops out at Hotel Kali. I decide to continue on to look at the dharamshala. As the tuk-tuk pulls out the man says, "You pay him ten rupees." The tuk-tuk wallah continues another 100 yards to the market place and points down a lane leading to the dharamshala. (Since this lane actually leads in the direction opposite that to the temple this was probably not in fact the way to the dharmshala.) I get out and proffer ten rupees (which is the standard fare for a seat in a shared tuk-tuk). He refuses. Seems to want fifteen. But I'm not paying an extra five rupees just for 100 yards. He refuses to accept ten rupees, so I walk off down the lane.
I'm looking for the dharamshala. The tuk-tuk wallah comes up and demands his money. Some locals indicate that he wants fifty rupees, apparently the tuk-tuk fare for an unshared tuk-tuk from Rampurhat to Tarapith. No way. In the end, after I get angry, he accepts ten rupees.
I find the dharamshala, or what I take to be the dharamshala (having asked some locals): a three-storey affair, not at all rustic, and it's completely deserted except for a man cleaning one of the rooms, which look very basic. Obviously not suitable. So nothing for it but to lug the rucksack (it's 20 kg), my laptop and shoulder bag back to the town center and then to the hotels. I ask at two, but they say they have no singles. I finally come back to the Hotel Kali. They have rooms. Initially they ask 550 rupees per night, but we finally agree on 300. The second room they show me is not bad at all, a couple of floors up, with a view, soft mattress, two warm blankets, a decent bathroom with a shower and even hot water! For US$6 it's quite OK.
Looks like there's no internet place in Tarapith. I'm going to have to go back to Rampurhat a couple of days from now to get online.
Got quite a bit of laundry to be done. The hotel manager says: give it in tomorrow morning.
I go out at sunset. A couple of monkeys are prowling around on the upper storeys of a hotel, looking for something to steal. I walk along the street with all the stalls selling religious images and such. Lots of pictures of Tara, Mahakali, even some of Bamakhepa, the "mad" saint. The fact that he lived here is what put Tarapith on the map. It's dusk. I stand at the door of a small temple with an image of four-armed Mahakali and listen for a while to some men chant bhajans.
As usual in India, lots of dogs around, but very few cats. One dog runs up to me and rubs its head against my leg as I'm walking along. It's really enthusiastic about this. Maybe it likes the feel of the fabric from which my trousers are made.
There are lots of hotels in Tarapith. Quite a few new ones being built. I wander back to the my hotel and past it to a big new hotel, not yet completely built. Looks nice but expensive. The manager shows me a couple of rooms, quite nice, and offers me their standard single for only 250 rupees. A good deal. Maybe I'll move after two nights here.
Have dinner at the restaurant in another hotel (the one at my hotel hardly deserves to be called a restaurant — it's just a dingy room with a few old tables and a hole in the wall connecting to the kitchen). Chicken curry, rice and roti (chapati), quite good. I chat with the manager during dinner. I remark that I see no other Westerners here, and ask him when was the last time he saw a European in Tarapith. A year ago, he says. Clearly the new hotels going up are not meant for Western tourists, nor for poor pilgrims. Maybe more well-to-do Indians are visiting holy places, perhaps a symptom of the current emphasis in India on Hindutva — "Hindu-ness".
Sleep, wake at 2 a.m., sleep again but poorly. Irrational dreams in which I'm required to calculate or do some kind of computation. At one point the present Pope, John-Paul II, has made a public statement that he was recently abducted and raped. Total insanity.
January 23rd, Tarapith
I wake at 8:30 a.m., feeling poorly. At 9:30 I go down to give my laundry in. The hotel manager says: sorry, laundry man was here early this morning, must wait until tomorrow. I need this laundry done soon, so I say, well, maybe I can take it myself. He says, OK, the hotel boy will show you. So we set off. I notice that there are not just two monkeys at the hotel a few doors up, but a whole family of them living in a tree. We walk through the town square, down the street where I was last night, past the main temple, and on and on. Finally I decide this is too far, is not a good idea, so I give the boy ten rupees and turn back to the hotel.
On arrival I'm not feeling amused. I haven't had any breakfast, I've just trudged a mile with my dirty laundry to no avail, and the hotel doesn't even have a decent restaurant where I can get breakfast, so I decide to leave and move to the hotel I looked at last night. I tell the manager I'm leaving. OK, he says. I go to the other hotel and the manager shows me the room I saw last night, and I say I'll move in in half an hour.
Back at the Hotel Kali I start to pack, but decide that this is a lot of trouble and is not a good idea. This room is OK, in some ways better than the other. So I decide to stay. I go downstairs and tell the manager, who agrees to my staying. He is trying to be helpful. He says I can give my laundry in and he'll have the hotel boy take it over, so I can get it back tomorrow.
I go out to inform the manager of the other hotel that, no, after all, I'm not taking the room. On the way I get breakfast from a roadside stall: two small cups of chai (milky tea) and a couple of biscuits for 8 cents. The other hotel manager accepts my decision stoically. Although his hotel is still only half-built, the half that is finished seems to be well patronized by Indian tour groups.
So, after considerable hotel difficulties, I finally am settled for awhile.
I decide today I will visit the main Tara/Mahakali temple. I wear my flipflops rather than my boots (which, sad to say, are showing signs of wear after a year; hope they hold up), since I'll be having to leave my footwear at the temple gate.
I go out about 2 p.m., and eat a mandarine for lunch. I head down last night's street (which seems to be the main, and only, shopping street in town). I come to the main temple, pay ten rupees for a cup made from leaves and containing offerings (flower, cake, incense), leave my thongs and enter the temple grounds through the gate. I see the temple, looks like terracotta above and stone below, but maybe all terracotta; the bottom half is painted a deep red. I'm directed to the queue of people, all carrying their offerings, waiting to enter the temple.
After about half an hour I make it to the temple entrance. Inside is a small area with the image of Kali in the form of Tara, silver-faced, with red around the mouth, probably representing blood. It's wreathed with flowers, and what looks like black hair hangs down at the sides. There's a railing around, with three Brahmin priests inside, assisting the worshipers in making their offerings. As a Westerner I'm hastened into the inner inclosure, where the priest indicates I should kneel before the image of Tara, as I do, and I press my forehead to the altar. I stand and the priest does his offering thing, and places red powder on my forehead as usual (sometimes it's yellow), then says, "Money". I know to leave some money. I place a ten-rupee-note on the altar. As I'm leaving the enclosure the priests requests more money, but I'm not inclined to fatten the priests, so I just smile and say, "Already gave". I ask if I can take a photo, but the priests say No. They still urge an offering, they want a hundred rupees, but I decline. Maybe a hundred rupees would have changed their minds about photos, and in any case it would have done no harm.
Outside I look around and take some photos, including some of a wedding couple.
As I leave the temple grounds there's the usual throng of temple gate beggars. I give a few rupees to some women. One young girl, about eight years old, grabs my hand as I'm putting a coin into an old woman's bowl, and tries to wrench the one-rupee coin from my fingers. Her grip is quite tight, and for a while she might get it, but in the end I make her let go, and I place the coin into the hand for which it is meant.
I then wander down the street, and follow some people down a lane toward the river, just to see where they're going. The lane leads to the cremation grounds. There's a small hill about fifty meters away, and a couple of fires burning on top. There are sadhus around, and monkeys. One sadhu is threatening a monkey, who is halfway up a tree, and grimacing back at him.
I start to walk toward the pyres. A man tells me to remove my thongs, which I do. Apparently cremation grounds are like temples in this respect. I get to the hill with the pyres. It's black, presumably the ashes of innumerable past cremations. There are some men standing around on the hill, attending the two fires. They speak to me in Bengali, but they know no English, so our total communication consists in my telling them where I'm from. They are friendly enough. I go to the top of the hill to inspect the pyres. Nothing dignified about these. Just a couple of wood fires with the remains of two mostly burnt corpses, not a particularly pleasant sight, quite grisly actually, and I decide they are not likely to make good photos.
I go down the hill and wander toward a bunch of shrines. This is the social center of the cremation ground. It seems I came in the back way inadvertently. There are men selling incense, and some way off there are huts with sadhus sitting in the doors. A man is trying to tell me about the shrines. One is for Mahakali. Another, all in red, is for Bamakhepa, the mad yogi. I look through the grill and see a picture of Bamakhepa on the ceiling.
I wander down among the sadhus' huts. As I'm passing one I see this sadhu sitting in the door preparing some ganja to smoke. We make contact. He speaks some English and he invites me to sit inside. He's an old man, with matted grey hair, wearing an orange dhoti and covered with an old blanket. He prepares a small chillum and smokes it, then offers it to me. I take a few tokes. Makes me cough but it's not strong ganja.
I ask him about himself. His name is Jayanta Lal Chatterjee, and he's been at Tarapith for ten years. Sometimes he visits another Satipitha in Assam, Kamakhya; it takes him fifteen days to walk there. I ask him about death. His English is not good enough for detailed discourse. I say, what will happen to you when you die. He indicates that his body will be placed in the Earth (sannyasis are buried, not cremated). Yes, I say, but what about ... and here I make a gesture toward the heart. He indicates, by another gesture, that it will soar into the cosmos. I ask him about his sadhana (practice), but his English is not sufficient to answer, except to indicate that it is the worship of Ma Tara. "All is Tara", he says. I point to the rug, the bamboo of the hut, and ask, "Is this Tara?" Yes, he says, all Tara. This accords with my own view that everything is part of God. It's just a terminological difference. God, Kali, Shiva, all the same. This world, everything in it, is of the nature of God. So we agree, and there's not much more to be said.
At one point he pulls out a small cannister, apparently a throat spray, or perhaps some asthma medicine. Eighty rupees a month, he says. So before I leave I slip him a hundred-rupee-note. Having left and got someway down the street I realize that I forgot to ask for a photo. I must have been stoned. So I go back and he's agreeable so I take a few photos. All in all an interesting afternoon.
On my way back to the town center I buy another mandarin and find a boy selling some sweet, it looks like honeycomb, but not exactly anything I've seen before. He gives me a bit to taste. Very nice. I'm tempted to buy a block, but settle for a small piece for two rupees. Back at the hotel I find that this stuff is just great, really addictive. I'll have to buy a block next time. Unfortunately, as it turns out, I don't see him again. Damn! Missed my chance.
I go to the same restaurant where I ate last night to order dinner. While waiting for dinner to arrive I walk around the town center. There are plenty of food stalls. One is selling fried chicken (not Colonel Saunders style). Looks good, I think I'll eat here tomorrow night, a lot cheaper too.
Dinner is an indifferent and overpriced mutton biryani (a rice dish). But the fried dal and chapati are good.
I discover that more pieces of my teeth have come out. Not the same tooth as yesterday. Seem to be lost fillings. A few weeks before I arrived in India I had a dental checkup but the risk of losing these fillings seems to have escaped the dentist's attention. Also gums are bleeding a bit. Not good. Maybe an Indian dentist is not such a bad idea after all, but I doubt I'll find one I can trust before Chennai (Madras).
Next: More Rampurhat/Tarapith
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