Thursday: After school, I ditched the Salt Lake crew to go to southern Kolkata for some temple touring. Kanwar and his friend Sam took us first took us to the Birla temple. It was the Taj Mahal of Hindu temples; one of THE most beautiful and fanciest places of worship I have ever seen in my entire life. White marble, huge and airy, and so ornate! Architecturally boss. They fed me sugar and painted a red spot on my face.
Secondly, we went to Kanwar's gudwara, which is a Sikh temple. In Sikh tradition, we donned our head scarfs/turbans before we entered, and a nice man there helped me put mine on when he saw my struggles. Gudwaras look super cool, their music was beautiful, and a man came around and gave us each a handful of something very much like Malt-o-Meal.
Religious places of worship thus far in India:
X Christian (Assemblies of God and Baptist, I'm not going to count the school's Catholic church because I hear there's one better on Park Street)
X Hindu (many many temples and shrines)
X Sikh
X Baha'i
- Muslim (though I have been in mosques, none of them were active places of worship)
- Jain (haven't been yet, but we just learned that Vilpul is Jain so perhaps he'll take us someplace)
In the morning when Courtney and I were walking to school, I saw my first cobra of Kolkata. It was standing up in a basket, just hanging by itself. There was no charmer around that we could see, and it was just so strange in her neighborhood because there aren't any foreigners in the area (well besides us).
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