I'm not going there again,,,,,,,,

cazaresil

Your comments are fair, Seventies'Hippy. Unfortunately I didn't have a lot of time to spend in many places in India. Probably my impression of Pushkar would have changed. However, Pushkar would be a better place without the Pushkar passport. One example... a Brahmin priest, probably 50-55 years old, approached me and I told him right away that I wouldn't give him money at all. This is because I really don't believe that God is going to judge me based on how many rupees I give out in Pushkar, and also because I wanted to be by myself around the nice lake. He said that money doesn't matter, that only karma matters. Against my will, he kept on telling me stories and followed me all over the ghats. After MORE THAN 30 MINS of harassment, I told him again that I wanted to be alone and that I wasn't going to give him money. He screamed, no donations? And started to make a drama out of that. He left me, but in the hands of another insisting priest. One more example: a young man, probably 20 years old, claimed he was a holy man. I didn't believe it and argued with him a lot, only to find out that I was right and he wasn't a holy man, an extraordinary confession that I really appreciated.

Also, when I first arrived to Pushkar a man attempted to put a flower in my hands, and he even grabbed my arm, with some degree of violence. I had to elevate my tone and ask him not to touch me. He left me alone, but not before screaming many times "Pushkar passport".

All this to say that I didn't feel that people in Pushkar respected me. I may have ended up with the wrong people, and you are so right, one day is never enough. Next time I go to India I will try to stay focused in one or two specific areas. But for the benefit of the thread readers, could you please advise us how to "connect" in Pushkar with authentic Brahmin priests who can teach us about their life perspective and who don't care how much money we bring?

machadinha

Might be as hard as connecting with a catholic priest in Rome who has anything to say to you. Being in town for a day or two won't improve your chances I'm sure.

What's the Pushkar passport though?

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rangss

Konark beach is shit agreed...but those big dead turtles deserve a life. They are the rare Oliver Ridley turtles that visit the shores of Orissa to lay eggs and hatch. Their survival instincts are weak and are under protection by the Indian Government. But greedy fisher folk kill them for the eggs and thair meat and shells. They have absolutely no defence mechanism. Year after year they come to shore and die. Despite all claims to protect them the government is totally inept at saving them.

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seventies'hippy

cazaresil, So sorry to read about such an off putting experience on your first time arrival in Pushkar. I think I would probably have thought the same if it had happened to me,,,,,,,,,,
I'v lost count off the number of times I've been there & of the many months I've spent there going back to the early seventies, but yes these days (though It's not always been like that) I also get the flower in the hand throw it in the lake stuff when I go back. But these people aren't true pushkar people and like you discovered far from holy.
Even the real bonafide ghat priests or temple priests shouldn't be pestering you like in the experience you discribed. Sure if you go down the ghats by the lake & it's obvious that you haven't taken Puja with a priest as you haven't not got a what is now called (for the westerners) a Pushkar Passport or red cord round your wrist , then you'll be approached and offered a ceremony, after all perhaps from their point of view why come to Pushkar as a western tourist/pilgrim if you don't want to take puja at their most holy lake, for to them that is why people come,,,,,,,,,,,
As for paying for this ceremony, Yes everyone pays, even the poorest pilgrims pay what is for them perhaps a lot of money, as for westerners, sure you'll get hit for more but don't we always!.
I do (usually) take puja when I go but with one or another of several priests cum friends and which for me covers several issues, Like I feel that It's right for me to have it, It helps them monetarily, It puts me in the right frame of mind etc and of course gives me a "Pushkar Passport which wards off a lot of the pestering.
If you've never taken puja by Pushkar Lake then don't fight it, do it, It is quite a special experience and one more you'll take home from India. As for how much to pay, perhaps my situations different, but for someone first time there, It's a matter of having a priest who isn't too persistant, perhaps one who's asked you and hasn't persisted, go back later and take him up on it do fix the price first, I would suggest, but It's your thing between 300-500Rps.

But like I mentioned before, It's all about spending time in a place & getting to know how the peoples lifestyles work, how they're all inter-dependent on each other, who are the insiders and who are the outsiders in town.
I feel priviledged to have been able to do that in several places in India in my younger years of travelling and I appreciate that if I was starting to travel now I wouldn't be able to spend time like that. Your freedom of circumstances dictate the type of traveller you are and you have to adapt accordingly.
You can't expect to experince the true feeling of a place if you just arrive, walk through the market, round the lake, down the ghats, tick the box and go. All that gives you is the been there memory & perhaps a t-shirt,

Ram Ram

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Dr Funkenstein

Having read what cazaresil says, I'm inclined to give Pushkar a miss now. Being relentlessly hassled while you're trying to get a bit of peace and quiet by the lake doesn't sound much fun at all.

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seventies'hippy

Perhaps we should start a new thread about the Fors and Againsts of having "The Internet & Guide Books". and the making a decision on a place before ever, if ever going there,,,,,,,,,,,

Dr Funkenstein

A blessing and a curse, imo ...

machadinha

Ah yes the red ribbon!... It all comes back to me now. The coconut and the flowers and the little book with grateful quotes from people from all over the world who have laid down astronomical amounts for the honor (lest you the recipient not be able to take a hint)...

Maybe the reason why people get suckered so easily (and pestered so heavily) is because many are relative newbies coming straight from Delhi, and they can just tell if you're new. The ceremony cost me 50 Rs. in '93 amidst much protestations and exclamations that I did not value my salvation enough, until I kindly pointed out that arguing over money by this holy lake didn't seem very appropriate to me which sort of shut the guy up. Anyway only afterwards did it dawn on me that I had been right royally taken in the bum all the same. In Pushkar I also fell for the stranded old Brit who needed just a little money to get back to his family in place X and arrange his departure. You learn as you go and don't make the same mistakes later; once people see you've found your place more they'll generally leave you more alone, after those first minor annoyances I found Pushkar pretty relaxed.

I assume a real ceremony might be worth something, I also assume the real priests have better things to do than seek out gullible white unbelievers by the lake. If the price has gone up to 300 Rs. that's some serious inflation (no offense to SH and if it's worth it to you then it's worth it right). To get involved with Hinduism on any serious basis would probably require a whole lot more than showing up by a lake or walking in and out of a temple and undergoing some mysterious rituals in a language you can't comprehend. Even then I understand conversion is technically impossible, although I'm not quite sure how strict that really is.

machadinha

Yes many thanks 2Cents and I haven't followed up on your link yet but will later.
The thing is everything I've read teaches me that basically and technically you're either born a Hindu or you're not, there can be no question of conversion.
That doesn't add up though, take the expansion of Hinduism to Sri Lanka and Indonesia at the time, or in more modern times interreligious marriages indeed. So I don't believe this is the whole story (well is anything ever in India?), it seems conversion does indeed take place but the circumstances or requirements are unclear to me.
It would be interesting to know more about this indeed. In the meantime forgive me if I say that I have the distinct impression that many westerners seem to find Hinduism sympathetic because of its open philosophical scheme, perhaps the notion of finding one's own god to adore etc. What they seem to overlook is how much of this is prescribed by circumstances and not a free choice at all, and again how to really get into the heart of the matter would be very different than sympathizing on a distant philosophical level.

In religious matters, what amazes me is that most westerners would find it very acceptable that you can't just show up in a western church and become a christian overnight or even develop a relevant feel for the religion. To become a convert takes a lot of preparation, to develop a real understanding of the religion and its various schisms would require a lot of study. No sooner do the same people set foot in India though or they think a little puja will teach them more about the Hindu experience, or that they are fit to distinguish between the "real" thing and what is not so "real". I don't get it, sorry. If anyone wishes to explain....
I mean as an unreligious person I've been known to light candles in churches for sentimental reasons but I wouldn't want to mistake it for a religious experience.

Krishnika

There is no place in the world I've been to that I hated so much I would swear off it. But there are many places that I wouldn't spend the time or money to return to. In India, there are precious few of those - it seems it's always a premature decision to say you know a place well enough to know there is nothing there for you.
That said, I do not plan to go back to the beaches of Gokarna. I loved the town (in the 20 minutes I spent walking through it) and would agree to spend more time there. But I was very disappointed with the beaches. They are beautiful to look at from a distance and it's fun to hike from one to the other esp all the way to Paradise Beach, but the sand was awful - more mud than sand, there were cows and their corresponding dung heaps in inconvenient places, the crowd was not my scene at all - esp the groups that would overtake a hostel and make you feel out of place if you were there as a twosome, the guys camping out on the beach in their hammocks left a sorry amount of trash around them - it was hard to find a spot to lie on that had no cigarette butts, plastic wrappers, empty whiskey bottles, etc.
It's not a horrible place and I certainly don't hate it. I can even say I had a generally good time there and had great breakfasts. I just won't go back.

machadinha

You gotta love this though "To label as “yoga” the sight of men and women in tight nylon outfits wrapping themselves in pretzel shapes and thinking beautiful thoughts for the sake of weight control make as much sense as someone partaking of Christian communion for the nutritional value of the Vitamin C in grape juice."

machadinha

Whoops but then that site goes on to explain

"There is a reason why “conversion” has become such an important issue in Christianity and why it would not be a term normally associated with, say, Hinduism. This is because the Bible teaches that in our natural state, all human beings are in a sinful, fallen condition, even if they are born into a nominally Christian context, and all of their attempts at spiritual perfection (whether described as yoga or in some other way) fail to solve this fundamental problem. It takes a conversion, that is to say, for a person to consciously place their faith in Jesus Christ, to receive salvation from God. So, as you think about the question of “conversion” in Hinduism, let me encourage you also to think about the need for conversion as it is taught in the Bible."

Oh well another one bites the dust, just another bunch of Christian supremacists I guess.

Anyway sorry this is getting waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay off topic and would have merited a thread of its own perhaps.

Dr Funkenstein

Interesting stuff, though.

Ikuru

Yeah I feel sorry for them, they were huge and ofcourse deserve a life.

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machadinha

Ah well this is an attribute of the web I think, comes with quick browsing and so on. There was another site listed recently that I reacted to which I liked at first glance but then it also contained the lost writings of the missing continent of Mu or something, I mean there's no end to all the freaks out there. It's interesting to do searches in that field actually, one site will lead to another. In the early days of the web a friend told me about a site where you could get in touch with aliens who were seeking to take over the earth or something. It's a fascinating world indeed.