Zones of exclusion

Zones of exclusion
Teja Shrikant Lele

Only Hindus allowed,'' reads the signboard at the entrance to the temple.

There are hordes of people sitting around. At first glance you would thinkit is mainly a group seeking handouts -- common around so many religioussites around the world -- that will help them get a meal. A second look tellsyou there is more to this than meets the eye. The people are scrutinisingvisitors without drawing attention to themselves. Look into the distance and you will see foreigners -- translate this to mean both white-skinned and black-skinned people -- queued up to catch a glimpse of the temple. A look is all that they are allowed here. If they want darshan, then they had better be born Hindus.

Welcome to Nepal, the Himalayan Kingdom, the temple in question being the famed Pashupatinath.

As I did the pradakshina, viewing the idol from all four sides as the temple is an open one, I looked over at those few who watched from afar. Coming from a country where the religious divide is not so slowly widening, it should not have come as such a major shock. After all, the state I live in is one where communal differences bubble over all the time. Just last week a church was vandalised by fundamentalists who put a saffron flag atop it -- an effort, perhaps, to convert the building. And this week there was a riot over a trivial matter -- one community took out a procession while the other was offering prayers. Result: rounds were fired, tear-gas shells lobbed. The religious divide was nothing new, but I had not yet come across a place where the divide was so clearly etched.

And yet, Kathmandu is a city that abounds in temples. Taking a walk aroundthe old city only reinforces this belief. Be it the Durbar Square which hasancient monuments, temples and other shrines. The Jagatnarayan Templeperched on the banks of the Bagmati -- complete with an imposing metal Garudathat seems ready to take flight from a humongous stone pillar. Or the 17thcentury Krishna Mandir, the first Shikhara style temple constructed entirelyin stone. And the three-storey golden pagoda of Lokeshwar (Buddha), theHiranya Varna Mahavihar, which was built by King Bhaskar Varma.

Nepal is where the titanic statue of ``sleeping Vishnu'' is located. This iswhere the òf40óbhool bhulaiya has been given a divine touch. As many as 535 Shivlings have been made up into a maze through which you have to findyour way. Needless to say, it might look as easy as apple pie, but when itcomes down to it, it is a real tough proposition. The way out was revealedwhen I spied a few regulars doing the rounds -- chanting the Lord's name, they reverently touched each ling as they made their way out.

As the driver-cum-guide takes you around the main chowk, the atmospherestarts to sink in... 108 buffaloes are sacrificed here each year duringDussehra, the dull voice intones. Even now, my sister exclaims. Yes, he answers, with a look of unexplained pride. As he goes on and on, the scenecomes alive in front of you -- the rivulets of blood flowing into a channelspecially constructed to carry it, the masses of people, the chants. It's all about religion, he seems to say.

``We did not even allow Sonia Gandhi and Queen Elizabeth to enter the temple,'' says a priest. Not for anything would they be allowed, is theunspoken implication.

I walked out of the temple. And looked back -- only to see the forlorn look being cast by the many foreigners. Now that I am back, myriad images of the mystic city crowd my mind -- the Annapurna range, the touristy haunts, the casinos, the momos. But the image that eclipses all these is that ``Only Hindus allowed'' sign.