New Year, New Blessings

For Hindus, the religious new year is celebrated on Diwali. This occurs sometime in November. So although our Hindu calendar had already begun its new year, Hindus still gathered in temples all around the world on the 1st of January to give thanks for the previous year and pray for prosperity in 2016.

As a fellow Hindu, I was grateful that they had planned to tour one of the most esteemed temples in India on the first day of the new year. Starting the new year with any God's blessing is known to be incredibly auspicious, especially when received at a holy site like the Meenakshi Temple.

The Meenakshi Temple is dedicated to a goddess named Meenakshi, also known as Parvati, wife of Shiva. The story of Meenakshi and Shiva is incredibly compelling and more dramatic than any Scandal or Grey's Anatomy episode. Now I would tell you the story, but I would rather share my reaction and experience at the temple since that's something you can't find on Wikipedia :).

In anticipation of our visit, I showered early in the morning and threw on a traditional Indian dress: this is typically how Hindus prepare for a visit to the temple. On any given day, the Meenakshi temple expects approximately 15,000 visitors. While on Fridays, it expects an incredible 25,000 visitors. That's more than the population of the town I went to middle school in! Visitors comprise of men, women, and children. However, this temple is especially known for answering the prayers of women seeking to receive a good husband or a child. I was definitely not praying for either of those on this special day, sorry mom!!

As we approached the temple, it was hard to overlook the architecture. Each statue hand-carved and painted. So beautiful. So detailed. Each one representing a god or goddess. It is unfathomable to imagine just one of these towers being made, yet here are three gorgeous handcrafted towers. The tallest being 170ft high. After removing our shoes and entering through the gates, the selfies and pictures were imminent. By now, many of us have found our personal photographer within the group. My photographer, Amanda, is incredibly understanding of how un-photogenic I am and is still able to take awesome shots of me. I try to reciprocate by taking subpar pics of her. So as I am directing Amanda on a pose...BAM. I'm hit with a splatter of something wet. My reflex to look up led to a stare down with a bird that proudly looked down at me and its poop. As I wiped it off my arm, a passerby says "it means you're blessed!! You're lucky." So remind me to buy a lottery ticket when I get home guys.

Anyways, the next part of the tour made the bird poop all worth it. Now let me preface this with my declaration of love for elephants. My mom swears I was an elephant in my past life because of the joy I feel when I see a cute picture, gif, or YouTube video of an elephant. So you can imagine the glow on my face when I saw this dark, beautifully dressed elephant walk towards us. He was present in the temple to bless those that could pass on 20 rupees. And by bless, I mean that he would lay his trunk on your head FOR JUST 33 CENTS!!! I would've given that man all my belongings for that experience, so that was definitely a steal. Everyone got an opportunity to be blessed by the elephant, or as I would say, Ganesh. Elephants represent Lord Ganesh to us, who is known as the remover of obstacles. His statue was present throughout the temple, along with Parvati and Shiva.

The shrine of Meenakshi was restricted to Hindus only and had produced a line estimating to be at least 1.5 to 2 hours long. Although I wasn't able to get Meenakshi's blessing this time, I could still feel her spirit through the stories told by our tour guide and the wall carvings in the halls. I knew I would have to make another visit soon, and no mom and dad, not just for the elephant! But to get the blessing of one of the few major female deities to have a temple devoted to her.

As we exited, I felt strongly connected to my Hindu roots and happy to see my classmates, who have now become friends, become so engrossed in the Hindu religion and mythology.
  
Swati Panchal