Last Sunday I went out with some friends from Woodstock to see ISKCON Temple. ISKCON stands for The International Society for Krishna Consciousness (the ‘Hare Krishna’ movement). The temple itself is enormous, though divided up into many small sections; the largest room is probably smaller than the average parish church. The centrepiece is a large golden shrine for Krishna, which is surrounded by flowers and oil lamps. Unfortunately cameras were not allowed inside the temple (you had to leave them outside with your shoes), we saw several people forcefully removed from the temple for attempting to take a sneaky photo. Luckily I managed to speak to someone who got some good photos on his phone before being removed and he sent them to me! They’ll be in the gallery as soon as I get them off my phone and on to the computer.
After you have been through the three main shrines, you are then diverted through a labyrinth of shops, stalls and food wallahs before you are allowed to leave. Having banned you from taking photos they are only too happy to sell you some afterwards for Rs.15! There are also a huge multitude of shrines, paintings, statues, LED flashing picture frames which chant the Hare Krishna mantra at you and all manner of tourist tat. It’s quite astonishing to see commercialism in this scale actually inside the temple, compared to the gift shop at Canterbury Cathedral for instance. After you have made your way through the shops you are herded through a queue for a small bowl of food, whether you want it or not, and then through a few more shops before you can leave.
It’s quite hard to feel like anything other than a tourist when you have to go through all this, even in the main sanctuary where there was a space to sit down and relax with live classical (Indian) music playing. Even there you are surrounded by a circle of people queuing, and a crush in front of the shrine itself being prodded along by the guards. The few holy men who were there were very much on show, going through the rituals more for the benefit of the tourists than Krishna, or so it seemed. One thing that stays with you though after you leave is the mantra: Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna, Hare Hare... This goes through your head round and round for quite a while afterwards, as it is on constantly from speakers all over the temple.
After we left the temple, we headed down to Cubbon Park, in the centre of the city. On the way I was treated to all the street delicacies we came across, first sugar cane juice, which is pressed using a huge contraption which are a common site on
Bangalore streets. Next I was treated to puri, tiny inflated papadums which are cracked open like a boiled egg and filled with a watery sauce. You have to try and gulp them down as fast as the wallah makes them. Next was something I have forgotten the name of, but it was a paper cone filled with spicy rice crispies and nuts, a bit like Bombay Mix (which does not exist over here, even in Mumbai!).
On the way we passed by the Government buildings, which are vast, spotlessly clean and very ornate. Cleary a lot of money is spent keeping the place clean and impressive. While there is no public access, we did manage to persuade the guards at the back to let us in and get a bit closer to the buildings to take photos. We moved on next to the Government Museum, just across the road. While pretty shabby, it did have some good exhibits, although no real theme. The most interesting room was full of extremely old statues recovered from ruined temples. The detail, despite their age, is quite breathtaking; I am looking forward to going to see some of the older temples outside
Bangalore soon.
After trying to work out which bus would take us back home for quite a while we eventually gave in and got an auto back. The buses here are mad; you really need to be able to at least speak Hindi to use them (at least for the first time). There are very few marked bus stops and no published times or route numbers, you just need to ask the conductor of each bus as it comes through whether it’s going where you want. I’m sticking to autos for the moment! This weekend I might be going to Mysore, which is supposed to be very beautiful, I’ll keep you posted.