Pushkar

.

Pushkar - a small city of 15,000 inhabitants - is a Hindu pilgrimage town, a cluster of pale onion domes with 400 milky temples, where regular pujas (prayers) create the town’s episodic soundtrack of chanting, drums and gongs, and devotion songs booming out from cracking speakers. Pushkar has a magnetism all of its own, unlike anywhere else in Rajasthan (one could say it’s a baby Varanasi). The town curls around a holy lake, said to have appeared when Brahma dropped a lotus flower. Since that time, the pilgrims abound here. But they’re not the only ones. Travellers also come by the thousands. Some stay weeks, even months, some others want to have a taste of it. Such an influx of rich foreigners had an impact on the city, and there are as many touts as sticky flies, selling anything they think you may be interested in. They are the most pushy we’ve met so far. As always, the trick is to simply ignore them. We found the city has lost a bit of its serenity. Certainly one example of the bad influence of mass tourism.

.

One can find many priests here (some more genuine than others…). They can mainly be found near the bathing ghats (stairs leading to a lake or river). In those, pilgrims bathe in the sacred waters. Priests are quick to offer you flowers that you shall throw in the lake reciting a prayer. A donation is obviously expected, and some priest shall inform you that some tourists give 300 Rs or 500 Rs, or 5 usd or 10 usd. I am surprised he did not tell me that he accepted credit cards and traveller cheques. Of course the bigger the family (the prayer you repeat after the priest includes any possible member of your family, for which your donation will give good luck and good karma.) the bigger the donation expected!! The souvenir of this whole thing will be a “Pushkar passport” (a red ribbon around your wrist). We leave our shoes at the entrance and walk on the tip of our toes trying to avoid pigeon shit that carpets the ghat floor but without success. A priest accompanies us to the lake and insists that we should recite the prayer with him. Then we start discussing the prayer fee and the priest mimed an offended face when I suggested putting the prayer fee in the donation box at the entrance! We sit down and watch a multitude of people coming to take the blessing and wash their sins in the holy waters surrounding the lake. Men and women undress and plunge in the water and rub themselves vigorously. The spectacle is out of this world: saris flowing next to slim old bodies, saddhus, lightly dressed with all sorts of forehead paintings and pigeons flying around the ghats.

.

Pushkar boasts hundreds of temples. The most famous is Brahma Temple, one of the few such temples in the world as a result of a curse by Brahma’s consorts. Brahma is usually depicted with four bearded faces facing the four directions, ad four hands, each holding one of the four books of the Vedas (Books of Knowledge). His vehicle is the swan and his consort is Saraswati, the Goddess of Education. According to the legend, the sacred lake of Pushkar sprang up at the spot where Brahma dropped a lotus flower from the sky. Pushkar takes its name from this incident – push means ‘flower’ and kar means ‘hand’. Brahma wanted to perform a yagna (holy sacrifice) at the lake at full moon night, a ceremony that requires the presence of his consort. But Saraswati was late. Irritated Brahma quickly married a convenient milkmaid named Gayatri, and when Saraswati arrived she discovered that Gayatri seated in her own honoured place beside Brahma. Saraswati was understandably furious and vowed that Brahma would be forgotten by the people of the earth. It was a profound curse and the gods pleaded with her to reconsider. Finally she relented, decreeing that he could be worshipped, but only in Pushkar. Since then, the Brahma Temple at Pushkar has remained one of the only temple in the world dedicated to Brahma and allegedly the only one in India. Meanwhile, Saraswati and Gayatri receive their pujas (offering or prayer) at separate temples, at opposite ends of the town. We wander around in the tourist oriented streets until the Brahma temple: we found it rather overrated architecturally but stay there for the one or two hours. 

Tips:

Hotel: Master’s Paradise: 1650 inc breakfast and taxes. Swimming pool ok.

Lunch at the same place. Meal ok. (no meat, fish and no eggs in the city’s restaurants, a vegetarian’s paradise.) Don’t eat in eateries in town, very bad quality. Stomach ache guaranteed later on.

Dinner:

Pushkar Palace restaurant. Good food and nice setting

From Jaipur to Pushkar: 2.5 hours by car

Donation for prayer at a ghat: 100 Rs for a couple is fine.

Though very important, we did not find the Brahma temple particularly beautiful.

.