I knew that I was travelling a long way from home today, but I didn’t think that I would slip into another country. Today I travelled from Richmond to India and back in the space of an afternoon. Bex and I went to visit the Hindu temple in Neasden.
One road looks very much like another around the North Circular and it is uniformly grey and uninviting until from behind a drab concrete terrace looms the other-worldly Shri Swaminarayan Mandir. Even the sun seems to shine more fiercely over its marble domes.
The temple is set within a large enclosure and guarded by high fences, and we had to pass through a metal-detector to enter. I was told extremely firmly that I had to cover my shoulders NOW, before I was allowed to even approach the temple outbuildings. I was taken aback, as I had dressed as conservatively as I could this morning to avoid offence. In a floor-length skirt, twin-set and bead necklace I was the WI personified, I thought.
We stumbled into the entrance hall, removed our shoes and looked for somewhere to wash off the street. Washed and covered and feeling properly prepared at last, we walked in the direction of the Mandir, feeling every male eye turn our way. I felt suddenly naked, and ashamed of my nakedness, and it made me understand what ‘skyclad’ really means. It struck me as ironic that I have never felt naked in my birthday suit, yet here I was naked as a child despite my clothes.
As we walked through the “Understanding Hinduism” exhibition I had the sense of a people fiercely proud of their religion, of carving out their place of worship that would stand for a thousand years on British soil. I felt slightly oppressed by the un-Englishness of it all, and the endless catalogues of their achievement, of setting the historical record straight.
We gladly left this feeling behind as we entered the Mandir. Within this inner sanctum I felt a comfortable sense of awe and reverence. Hindus believe that the spirit of God is brought into their idols, and so the place where they rest is truly the house of their god. Each day the statues are fed and their clothes are changed, and I felt privileged to witness their daily rite. Even their holy men are revered in this way, and as I walked past the statues of the spiritual forefathers of the Mandir I could sense something more than cold hard marble. They seemed to breathe.
Outside the temple, we visited the SAYA café. This was another assault on the senses, and we browsed aisles of exotic herbs and oils, spotting occasional familiar names. This was as much of a highlight for me as the temple had been. I have backpacked in Africa and Asia, and I love to feel a place through all of my senses, including taste and smell. I have no idea what we ate, since the names were in Urdu and regardless of what we pointed to I think the chef served us what he wanted to serve. But as we ate, and felt fire burn in our bellies (clearly we and the chef have differing opinions of what constitutes “mild”), I had the feeling that I had stepped outside of my home-country, and was a visitor in another.
