Mysore pt 2

We were on the top of Chamundi Hill, overlooking Mysore. We drove half the day to get there from Bangalore, but it seemed like we had come to the India we wanted to see. It had the good elements we were there for without some of the components that, as Westerners, we weren’t always comfortable with. There was a beautiful Hindu temple, but one that didn’t force you through miles of crowded commercial stalls. There was bright clothes and colorful characters without too many pushy street vendors. There were monkeys up close and friendly cows without much dirt. It was warm and sunny without being oppressive. Plus we were on a hilltop overlooking Southern India at the feet of a beautiful temple. I can say that all of us liked this part of the trip the best. You walk through a wide strip of vendor stalls to get down to the temple.
Banjo warned us that the merchants there were all crooks selling fake sandalwood. I had to stop and marvel at the amount of things being sold and the brisk activity. And there were cows wandering around. No one seemed in charge of them. They just gamboled about, pushing gently past you as needed. One nuzzled affectionately with Lois while she waited on the steps. It’s worth noting that we also cows wandering around in otherwise busy streets in town as well. You may see one or two cows being led around in Bangalore, but here they were just hanging out.

The monkeys had no fear of us. One even climbed into a local guide’s hands to receive a treat. The thought of the male at Lal Babgh baring his teeth kept me at a distance though. They did all of the monkey-style things you would expect: shinnying up pipes, climbing the temple statues, swinging from trees, stuffing their faces and grooming each other. It should have been what we expected from monkeys, but somehow it seemed amazing and rare.Only a few of us went through the temple to see the idol. She was very old, beautiful, but set several rooms back in the temple. It was like seeing a shiny thing at the end of a hallway. We looped through and on the other side a priest was giving blessings for a donation. Mike wanted one so we got the dot and blessing. Outside we bought string bracelets and got a second dot, so it was the large yellow with red in the center. On the backside of the temple was the wall that the idol was on the other side of inside the temple. Although it was stone, pilgrims pressed their head and hands against it. You could see indents where this apparently had happened many, many times before.We took our photos with the demon Mahishasura and got in the van to loop down the hill. I tried the cane drink a vendor was making by passing the cane through a press. It was sweet and frothy.We arrived at the overlook spot and several children in elaborate Hindu costumes leapt out of the trees and accosted us for photo ops. I was all too happy to oblige these rapscallions. 10 rupees would have been appropriate, but I only had 100 rupee notes. This is about $2. This made them delightfully more aggressive in their salesmanship. One of the others with smaller bills tried to pay for the privilege, but they leapt about, gesturing wildly at the pocket where my wallet had gone. As we rolled down the hill, they were still chasing the van with pleading arms outstretched. I just kept snapping to get my 100 bucks worth.

Next stop was the sculpture of the great bull Nandi. Nandi is Shiva’s mount, so he is pretty important. I wonder if this is where the sacredness of cows is from. The sculpture is one of the largest bulls in India, carved from a single piece of granite. There are also stairs that lead down the from the temple on the other side, so we could see people from the temple miraculously there when we arrived.
There were monkeys here, too. One of them ran after Lois, who wisely gave up the banana and headed back to the car.
From here it was back to town. The story concludes next post.