Puri

Every time we visit Bhubaneswar, we also visit the town of Puri. Puri is famous for its temple, the Juggernath temple, from which every year a giant statue of the God Juggernath is taken on a journey. The trip from Bhubaneswar to Puri is about an hour, so we normally leave early in the morning so that we can come back as early as possible, for Puri becomes extremely hot in the afternoon.
The first temple we visited in Puri was that of a Goddess, who supposedly granted whatever you asked of her, providing that you promised to give her something in return. My dad said that whatever he had asked for he had received, but I was not too sure that it was completely because of the Goddess. Leaving reason and logic behind, I too asked for something and promised something in return. The interesting thing about this goddess is that she is the only goddess in which fish can be given too. In most Indian temples, fruit and milk is given to the Gods as food; in this temple, fish was allowed.
After dropping my aunt and grandmother off at our ancestral house (which has been in our family for five generations), we went to Juggernath temple. The car was only allowed up till a certain point, after which we took a rickshaw to the temple. Shoes weren’t allowed in the temple, so after leaving them outside and washing our feet, we went inside the temple. This is one of the few temples in which only Hindus are allowed inside; in fact, one of India’s Prime Ministers, Indira Gandhi, was not allowed inside the temple because she wasn’t Hindu. Inside the temple are a series of mini temples, each devoted to a specific God or Goddess. We visited almost all of them, almost running across the scorching marble from temple to temple. After visiting the smaller temples, we went to see Juggernath. The doors (which Juggernath is kept behind) were closed, as this was the time in the festival in which Juggernath was “sick”. The story behind this is that all Gods come to earth, and so as part of Juggernath’s mortal life, he also falls sick, which is indicated by this time in the celebration (he also gets married and takes a vacation before he finally returns to his resting spot in the temple). After leaving the temple, we went to one of the restaurants that we also always go to in Puri (more because it has air-conditioning than because of the quality of food available). While walking, many, many of the beggars in Puri came and asked us for money. In fact, the amount of poverty in Puri seemed to be exponentially higher than that of any other city I had visited. And it wasn’t just this time that I had noticed; every time we visited, the poverty in Puri seemed to be increasing. There are a few possible reasons for this. Perhaps this was because of the fact that Puri itself hasn’t changed very much. I asked my dad if Puri looked any different from the time when he used to come during his summer vacations and he promptly responded that nothing had changed. With no change coming into the city, the opportunities for the newer generations are extremely limited. Most sons of priests know that they are going to be priests, so they don’t go to school and receive an education; instead they sit around all day, asking for money so that they can spend it on whatever they want. However, many of the beggars were women. For that there is another explanation. Many times if the husband dies, the family casts out the wife so that they get the land that the husband had. They can’t simply throw her out of the house in their own city, as then their reputation would be tarnished, so they bring the widows to Puri and then leave them there, where they are exploited and have no way of bettering their situation. Puri desperately needs some change, but as it is a religious city, change will be slowly accepted.
Anyway, after lunch we visited our ancestral house to rest before we visited my grandfather’s sister. The house itself has not changed at all. Ever since I can remember, the house has looked the same, with the sole exception that there used to be a cow that used to live in the house, but now is on the streets. I wasn’t in the mood to rest, so I began to flip through some old wedding albums. I came to my parents’ wedding album, which I had never seen before. It was interesting to see how everyone looked-not only my parents but other relatives. Soon everyone was flipping through the albums, reminiscing about weddings and the time when this happened or the time when that happened.
Going to my grandfather’s sister’s house was last on the agenda, and we only stayed for an hour. I had a little bit of fun playing caram with my cousin. The caretaker and his wife came to join us in playing caram, and for the hour that followed, the conversation was reduced to smiles and some broken Hindi (the caretaker’s wife fortunately spoke Hindi and Oriya, so she became our translator). This caused for some awkward moments, but it was still a fun experience, and by the end of the game, we were smiling and laughing as though they were my relatives who I had known for years. My hope is that after my grandfather’s sister dies, they get the house, as the caretaker’s family has been taking care of my grandfather’s family for years.
That culminated the trip to Puri. On the way back we passed by the Konark Beach, a beach we normally visit but this time decided not to. Hopefully Puri has changed by the time I next visit the town, but I’m not hopeful.