Kashi Vishvanath Temple

A visiting scholar of architecture and art history is staying here at the guesthouse for 2.5 days. She invited me to tag along to go visit some of the temples and mosques that she was interested in seeing for her research so I thought to myself, why not? When will I ever learn more about this?

the Gyanvapi Mosque and the Kashi Vishvanath Temple are in the same place. There are two doors that go into the compound. One for foreigners and another for everyone else. Or at least that is what it seemed like. We were not allowed in "Door number 1"

We had been told that this was an example of Hindus and Muslims going to the same site to worship and how no one seemed to have a problem with this. I was interested to see this site of potential harmonious public worship especially in light of the pending Ayodhya decision.

In order to get into the temple, we had to declare our Hindu faith in front of several police officers and write down our names and passport numbers in a book. When the first officer asked me if I was a Hindu, a second one replied "he speaks Hindi doesn't he", a third one then asked "WHY do you speak Hindi" I quickly said, "to study religion." only I almost used the Urdu word for religion which would have quickly gotten me thrown out for sure.

I really don't like lying, even to police officers.

that said, it was obvious to all that we were simply tourists when the guy across the tiny alleyway only 3 feet from the police officers was busy selling us drastically over priced offerings and teaching us how to go to the temple and what to do so that we didn't get "caught". As long you pay enough money it is very easy to convince the police that you are whatever religion you need to be that day.

When we get into the temple, it is a zoo. throngs of people are pushing this way and that way to get their Darshan or "divine sight." for many people we could sense the sincere devotion, but the pandits looked at us, knew we didn't know what to do, and began demanding donations by flashing 100 rupee notes at us (at this time I conveniently forgot all my Hindi and didn't understand anything they were saying). One pandit was even talking on his cell phone while blessing us and demanding money - all at the same time!.

One common practice of Hindu devotion is to bring offerings of food to the Gods, which are then blessed and distributed to one's friends and family. We had our little bag of nuts, raisins, coconut, etc. that we were using as our offering, although we almost lost it when Zirawat was attacked by a red faced monkey (everyone knows them to be much more aggressive than the black faced monkeys, albeit smaller in stature). Fortunately she was not clawed or bitten, but was quite startled.

These animals while seemingly cute are remarkably aggressive and surprisingly dangerous. A few years back the deputy mayor of Delhi was killed by them.

As for the peaceful harmony of Hindus and Muslims worshipping together, I haven't seen this many rifles up close since I (foolishly) went to Kashmir back in 2000 to go hiking. The place was surrounded by more than a hundred armed officers and soldiers. The Mosque was surrounded by 6 foot high Iron fence that was topped with razor wire. One felt as if the mosque was in jail or caged like a dangerous animal. I wish that I could have shared some photos with you, but alas that was most certainly forbidden. After being frisked three times on my way in, I felt nothing of the peaceful side by side worshipping experience that had been described to me before hand. I was unnerved by the guns and commercialism that followed my every step through the space. I have no desire to go back.