The Hippie String or The Pushkar Puja

The other night, some friends and I were joking about travel clichés. We were at a Thai restaurant and I was telling them that I’m never going to Thailand because I think it’s cliché, the English teacher in Korea going on holiday in Kopipi. That got us started on the whole topic and we finally decided that the last non-cliché place to go would be Eastern Europe.

Of course, I’m guilty of quite a few middle class travel clichés. I was wandering around Nepal and India not too long ago, as one of my friends pointed out. He was especially keen to make fun of the red string around my wrist, saying it was the ultimate cliché for travellers in India and he wanted to know why I was still wearing it after 5 months. It’s something a lot of people have asked and here’s why.

I got the string in Pushkar, a small town in Rajasthan. I spent the bulk of my time in India in Rajasthan, the king state. It’s a lot of desert and a lot of forts and very freakin’ hot. Pushkar is home to a lake that is sacred to Brahma and it’s a very old, very popular pilgrimage site, one of the only devoted to that god. I was excited to go to Pushkar because many friends had recommended it and I was ready for a spiritual experience. This was where Gandhi’s ashes were scattered! I had fantasies of meditating by the lake and finding my chi’I there.

Ha!

The lake had been almost entirely drained for construction (I kid you not), it was hot and dusty, and there were scammers everywhere. I had my hand forcibly hennaed and people were trying to rip off tourists left, right, and centre. I was so disappointed that I ran back to my hotel room and cried. I spent the evening chatting with some obnoxious English gap year kids and managed to get a grip on things. The next day, my last day there, I decided to go to one of the ghats near the lake so I could perform a puja.

Puja is the Hindu form of worship. My knowledge of Hindu practices is shaking and mostly what I’ve picked up by going to temples but puja is the cornerstone and people do it on their own, not in a congregation. I went down to a ghat with a priest (not the correct term but I can’t think of it) and he recited the prayer and I repeated and I called for blessings upon my parents, my sisters, my friends and he dunked the water over my forehead. Then I released flowers into the water and he tied the string around my wrist.

I can remember so much from that particular puja. My feet felt like they were on fire from the hot marble of the ghat. There was a row of women making the pjua offerings that they would later sell. There were kids running all over the place, as there usually are in temples in India. I kept thinking to myself “100 rupees. No more! I will not be ripped off this time!” Of course, I ended up giving 300. Most importantly, I remember reaching out with my mind and seeing all my loved ones as I prayed for them by the lake.

The string on my wrist is a symbol of that puja. I look down and I see a tangible memory of the trip that is getting more and more distant in my mind. I’ve been home for as long as I was gone now and the memories are dimming. Maybe that’s why I flat out refuse to cut it off, preferring to follow the usual practice and wear it until it naturally falls off. It’s hanging on admirably and besides, it’s considered very bad luck to it cut off.

So that is why I am still a walking cliché, the backpacker returned from India with a prayer string on her wrist. I’m ok with that.

This photo is from the hike I took up a nearby hill. That tiny patch of water is where I performed the puja.