you're not a hindu!

On Sunday morning I awoke from a nice long sleep and got dressed to go to the temple. I met some people for breakfast and then we walked ten or so minutes through the ever-busy Madurai streets. Upon arriving at the temple, we took our shoes off and then walked across the extremely hot (ouch I can't step on the ground) pavement and made a beeline for the small shaded area along the side of the temple entrance. Once inside, we walked towards the ticket booth. There were at least a thousand people just in the main corridor. There were small wedding parties, all these men and women heavily garlanded surrounded by family and friends and I am assuming the rest were tourists from within India and abroad, because this was not the type of crowd you would want to traverse just to get a glimpse of the Meenakshi idol.

My friends, who were all from France thought it best for me to try and go into the temple alone since "non Hindus" are not allowed inside the main chamber. I made my way to the ticket booth to purchase one camera ticket for Edward and an admission ticket for me. The "line" was just a giant group of men, who were all fighting for a space at the window. Determined, I pushed past some of them and finally reached the window. As I was about to open my mouth, another man came right up next to my arm and started to ask and I yelled "This is a line!" My words fell on deaf ears, lines do not exist in India. I then proceeded to ask the ticket gentleman for a ticket and one camera pass. He mumbled something and threw my money back at me and then eventually wrote a camera ticket. I patiently asked him in Tamil "enna achu?" (what happened?) I was really confused as to what was going on. He again grunted something, gave me a dirty look and sent me packing. I realized, as I walked a few steps away, that he had only given me a camera ticket and not a Meenakshi temple ticket. I went back to the counter and asked again, "enna achu?". He again mumbled something indecipherable. This time, I got annoyed and began speaking in English. I asked again and finally realized that he didn't have change and wanted me to pay 15 rupees for the ticket with change. I said "thats all you had to say!" and under my breath I said "jesus" in frustration. From the back of the small office, a man yelled "Don't say Jesus, we are Hindus, we don't believe in Jesus." I, completely fiery at this point, yelled back that "I was raised to believe that we accepted all religions, thats the Hinduism I learned." To which this gentleman and the ticket man responded "you are no Hindu." I yelled back "I am too a Hindu, how dare you talk to me like that!" and stormed away from the window. I was completely taken aback, and really upset because I felt really insulted by their words, this was not the Hinduism I knew.

I eventually got in line and waited 15 or so minutes, until I finally got to the main area. (This temple sort of reminded me of a ride at great adventure.) As I finally got to see Madurai Meenakshi, a black statue set deep into the chamber, with glowing lights all around her, I was yelled at by the priest and Madurai Meenakshi's "bouncer" to "Go!" The gentleman who had been standing in front of me, had been kicked out because he had prayed too long and the families behind me were pushing, even the four year old children. The priest continued to yell at me so I yelled right back. (big surprise right?) I said to him " This is a place of god, you can't yell at people when they are praying!" I was really respectful and patient, but he just kept yelling for me to go. It was so frustrating, I ended up storming off and as I looked back he gave me the "yeah see thats how it is!" look.

Needless to say, I made a promise that the next time I went to a temple, it would be small and there would be no great adventure like line, because it really isn't worth it. After all, as I have been told many times, you don't need to go to a temple to pray or think about god - which is how I feel about it anyway. My overall impression is that the types of people who work at the temple and even attend the temple (aside from tourists) are mostly functional Hindus, they follow rules that are dictated to them by society, but they never question why things are the way they are. I suppose that this hinders thier ability to be tolerant of other religions/practices. (I would be interested to see what people think about this...)