Wednesday, February 28, 2007

Holy cows and holy rats

I know that you all know that cows are holy in India, it's OK , I can live without beef for 6 weeks! But, holy rats. now that is just taking it a bit far I think. Now, I am pretty open about what people believe in and what they choose to worship, but I am struggling with the rat concept. There is a temple in Binaker where the people believe that the rats are a reincarnation of the family members of a holy lady, so they feed them and pray to the image of the holy lady. The rats are allowed to run all over the temple and are not to be harmed.

You are said to be blessed if a rat runs over your foot and if you see a white rat, then you are in for good luck. Jo had one come and smell her foot, though she was too busy taking a photo she didn't notice, and she saw a white rat, so she is right for the blessing and the luck. Me...neither blessed or lucky, but you know what...I am not that disappointed.

The Indian Hindus have 330 million deities, so there is always a festival of some sort going on, and people carrying flags in a procession. I don't know how it is possible to remember each deity on celebrate them in a year, that is nearly 100 million a day!

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