25 March 2014, 08:24 PM IST
It has been 14 years since I was last in Pushkar, back in 2000 and still a child. For 5 weeks my family stayed in the small town. I remember skipping along the ghats, meeting fellow travelers, and admiring the women in brightly coloured saris that bathed and cast reflections in the rippled water. For more than a decade my happy childhood memories of Pushkar has subtly changed my image of the town into a romanticized ideal. I craved to go back.
Due to this, it should come as no surprise that I was ecstatic to return to Pushkar. I reached the hotel late at night and the next morning I was running to the water's edge, too giddy to walk. With baited breath I arrived at the ghat, already trying to connect my scattered memories to my surroundings. Had I stepped down these exact steps? Danced on this ghat? Was that the place where I remember feeding the pigeons? However, my thoughts were interrupted by a man thrusting a few flower petals in my hand, followed immediately after by another man who introduced himself as a Brahmin.
He asked me to follow him to the waters edge, squat down, and then immediately jumped into reciting a puja. Suddenly I remembered being warned about the Brahmins in Pushkar and how they push for money and, upset, I stopped him mid-sentence and explained that I did not want to perform the puja. To which he replied, "If you do not perform this puja and give a donation, it is extremely disrespectful to the gods". As I saw it, he had first taken away my choice by not explaining what he was doing, and second he had resorted to emotional blackmail by telling me that I was being disrespectful to his culture by not paying him. I walked away from him.
I pushed away two other Brahmins before a fourth forcibly grabbed my arm and dragged me to the water's edge, already loudly reciting the puja and refusing to listen to my protests. Supremely uncomfortable and upset for being pushed into the situation against my will but at the same time unwilling to be actively rude to a Brahmin, I suffered through the puja and paid a 100 rupees before walking away. The man was furious and yelled something rude in Hindi, for he had demanded at least 500 rupees.
It got under my skin. It disgusted me, to see how religion was being commercialized in Pushkar. As many people have told me, Hinduism is not meant to be so forceful and obnoxious. Yet for tourists only visiting for a brief period of time that is the image they receive. The girl from Holland who traveled with me was made to pay 1,600 rupees, which the Brahmin shoved unceremoniously into his pocket. A few tourists I met admitted they paid 6,000 rupees. The man had aggressively stood an inch from their faces and pressured them until they felt threatened enough to pay the sum he demanded. All of the people I talked to agree that the pressure from the Brahmins to donate was not only uncomfortable but ruined the stunning experience of being in Pushkar. It is a business to them, pure and simple.
I feel that the actions of these holy men does not only tarnish what Hinduism represents; commercializing the religion and exploiting it for money cheapens it. What kind of image will tourists take home with them after being in Pushkar and being exploited by the Brahmins there? It sickens me to think that visitors who have not spent much time in India will only have this one image of Hinduism. They will not leave the country having experienced the countless beautiful and intricate facets of Hinduism. They will leave with stories of being robbed of money in the name of religion.
I, however, left with a better impression than most. After receiving the string tied around my wrist that showed that I had performed the puja, I sat by the water's edge, unmolested. Two saried Indian women sat next to me and performed a puja of their own. They placed flowers and offerings into the water and chanted a prayer. After they finished one woman then turned to me and, smiling, asked in broken English if I wanted a tikka on my forehead. I accepted and thanked her, and left the ghat feeling much happier and content.
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