10 Lakh Pilgrims...and 1 Western Couple

On the night train in the direction to Bijapur we had some very nice people sitting with us. They happened to mention that there was a HUGE festival/pilgrimage to Pandarpur, quite close to where the train was heading. We decided to check it out! The "mela" or pilgrimage is done once a year by about one and a half million devout hindus who walk for 20 days (about 400 km) and end up in Pandarpur for the final festivities, which is tomorrow. This is particularily amazing when you consider that most of the people doing the pilgrimage are well past middle age and seem to be either barefoot or in extremely impractical footwear. If you just want to see all the pretty pictures, we made a picasa album with some of the hits (also it takes a long time to upload photos to the blog, and power cuts are frequent...)

As with any good festival, many sorts of entertainment are to be had. There were people selling every conceivable thing, bangles, blankets, toys, clothes, large religious statues made of stone etc. etc. There were however, two main attractions that were especially crowd pleasing. One was the devotional song and dance videos blasted at loud volume, and the other one was a pair of western tourists who showed up and took everyone's pictures. According to police accounts, there were 8 lakh people (a lakh is 100,000) present when we were there, and of these people, 4 lakh wanted to shake our hands and 2 lakh wanted us to take their photo....with their children, with their friends, with the holy cow, with the hanuman statue, but mostly with Kim. The rest of them were content to watch us - in the photo here you can see what happened when we stopped for a cup of Chai. We are serious, all of these people surrounded us and took pictures of us with their mobiles (those who had them).

Here's what the life of a pilgrim seems to be like: After walking for 20 days, you arrive in Pandarpur where you can bathe in the river (with 7 lakh, 99,999 other people and some cows) and then, with the help of a friend, to wash your sari and dry it by holding it up in the air for about half an hour. This may seem silly, but is extremely photogenic. Unfortunately we don't speak any Hindi, because everyone wanted to tell us all about it. Then, when you are all clean, you can either offer a small prayer in one of the 20 minor temples in town, or you can spend 7 hours in line (and we are talking about a line that curled around the town about 3 times, going through abandoned buildings, and over special walkways) to do the special darshan (deity viewing) that you originally came for. Everyone was very eager to know if we had done the special darshan, and we felt bad saying "Are you crazy! 7 hours in a line to see a statue?" so we politely said we were planning on doing it the next day. The food (you knew there would be a gastronomic element to the pilgrimage, didn't you...) was very nice and simple. We have gone from riches to rags. Instead of the 250 rupee tali with 8 uniformed waiters, we are now having a chapatti and dal (watery) accompanied by a lot of chopped raw onion and some spicy chilis for 7 rupees served by a dude in a grubby undershirt whose mother is sitting on the sidewalk outside making the chapattis. And it sure is tasty! Already the 8 lakh people was getting a bit crowded for us, so we didn't wait for the other 7 lakh to arrive over the weekend, but came instead to Bijapur, where we are now.

Before we wrap it up for tonight, (and it has taken us a long time because there have been 2 half hour power failures) we just wanted to say that we Looooooove comments, so please keep writing them, we will respond if we have time or electricity.

We also wanted to introduce a new concept on the blog, the BARFI. Normally, a barfi is a type of dessert eaten by Indian people all over the country. We wanted it to be a small postscript about an unrelated topic that we found funny or amusing. The BARFI of the day is "chicken"....what do you think it means when 10 childen come running towards you holding out their sweaty hands and yelling "chicken, chicken!"? It took us a while to figure it out, but it actually means..."shake hands"!