Two Religions

In between visiting Commonwealth Games venues, I managed to squeeze in some more sightseeing of a spiritual nature. First on the agenda was the Bahai temple, shown above. It's the latest in a line of massive Bahai temples, each with nine sides. From the outside, it looks a lot like the Sydney Opera House, if it was folded up. There's not much to see and do here, since absolute silence is required inside. Visitors are ushered into the temple in groups of about a hundred, then they sit quietly, then leave. I was interested to see whether it was possible for a crowd of Indians to be absolutely silent, especially after seeing and hearing how impossible it was to achieve this during some of the CWG events, even after repeated requests, stoppage of events, and so on. Maybe the crowd that goes to a Bahai temple as tourists is better behaved than their sports-interested compatriots, because it was actually fairly quiet. It was a great deal quieter than the catacombs under the Vatican, where you can see the graves of the Popes. Michaela and I visited Rome last year and were startled at the holiday atmosphere at the Popes' graves, with people laughing and joking, jostling each other and generally goofing about, all the while the Vatican ushers were going around loudly saying 'Shhhhh' every few seconds. Maybe the Vatican ushers should take lessons from the Bahai ushers in maintaining silence in a sacred place. :-)


Most of the visitors to the Bahai temple in Delhi were not followers of that faith, as was shown a few minutes after exiting the temple. We were all required to be in bare feet, and the tiles around the temple were blisteringly hot, so someone decided to sit next to one of the nine pools surrounding the temple and dangle their feet in. Everyone else quickly followed suit, as the photo shows, and so did I. It was absolutely blissful, feeling the cool water around our very hot bare feet. This lasted for several minutes until a small posse of security guards swept down and ordered us all the get our feet out of the pools, which we did. Playtime was over.


After retrieving my sandals and going to the museum of Bahai history, I headed off to the ISKCON temple next door. ISKCON is the International Society of Krishna Consciousness, usually just called the Hare Krishnas in the West. Most of the devotees seemed to be Indian, with a few Westerners thrown in, and all were dressed in the characteristic pale orange robes with shaved heads and a tiny ponytail.


The highlight of this visit was the 'Vedic Expo', which was an over-the-top sound-and-light extravaganza, explaining the principles of the Hare Krishna faith (they are basically a denomination of Hinduism, which focusses purely on Krishna). I was let into a pitch-black room, all alone, then there was a lot of crashing and banging, followed by a lecture on the faith, all the while different parts of a static diorama lit up. I was then ushered into another pitch-black room and the process was repeated. This is definitely not a place for children, with almost total darkness, apart from strobe lights on some really scary-looking figures, and lots of loud noises and shouting. Not exactly my cup of tea for a religious experience, so joining the Hare Krishnas is another career choice that is now out of the question for me, along with sports photography.

Incidentally, there were a bunch of Hare Krishnas (Indian and foreign) singing and dancing at the exit of one of the CWG venues. The local people seemed to regard them much as we do in the West: try to walk around them and just keep moving. :-)