I said, “Why don’t you come live in Benares at my place for a while?” So Pradeep from Mumbai Gay Pride got on a train and came 1600km to visit me from Mumbai.
A couple of days ago was Shivratri. I was really sick but Nandan had made special arrangements to go backstage at Tilbhandeshwar Temple and get some photos of the preparations for this Dutch documentary maker who was coming down soon to make a video about happy children in Varanasi. I wanted to see this, so Pradeep and I went with Nandan and Attila.
Lane, in red, as Pashuram
We went there and there were these tour groups outside who wanted in but foreign people were forbidden by the doormen, except for us, who were with Nandan. When we went inside that made us the only foreigners, so the kids freaked and started demand that we answer the question “What is your name?” several dozen times. When we got to the makeup artists I was asked to be a god in the parade. I asked Nandan what this meant and he said I put on some face paint and walk around outside with the group for a while. I was not feeling good but I said okay.
Pradeep with Krishna and Krishna's friend
They pulled out this robe and it was red and it freaked me out but I wore it anyway. It would have hurt more to refuse a high gift of hospitality.
I was Parshuram, the warrior saint. I got dressed up, or rather, the attendants removed my clothing and redressed me, then I had a beard pasted on and makeup done. We went outside and there were horses. I was not expecting there to be one for me, and so again I changed my expectations of how long this would last.
We paraded for six hours. The crowd loved seeing a foreigner in the parade, and I smiled and waved and blessed people continually. I thought that I would die. They assigned a series of minders to me relatively quickly and if I ever lost concentration, this person would make a noise or poke me so that I kept my chest out, weapon high, and kept smiling, waving, and pointing at the crowd.
People prayed to me and I blessed them. They were sincere about it. Hindus already are in the habit of praying to statues and pictures. They also pray to their televisions when religious shows are on. It was a strange feeling to experience knowing that since I was playing the role of a god for this parade whatever cultural I mistakes I made were just leela, the Hindu cosmological concept of play that a god does when he comes to earth. People really did see me as an incarnation of their god.
The people at the temple were so nice to me. I refrained from drinking much water because I had stomach problems and did not want to harm the flow of the parade by stopping for a toilet, which typically went at a continual slow pace. I stayed on that horse the entire time with that heavy spear. At the end of the day I felt so sick. Pradeep made dinner alone that night while I chilled and rehydrated.
It really was a great experience, and maybe more memorable because I worked so hard to make it work even though I was sick.