Pushkar was enchanting so Steve and I opted to stay a few more days. We found the most elegant place on the idyllic holy lake, the Pushkar Palace, formerly owned by the maharaja now made into a Heritage Home Hotel. There were four stories with balconies overlooking the water from the royal residence. It had quaint rooms of marble with delicately painted ceilings like embroidery and antique furniture made of rich dark wood. The place was class – and less expensive than the cocklebur infested tourist tent we had let ourselves be suckered into. The scene from our third floor balcony, more like an open-air hallway or a wide inviting front porch, was framed by the only palm

trees we had seen in the village. It was a postcard picture. The lake was fairly round, full and big enough to be intoxicating but small enough to see clearly the concrete steps of the ghats decorated by colorful saris on the opposite shore. But there was no shore really; it was all light blue and white concrete buildings surrounded by steps leading into the sacred water. And they were alive with people in the sunlight singing and bathing and swimming from their maternal security, reborn in the dark water as they washed away their sins for the year during the days preceding Kartik Purnima.

The full moon this Indian month of Kartika was very special, rare and precious. A total lunar eclipse occurred as we waited in the night and watched from the chairs of our comfortable veranda as the shadow of the earth removed the bright white glow of the moon displayed prominently over the lake sliver by sliver. At its climax, an hour and a half after the disappearance began, it was gone completely, just as dawn broke over the eastern horizon, lightening the sky faintly as if timed to be part of the magic, part of the astrological play in the theater of Pushkar. And then, to the left, entered Steve into the holy water, washing away all the bad from the years gone by, absolving the wrong as if by confession in the spirit of the ancient ritual. Dripping wet and smiling he emerged from the sacred lake, a weight removed from his shoulders, a freshness to his step and his heart, eager with hope for a new beginning. In his hand he held a wet page torn from a book of Gods that had washed up on the ghats next to him. On it was Hannuhman, the monkey-faced deity, the god of power, triumphant with a club in his hands. And then, as the ghats were wakening with the day, filling up again with people and their ceremonies, we napped in the early morning light, snuggling in a nice cozy bed, thankful we were done with the sandy tent and its miserable fold-up cots.

For breakfast I had my special full moon pills, my gifts from the Dalai Lama brought from his residence in McLeod Ganj by my new Tibetan monk friend. They were hard and crunchy, bitter little things easier swallowed whole than savored. I wondered what was in them, what they were made of, and what they were really for – and if they were safe. And for food we went to the appropriately titled Sun and Moon Garden Café for banana chocolate pancakes and eggs with white toast and sweet red unknown berry jam.
It was there that a young man began talking to us, telling us that he was a Brahmin, the priestly caste, and he could perform the puja for us, the ceremony by the lakeside we had witnessed the locals engaging in. We had refused the charlatans and hustling “priests” down by the water, insistent that we go with them, that we take their flowers for offerings, that we pay them for the blessings to receive our “Pushkar Passport” as the red string to be tied around the right wrist was known. Those strings were symbols of participation so that the others would leave us alone, and we didn’t yet have them. So as the spirit of the newly eclipsed full moon was still with us, we decided to let him lead us back down to the ghats, agreeing between Steve and me that we would only “offer” one hundred rupees total. But when we arrived he told us we must have two ceremonies because we’re not married and the two of us with our resolve were divided, weakened. I was sent to be with his long haired T-shirt wearing unpriestly looking counterpart who was much more gentle on me than the young man on Steve. We each offered soft pink lotus petals in handfuls spread over the lake’s surface to float while we repeated Hindi words for mother, father, sister, brother, blessing from the gods for my family, for health and happiness. We tossed flowers over our shoulders to throw out our sins, to leave them behind us. We touched holy water to our ears, our eyes, our mouths as if in baptism. Red tikkas, the wet red powdered paste like huge bindis with a few grains of rice, were pressed into our foreheads. And we were asked for offerings – not just for us but for all of our families. How many were there and didn’t we want to save them all with our donations? Oh, yes, and the money goes to the poor starving children of Pushkar, not into the pockets of these scamming young Brahmins. They were irreverently working us with the skill and cunning of professionals, experienced hustlers taking advantage of foreign tourists, but also of their own ancient religious heritage, as their own sacrilegious desecration of its holiness.

Feeling jaded by the experience we escaped to the sole Indian temple of Lord Brahma. In bare feet we climbed up one hundred steps to the grungy little alter where others without their shoes were fighting to get closer to the front of the packed temple to offer sweet puffed rice, fragrant incense and lotus petals. A classic Sadhu was behind the enclosed alter room of gray stone, standing outside with a tray of lighted incense, wearing the traditional orange rags with long white hair and beard, face painted with red and white markings, the delightful craziness of these pot-smoking spiritualists without families. I snapped a picture and he demanded money. I gladly offered a generous ten rupee note but he adamantly refused it. His gaze was burning, intense, steadfast but not malicious or combative – just strong with his belief that he deserved more and would get it. And I was under his spell so quickly, conceding to his magic without argument. I gave him the one hundred rupees for which he was insistent, that he had earned in the two seconds of a snapshot pose. Peter, the Australian chef from our palace that has been coming to India every year for twenty-eight, put it in perspective. To these people, one rupee is like one dollar as the average daily income for a man is less than two hundred rupees.

After paying our respects to Brahma we climbed up so many more steps, climbing up and up for one hour to the temple of his wife, Shavrati, who cursed him for marrying someone else and made Pushkar the only place a temple could be erected in his honor. The view of the village surrounding the lake below, framed by a sleeping Snake Mountain coiled in the distance, was magnificent in the cool twilight. It was worth the exertion although the temple itself was not. It was simple and somewhat boring, just like a thousand other Indian temples spread all across the country. But while sitting on the low concrete wall surrounding it, we met some very genuinely nice Brahmin school boys who were most interested in talking to Americans, very curious about our experiences. And they insisted that we need to see Jodhpur next, the city of blue that they were from. One had a father who owned the sandstone mines that supplied the stone for the Chittar Palace there. They were refreshing and we shared masala tea at the base of the temple steps after a much easier descent before heading off to dinner and then to bed.