Saturday rolls around again, so as is my usual habit, I visited Aparna. After lunch, we decided to visit a temple dedicated to Shiva, and in particular to the Shiva linga. I had always thought this was a phallic representation, symbolising Shiva’s masculine power, but I did not address this with Aparna, to some extent out of prurience, but I am glad I did not, for looking it up later, I find that this interpretation is much disputed. Be that as it may, the temple was dominated by a huge tower, whatever its provenance. Though this was disguised by a sort of staircase, providing access to the top, and somewhat lessening the impact, as it looks like a section of a modern tower block. We chose not to climb, in any case, but wandered around the grounds. There was some chanting from a small shelter with some pujari (priests) and other devotees. I am cynical about religion at the best of times, and found this faintly absurd (and, to my mind, tedious) but then the ceremonies of religion, and what they mean to its believers, are not easily explained to the non-believer.
We did visit a couple of old ladies who live on the site, have apparently been there for nearly all of their lives, as people who were widowed at an early age, thirteen or so, the custom at the time being that they should then be cut off from society. They had apparently been married at aged none or so – I shan’t attempt to express my feelings on that score – though this practice has long since been abandoned. Nowadays, young women in Nepal cannot marry until they are twenty. I commented that this seemed to be going from one extreme to the other, but I suppose if we are talking extremes, then the age should now be far beyond child-bearing age, as previously it was well before. Religion as a pretext for child abuse seems to be something of a common thread.
We wandered back to the main part of the city, stopping off for tea at the house of an old friend of Aparna’s – she was not in, but her son provided tea and conversation. And then home. Not the most exciting of days; I am very much looking forward to being home.
