Tag: hinduism

Exploring the Rat Temple in Bikaner and other Unique Cultural Experiences

March 9, 2025

Rat Temple and Local Fair


Traveling in India never ceased to surprise us with its diversity in languages, food, and beliefs rooted in thousands of years of history and customs. One example of a remarkable story and a highlight of our journey was visiting the Rat Temple in Bikaner. In this temple, rats are considered holy and revered.


The origin of the Rat Temple dates back to the fourteenth century. According to legend, the Goddess Karni Mata lost her youngest son, Lakhan, who drowned. In her grief, the Goddess commanded Yama, the god of death, to bring Lakhan back to life. Yama, however, explained that he could not do so but that Karni Mata (an incarnation of Durga, the Goddess of war, power, and protection) could restore her son’s life. Karni Mata decreed that her family would be reincarnated as rats.

Today, around six hundred families claim to be descendants of Karni Mata. These descendants maintain the temple, clean up after the rats, and prepare food for them, often sharing meals in their presence.

To enter the temple and enjoy the experience of 20,000 black rats running freely, you must be barefoot, as some rats may even scurry over your feet. Upon entering, we removed our shoes and felt the rats scampering across our toes. This experience is certainly not for the faint-hearted! A deep sense of emotion ripples through the worshippers when they spot an albino rat, which is believed to bring good luck. Kathy spoke with several visitors who had made the trip, hoping to see a white rat to enhance their fortune. Unfortunately, on the day we visited, we didn’t see an albino rat or anyone else. We stepped outside the temple for refreshments and regained our sense of reality.

Our next stop left a deep impression on me. Our guide, Shyaam, took us to a local festival with arts and crafts, Rajasthani foods, and entertainment. Although the festival’s nature was familiar and similar to North America’s, the begging scene that enveloped us shocked me. Beggars were prevalent, and Westerners present were their primary focus.

The most grotesque and upsetting memory that I have is of a skinny, undernourished boy of maybe ten years of age who had only one leg and was running after me on his two hands and his one leg like a spider, reaching with one hand to me begging for anything. I was unable to escape him. His tenacity forced me to leave the venue and go to the parking lot before he would leave me alone. He chased me from the festival!

I felt sick to my stomach and dispirited to see this deformed beggar. I read about the maiming of children by the begging mafia in India who steal children and maim them to make them more profitable in begging, but seeing one was awful. It was the most disturbing experience that I had in India. Although I read Rohinton Mistry’s Fine Balance and we had gone to see the Slumdog Millionaire film before we went to India, seeing the slums and the beggar children in real-time was shocking. Seeing this poor, deprived child made me think about the unfortunate circumstances that led to his life in begging.


Still, I knew that despite being a tough moral choice, giving to beggars inevitably meant being swarmed, overwhelmed, and in danger of physical harm in such crowded situations (we had such experience in Asia).


When driving, Shyaam delighted us with his discussion of the unique aspects of Indian culture. On our drives, he explained to us the caste system of India, which he was proud of. He was a Singh, implying the second highest caste: the warriors and rulers. Military service ran in his family. Caste, we learned, does not guarantee wealth or even education, but it imparts status. Shyaam was a tour guide and lived a modest life. He explained Brahmins were priests and teachers, comprising the highest caste. Next to the warriors were the farmers, traders, and merchants, followed by the laborers. The Dalits were outcasts, the street sweepers (and not part of the caste system).

Interestingly, India’s history includes a prime minister who was a Dalit, and many merchant classes have become quite wealthy. I was initially unsure about the meaning of the caste system, especially since individuals from various backgrounds could become prime ministers or pursue higher education, leading to what we might describe as an upper-class lifestyle filled with money and possessions. We observed that the caste system was more apparent in the North of India, where there are more Hindus, compared to Chennai or Tamil Nadu, which has a more diverse population that includes non-Hindus.

We had an interesting discussion with our guide about ultrasounds for pregnant women, which Shyaam explained can be dangerous for women. I was about to debate with him when Kathy quietly suggested that I stay silent on the topic. I understood that in India, there is a preference for boys because they provide support to the older generations, benefit from a dowry when they marry, and light their parents’ funeral pyres. Having a boy ensures that the family name continues.

I’ve read that there is a worsening gender imbalance in India. In 1994, a law was passed to address this issue; the law discourages prenatal sex determination, monitors these procedures, and prevents the gender imbalance that could lead to a shortage of women for marriageable men. The murder of baby girls has become an ethical concern in India, according to articles I’ve come across

Kanyakumari’s Sunrises, Statues, and Spiritual Significance

December 24. 2024


Kanyakumari, located at India’s southernmost point, is where the Bay of Bengal, Indian Ocean, and Arabian Sea converge. The sunrises and sunsets were vivid on a clear day, and we saw the moon rising on one side while the sun was going down on the other. We were eager to witness the bay’s unique three-colored seas, a natural wonder, and its importance in Indian burial traditions. It is a mecca; people bring the ashes of their loved ones from all over India to toss into the waters at the southernmost tip of India.

View from our balcony: Thiruvalluvar Statue and Vivekananda Rock Memorial


Dinesh showed us the Thiruvalluvar Statue and Vivekananda Rock Memorial from our waterfront hotel, two major attractions on a large rock outcropping several hundred meters offshore. From our room facing the bay, we watched the ferries transport people to the Rock throughout the day. The crowd below enjoyed bathing in the water, and long lines waited for the ferry to take them to the Rock.


I discovered the place where the crowd bathed was blessed. Let me recount a Hindu legend to explain. The name Kanyakumari comes from Goddess Kanyakumari, the sister of Krishna. Hindus revere Krishna, one of the most popular Indian divinities, as the supreme God, embodying compassion, tenderness, and love. His sister Kanyakumari is a goddess to whom women pray to get married.

Hindu legend says Goddess Kanyakumari’s wedding to Shiva, a main Hindu deity, was ruined when he didn’t show. Rice meant for the wedding remained uncooked and unused. The uncooked grains turned into stones as time went by. Legend says the small, shore-side white stones, resembling rice, are from a wedding that never took place. Kanyakumari, now seen as a virgin goddess, bestows blessings on the many pilgrims and tourists visiting the town of stones. So the bathers were on blessed grounds.

From the balcony, we had a clear view of the Thiruvalluvar statue. The pilgrims reached it by ferry, which departed every half hour, fully loaded. Instead of going there, we felt our time would be better spent reading up on what the statue represented.


Thiruvalluvar, which means Saint Valluvar, was an Indian poet and philosopher. He wrote the Tirukkural, a treatise on virtue, love, and wealth in short couplets of seven words, called the kurals. Scholars date the text variously between 300 BC and AD 500. Saint Valluvar is one of Tamil Nadu’s most famous philosophers, and the Tirukkural is considered a secular work on morality and ethics.


Officials unveiled the statue on January 1, 2000. Interestingly, the artist who designed it related it to the Tirukkural; the statue is 133 feet high, corresponding to the 133 chapters in the Tirukkural. Although I could not find why the statue was there, it is a striking location in the ocean, four hundred meters from the shoreline.

We got up at 4:00 am and took pictures of the sunrise on one side and the moon receding on the other. Then, we went down to the port to join the crowds. We walked around the people and talked with some who spoke English; they had slept there overnight to ensure they could get on the ferry early in the morning. Along with the crowds, we visited the Mahatma Gandhi Memorial (Gandhi Mandapam), where the urn containing his ashes was kept for public viewing.


There was not much to see at the Memorial except the modern architecture. Mahatma Gandhi visited Kanyakumari in 1925 and 1937. Twelve urns containing his ashes were dispersed across the nation following his 1948 demise. They brought one urn to Kanyakumari and placed it where they built the Memorial. Construction was completed in 1956.


The central spire of this Memorial is 79 feet high, reflecting Gandhi’s age when he died. I was reminded of the Thiruvalluvar statue—its height correlating to the number of chapters in St. Valluvar’s book—when I saw how this building incorporated an aspect of the person it memorializes. On Gandhi’s birthday, October 2nd, sunlight shines directly on the spot where his ashes are kept in the Mahatma Gandhi Memorial building, thanks to a strategically placed ceiling opening.

Workers constructed the Vivekananda Rock Memorial in 1970 to honor Swami Vivekananda. Vivekananda, born in 1863, was a chief disciple of the nineteenth-century Indian mystic Ramakrishna and introduced the Indian philosophies of Vedanta and Yoga to the Western world. He died in 1902. But it was not just the Swami who interested me. It was the process by which the Memorial had taken shape.


In 1963, during the centenary of Swami’s birth, a Hindu committee in Kanyakumari recommended that a memorial be constructed on the Rock about 500 meters from the shore. Local Catholic fishermen opposed the plan, staging a protest that included a large cross placed on the Rock; however, it vanished overnight. This controversy became a political issue, and the local politicians escalated it to Madras, now Chennai, the capital of Tamil Nadu.


 The controversy continued in Chennai, with opposition from a politically powerful state minister who thought a monument would destroy the natural beauty of the rock island. Eknath Ranade, an activist, pushed for the memorial by raising the matter in Delhi, lobbying representatives, and gathering enough signatures to persuade Prime Minister Nehru to approve it. This story and process were not atypical of similar efforts in North America.

The night before our departure to Bangalore, on the way to Goa, we lounged by the pool of the Pappukuty Beach Resort in Kovalam. In the pool, I had a very informative and pleasant conversation with an Indian in the high-tech field. We discussed the superb high-tech professionals India’s Institutes of Technology (IITs) educate.

 India boasts over a dozen IITs, including those in Delhi, Mumbai, and Chennai. A tutoring industry has emerged to help students gain admission to these prestigious universities, which receive more government funding than other institutions. But beyond good technical education, are other factors that make Indians successful in high-tech?

My newly found friend in the pool suggested that the English colonials left a management-oriented culture for the Indians after independence. He also thought that the English language, widely used in India, had been an advantage for Indian techies over those from countries without strong English language skills, such as China. My new friend says Indian culture emphasizes consensus over directives, which makes Indians naturally adept at collaborative management, which is crucial for modern success. Given the success of Indian CEOs at companies like Microsoft, Google, Nokia, Sun, and Adobe, it was hard to disagree with his perspective. On the last day, Dinesh took us to the Trivandrum Airport, and we said goodbye to each other. He became quiet and serious. Over two weeks, we had bonded and gotten used to each other’s company and would miss each other. However, our trip to Goa provided a welcome distraction from missing him.