We are pilgrims of pilgrims. We sleep in the temple like they do, but we are mostly there for them. We sleep in the foreign tourists dorm, on a plywood bed the length of the long room. It's full of us and it's the quietest sleepover I have ever been to. Outside our room hundreds of bodies sleep like sardines on the white marble, filling the courtyard. I carefully step over them, making my way to the bathroom. They are not poor, they just want to be there, and the thousand-and-some-odd rooms are already brimming with families. At 4:30 most of them are already gone, off to see the holy book come out of its palanquin-crib for the day. Good morning book.
In the 24-hour donation-run mess hall we are taken one hundred or so
at a time into hallways, a metal plate and water bowl thrust into our hands on the way. Water, chapathi, daal, and sweet milk rice are distributed rapidly from buckets. Eat, more, eat. And we are all off again, down the stairs, and each dish and spoon is passed down an assembly line of people reaching, at the end, rows of long sinks and hundreds of volunteer dishwashers. The cleaning creates a rhythmic clattering that almost eclipses the chanting that is broadcasted across the temple complex and into the town. The entire periphery of the mess hall is filled with people sitting cross-legged on the floor, hands busily peeling and chopping garlic, onions and
ginger. The temple itself is glittery gold and packed at all hours of the day with people making offerings, praying and chanting with the man on the microphone. Along the "pool of nectar" (holy water, complete with big orange goldfish) people snap photos, dunk themselves, and fill up plastic waterbottles to bring some of the holy nectar home. Our last rickshaw driver in Delhi told us to remember to bring a water bottle to steal some nectar. I thought he was crazy, but I guess you never know when you need some all-healing water.
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