05.10; bikaner

there were two reasons why i wanted to go to Bikaner. I wanted to take a look at Karni Mata, the rat temple; but more importantly, i wish to take a break from the main travellers route and avoid Pushkar. A bit of solitude and silence was what i needed, but everywhere i’ve turned to, there were more hassles, more traffic, more noise, more rubbish and more ‘hello rickshaw’ and ‘hey japani’. i must admit, things have been going down for me ever since leaving ladakh. delhi was suffocating, agra non inspiring and jaipur was dreadful.

i’ve come to notice that every traveler follow a predictable trend of emotions. you start out excited, stoked, enthusiastic and friendly. you smile and greet people too often, and you have the inner calm and optimism to brush everything off wth a smile and think to yourself what beatles sang “all you need is love la la la” and ‘nothing’s gonna change my world…”.

at the mid point, you begin to lose momentum and as rough traveling, homesickness and the other desires of familiar comforts (mine’s food and hygiene) come into mind, you become increasingly wary, paranoid of over kindness of strangers and less unapproachable. you become unable to wave everything off with a smile, you get fort and temple fatigue after visiting (and paying for) everyone along the way. the rest of the journey, you’re as if traveling on a hilly range, sometimes you climb up on a high peak, exhilarated. sometimes you come down low and wonder what are you actually doing in a place like this. and this cycle will probably continue until you can count the days to departure with your fingers.

i needed a break from the usual, the same-same but differents, so instead of pushkar, i chose bikaner. it was to my delight that i was the only foreigner in my overnight bus. never mind it being late by an hour, never mind the standard fare indian squabbles and loud conversations, never mind the digusting smell of urine from the bus parking lot. i was delighted to be heading to bikaner.

the bus pulled into the station at 5am, still dark, and i was immediately entrusted to a dozen of rickshaw drivers. imagine yourself to be a small time movie star with a small cult fan base visiting a small town at night. you thought no one will know, and as soon as you step out of the door, people surround you and fight for your attention. except they do not want your autograph or picture; they want your money instead. these drivers shouted and jostled, pulled and tugged at me, like a bunch of ugly children clawing for free sweets.

i don’t know which is worse: the experienced cunning touts of the big city with their fake silly cheshire grins or the anxious and overzealous small town touts. same same but different, birds of the same feathers really.

i shouted back at them, negotiated a fare to the train station and left with the one who agreed to my cheap offer. i stopped at the train station and my driver pestered to bring me to a guesthouse of his choice, one that will probably give him a big fat commission. i refused stubbornly, walked over to a chai stall, ordered and drank chai and waited until dawn sets in. with light, the streets looks less menacing and dangerous and i quickly found a room. for 300rupees, i had a room cleaner than most of the others that i’ve spent my nights here in india. it has a tv, free towels and even free soap. free soap was a real novelty for me.

i caught up with sleep as i didn’t sleep much on the bus, woke up at 12 and felt too lazy to go to deshnok. it was simply too hot. i packed lunch and ate in my room while watching bruce willis defy his age limit and kick everyone’s butt in Die Hard 4.0. at 3, i had to pluck myself away from the tv and the comforts of my room, and convince myself that i should really go to deshnok to visit the karni mata temple. after all, that was the reason why i chose to come to bikaner.

i took a local bus to bikaner, alighted at deshnok and found the temple a few hundred meters away. karni mata was not exactly how i imagined it to be – a temple situated on a small hill, where you have to take off your shoes, climb up a flight of stairs and enter a courtyard swarming with rats. instead, the temple was so crowded, it was swarming with people. i left my shoes at the counter and queued up to get into the temple. there was a seperate queue for men and women, and i quickly found out why.

the people here in the queue, like most indians, have to be the most kiasu people on earth. forget what they say about singaporeans being kiasu – we are not. we do not stand a freaking chance. maybe we still retain some form of social order, we mask our kiasuness under a relatively civilised manner. but they don’t. here in india, people cut queues as if it was the natural law of the universe. with sharp elbows and clawing fingers (and maybe fangs even), they fight to get up the bus, fight to buy things, fight to get you onto their rickshaw or into their shops, they fight to get into the train only to rush out later. i had to push my way out of train, because everyone pushed their way in before people got out. from one of my friend’s memorable quotes, i’ll say that kiasu-ism in india, ‘it is f**king ridiculous’. and they probably don’t even know, it doesn’t occur as a thought at all. it was second nature, it has always been their way of life, they’ve been brought up this way, and they continue to be. f**king ridiculous indeed.

coming back to the queue to get into karni mata, it was beyond ridiculous. we were flanked by two low fences, left and right, so we all had to be in single file, lined up one after the other. at least i think that’s what the authorities hoped for. even in a single file, people pushed eagerly from the back. it’s that thing you face when you go to a concert or countdown events with stupid people. the people at the back, driven by excitment, they stupidly push forward step by step and crushing the poor people in front. standing at the queue was like having your modesty outraged by indian men.

just a week ago, there was a temple stampede in jodhpur (a rajasthan city nearby) that killed 250people. same thing happened, silly excited people pushing and pushing, trampling on one another and it becomes a tragedy on national headlines. everyone blamed the management committee and even the maharaja for not planning the event properly. more fences, more guards, more ambulances should be on stand by. i do agree the safety standards were poor, almost non existent, but i say the blame should be put on the people. mindless people who always seem to be in a rush, who want to come out on top, who want to be the first to enter the temple and make their prayers. and when something bad like a stampede happens, they point their fingers at everything else. what a steaming pile of bullshit.

i finally entered the temple, but i wasn’t impressed. there were no thousands of rats swarming around the small temple, which was made even smaller by the noisy swarm of overbearing people. i walked around a bit, took a few pictures and left. i left deshnok hot, frustrated and pissed. back in bikaner, i packed dinner, ate in my room and watched tv until it was time to sleep.

i must admit that rajasthan isn’t as romantic as i thought it would be, when i was looking through pictures back at home in march. the heat is stifling and this alone, sucks any possible tinge of romance away. pile that up with a lot of rickshaw drivers, touts, crowds, dust, noise, traffic, filth and a frequently volatile stomach, rajasthan quickly becomes somewhat of a dread to travel in. oh i forgot to mention the people who stare.

why do people here like to stare? doesn’t it occur to them that it is very rude and confrontational to stare at someone. i’m not talking about a glance or a quick glimpse off the corner of the eye. they stare at you like you’ve owed them a bloody debt, and when you look at them straight in the eye, they just continue staring mindlessly. and these staring incidents aren’t rare occurances; everyone seem to be stare whether you like it or not. if you bring ah beng here, he will go:”kuay simi kuay. buay song ah?”. i think i’m sounding hysterical, but after 2 months of being stared at, i’ve had enough. i get easily irritated now, and when people stare at me, i stare back in such a mean fashion, i’ll be ashamed to do it anywhere else in the civilised world.

the next morning, i caught the first train out to jodhpur. what i didn’t manage to find in my entire week in rajasthan, i found it on the train. i had the entire train cabin to myself for the first part of the ride, and those 3 hours was a huge relief. i was very happy to enjoy the brief moments of solitude before i was joined by an indian lady, also traveling to jodhpur. she had lunch and some fruits ready, and i had none. when i asked her if i could perhaps buy a few bananas from her, she gave me three bananas and refused to take my money. she smiled in a simple kindly manner and said:”no no, i can’t take your money.. you’re like my son.”

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