India 7: manifestations of Shiva

One evening in Benares we took part in a puja. We climbed up the long steep stairs from the river to a high red gate. A low door opened; we had to bend down to enter.

Inside was an open area with a dhuni near a sacred tree. Under the tree a high wooden seat looked out over the Ganges. At each of arms of the chairs was a high stake capped with a skull.

A dozen or so of us sat on straw mats around the fire while a young man led us through a long ceremony, reciting countless rhythmic verses in Sanskrit as we tossed grain into the fire. The sound was so beautiful, the fire so entrancing, that I didn't notice the sun setting behind the buildings.

When I finally looked up, I saw a figure coming out of a door. Surely it was the god Shiva himself: a near-naked ash-covered sadhu with knotted hair and beard. He left through the little red door. Some time later I looked up again and there was Shiva again, now on the seat under the tree. The third time I saw him, he was headed toward the gate again. As I watched, he pulled a pack of cigarettes out of his lungi and lit one.

After the puja another manifestation of Shiva showed up, this one a young baba, fluent in English, who was wearing so many malas they formed a great shield on his chest and his chin was forced upward. The incongruous thing about this guy was that he was wearing eyeglasses with very up-to-date frames, and he had a cell phone hooked to a string around his waist.

Only in India.