Orchha

Well I’m back to my normal travel schedule. But first, I had a classic, “wow my life is strange” moment last weekend. I play ultimate Frisbee on Saturdays and a friend there said to me, why don’t you come to tango class. There was a special two day course with a special guest teacher from New Orleans. And that night I found myself tango dancing with an overweight sikh man with a scratchy white beard and a huge turban. And he was really good! Aah, life.

Anyways, went to Jaipur on Monday afternoon to give a presentation and came back to Delhi on Tuesday only to leave for a company training in Orchha in the state of Madhya Pradesh. After a 5 hour train ride, we spent the afternoon sightseeing at an old fort. A huge part of which was built for a Mughal ruler’s (I think the guy who built the Taj but maybe it was his father) visit. It was only ever used on that one day. But the folks here were hindu and the Mughals were muslim so it’s a really interesting blend of religious symbols and architecture. Then tonight we went to a temple devoted to Ram. You know when you realize you are totally out of your comfort zone. Why are people spinning around? Why did everyone just squish to fit into a very small space when there’s plenty of room? And what’s going on up front?

The unique thing here is that they celebrate Ram as a king rather than a god. So there’s this military guy (a jawan although I my ignorance of military titles makes it all the more hard to understand the words here) who salutes the statue of Ram at 7pm every night. The other thing that’s interesting about this particular temple is that apparently the king liked Vishnu and the queen liked Ram (which has something to do with the king versus god but I didn’t get the connection). So the queen went to Ram’s birth place and in a vision Ram gave her this statue. So the king built this beautiful temple for it. But apparently the statue came with the condition that it would make its home at the first place it landed, which was the queen’s house. So the “temple” we went to today was actually her house which is next door to this beautiful, never-used temple.

The pictures aren't exactly telling the story. The one is of Orchha Fort (the part built for one day's use) but the others are just people in the town. I'm having fun playing with my new camera.