Snakes, Palki and laks and laks of Hindus.

Wednesday this week was a bit surreal. I woke in a strange, disconnected mood. I cant put my finger on what caused the very mild, slightly grumpy mood. Just after breakfast, there was a bit of a scene by the pool, everyone was gathered, local and international staff. I went over to discover what the commotion was about and spotted the man I later learned was the snake catcher, holding the biggest snake I have ever seen by the tail. This is the first time I have seen a snake, outside of captivity. It was monstrous to my eyes, the snake catcher held it by the tail and its horrible tongue was slithering in and out towards the mans feet. I took a picture for you, just before he put it in his snake bag. It looked as if it was going to make a break for it and I instinctively hid behind the nearest person and asked what kind it was. They told me it was a harmless rat eater.
Harmless monster, oh yeah. What a way to start the day.
After the excitement/skin crawling revulsion of the snake, we settled in to a meeting about the big messy server. (that is another days work) As is mentioned in the title, it was Palki day. Palki is where Hindus walk with the feet of a saint from Alandi, a holy village, to another holy village 300 kilometers away. Palki passes by our gate as we live on Alandi Road. A lak is one hundred thousand. They guess that 40 laks of people passed the gate that day on foot. From early morning we heard their bells and saw the white clad men carrying orange flags and colourful barefoot women walking their devotion. About Lunchtime the Palki arrived, a highly decorated cart pulled by two pristine white, decorated cows. There was a ring of young men holding hands in a ring around the cows, for their protection from the churning crowd of devotees trying to touch the cart and throwing offerings of flowers. I stood in the blazing heat of the sun and crowd, mesmerised by the sheer numbers. As Palki passed the different communities along the road, thousands of more people joined the crowd, to take part a little. The temple next to us was hosting the main people for lunch and rest, so thousands of people set up their kitchens all around, to have lunch and rest in the shade. All over the surrounding streets, people sat on the roads eating food served from enormous vats, or slept in the shade right on the roads and footpaths. On the main street, a political party had a stage, where a speaker urged us, his brothers and sisters to be careful of our possessions. There were sellers with handcarts selling everything from snacks, to flowers to inflatable beach balls. Every few minutes men tried to mark us on our foreheads with the Alandi blessing, a white U shape with a red and orange dot inside. The other temples were giving away sweets. It had the atmosphere of a festival or friendly football match on a sunny day at home. Everyone seemed good humored and happy, there was no sanctimonious piety, no suffering expressions. These were happy pilgrims. Happiness is allowed in religions.
Someone should tell the christians.