Waking the gods

Starting the day in India!

The inspiration behind this blog post came from all the early mornings that have been forced upon us on countless mornings.  Before the sun comes up the religous world comes to life, finds its voices, and the gods along with the rest of the city are woken up.

Without a doubt India would have to be one of the most religious countries in the world.  There's Buddists in the mountains, Sikhs in the west, Jain's, Muslims and of course Hindus.  They all have their own rituals, gods, temples, and holy sites.  This makes for a lot of gods to be woken, which can mean only one thing... a lot of noise.

If you're going to wake up a god, you'd better get him a present

Most temples have a bell at the entrance that is rung to wake the god inside when you enter and leave.  Now temples aren't necessarily big churchy type buildings, they can be a little statue on the side of the street, a room tucked away in a house or down an alley or a small mound that you don't even notice.  Apparently the bells mustn't work that well, as each morning and evening, groups of worshippers head to these temples with metal cymbols (like a metal plate) that they bang away on in some sort of tune while chanting.  The gods must also do a whole lot of sleeping (I don't know how), becaue they are constantly being woken up, all day long!

The local laundromat

 
Down by the water (lakes or rivers) you can hear people chanting the same chants, washing and purifying themselves, and singing some more chants at the top of their lungs.  If you've ever sneaked into the kitchen for a midnight snack then you'll know how much noise carries in the wee small hours.  The group huddled on the other side of the lake sounds like they're just in the bathroom of your hotel room!

You can also ask for some forgiveness.  Like our recent neighbor, who upon nearing completion of his house decided it needed to be blessed.  This involved hiring a generator and PA system turning it up as load as possible to ensure maximum distortion and then reading a holy book (think bible style) for over 24 hours... right through the night.  It doesn't matter that no one else in the village will sleep (or understand your chanting), surely the gods will look upon you favourably, even if you neighbors won't the next day.

But that's how life is lived over here, the business day might not start until 10am, but everyone is up much earlier and won't start working until their rituals are completed, no matter how big or small they are.  The noise of waking the gods may stir you from the great sleep you were having, but is a daily reminder that you're away from home in India, where everything is noisier!