Laksmi Temple

OK, let's try and get caught up. Last Friday, after the morning's carpet buying adventure, Annie and I took off for some sight-seeing. John sent along his driver, and our most excellent friend, Shukla, to guide us through the chaos of Mumbai traffic. I'd hate to think how many hours Shukla has spent over the years just driving me through the maddening maze of Mumbai traffic, and that's just a tiny fraction of the time he's spent driving John and Raj around - and yet he's never out of sorts - always happy and patient, a wonderful soul. On this venture he was assisted by a new friend, Keith, who worked for the Champlain Mumbai campus for awhile before moving to Dubai, and he's now back. He had some time on his hands, so he graciously volunteered to show us around. We initially were on our way to the famous Haji Ali Mosque, but along the way I thought it might be great if Annie also saw a Hindu temple. After asking Shukla's advice (Keith is Catholic and deferred to Shukla's Hindu experience) we settled on the Laksmi Temple, which is only about three blocks from the mosque. Laksmi is the wife of Vishnu, as is regarded a goddess associated with prosperity, both financial and spiritual. Shukla stopped along a chaotic street and we wandered down a shady side street until we, almost unexpectedly, came across the temple grounds, which were extensive - and essentially completely blocked in from the chaos of the surrounding streets by the warren of buildings. Unfortunately, I was not able to take any pictures inside the temple itself. We spent time talking to Annie about the nature of Hinduism, including the fascinating iconography of the different statues. There were two separate temples of Laksmi, with the second one the much larger one. You passed through a deliriously chaotic (and thus utterly Indian) street scene where you could buy propitiatory offerings, mainly flowers or sweets, to leave at the temple itself. AT the top of the steps at the larger of the two temples Annie and I separated off in separate queues to snake your way through to enter the temple. One of the interesting things about visiting the Laksmi temple and the Haji Ali Mosque back to back is how similar, in an odd way, the two experiences were, even though one was Hindu ans the other Islamic - in both instances you 1) had to remove your shoes before progressing, 2) were separated by gender, and 3) would bring propitiatory offerings. As she was leaving a woman gave Annie a sweet to as a gift - sort of the divine giving back to humans. I told Annie that she was now in a remarkably small club - Americans who had actually visited both a mosque and the Hindu temple. Along the way to the main temple we also passed a very small little shrine, constructed around a tree, in the alley - it's very common for what you'd see all over India.