The musicians' village was situated along a river, of course, and, as usual, we saw several women washing their clothes that morning. Though every village has a water pump like the one you see here in sketch at the right, the pump supplies potable water to small villages like this only once a day for two to three hours in the afternoon. (The sight of children playing in the water was singular-- I never saw it but once, since water is so precious.) Villagers must cart their water back to their homes in containers, being sure to have plenty to last them until the next afternoon.
Thus the washing and bathing must take place in rivers.
We headed back into town to see a large temple complex at sundown--the perfect time for this temple, as the low sun backlit it perfectly.
We also visited a museum and continued our education of the Hindu religion by studying the centuries of art produced to depict the gods and their activities. Outside the museum, I found my first Indian phone booth....... while, in town, we found a fortune teller. As you can see from the sketch, he had a parrot (and parrots are one of my interests). The parrot is essential to his fortune telling. It resides in or on its cage throughout the day until someone asks for their fortune to be told. At that point, the client shuffles the stack of thick cards. The fortune teller sets the cards out on his blanket. The parrot walks over to the stack of cards and starts to remove one card at a time, setting them aside. Finally, the bird pulls a card which he sets closer to the teller. The teller turns the card over and reads the client's fortune!
No comments:
Post a Comment