❝ A TWENTY SEVEN DEGREES OF NORTH LATITUDE, yesterday was Mahashivaratri in Kathmandu —in Kathmandu and throughout the Hindu world—, the biggest festival in honor of the god Shiva, which is celebrated in the capital of Nepal in Pashupatina temple, about five kilometers from the center.
I was equipped, like every day I'm there, with the letter of introduction renewed in the Nepal Ministry of Tourism (NTB), and which is almost like the safe-conduct that Kublai gave Marco Polo to move around Mongolian territory, but also and above all in the company of my Nepalese friends.
This time he was determined to enter the temple. In previous visits to the enclosure he had seen how Sikhs accessed without problems even when a sign clarifies with block letters and size that only individuals of the Hindu religion are authorized.
We passed six or seven checkpoints before we spotted the main gate of the temple, after more than an hour. There were all kinds of controls (armed forces, local police and boy scouts), apart from the long queues. And we all got over them, one by one, until I saw myself taking off my shoes, again, this time in front of the side door of the entrance façade to the sacred precinct, because the main one on that day and at the time we had reached it, around nine o'clock half, it was already only exit.
I was about to cross the threshold of the sacred space reserved for Hindus. And I had to do it alone because the friends I had entered with were separated from me at the final checkpoints. At first I thought of waiting to do it together but I saw that they were delayed and I took the step forward. Then they would come in behind me.
The feeling after passing a first corridor in single file was like accessing the studios of a blockbuster Cecil B. DeMille. Lots of people, intense smoke, the smell of incense and patchouli (patchouli was worn by the most flirtatious, it was not ritual), and the sound of some chitterlings that came to pierce the ears and hypnotize, enveloped everything.
Three feet from the great and endowed rear of Nandi, which guards the east door, the main one, and I didn't believe it. Perhaps I should have moved in a circle like the rest of the faithful, but I was a little confused, and I started to walk diagonally towards the very entrance of the temple instead of going around it. I could make out some minor temples in the great courtyard, one would say the goddess kali, but as attracted by the creative force of Shiva I was ready to see him directly and I did not notice anything else.
When, suddenly, a policewoman stopped me and told me where I was going, to go immediately to the temple. I tried to explain myself and to teach him the investigator card, but there was no way. He was raising his voice while pushing me toward the exit. I had to tell him that it was not necessary to insist, that I was certainly not going to argue. Nobody around us flinched in the least, nor did I feel overwhelmed by the situation.
At the exit, a small fight in Nepali between the policewoman and one of the officers who gave me a free hand minutes ago and that was it for both parties. I'll try to collect those minutes for a future blog entry about the big party of Mahashivaratri●
