Khajuraho

The Temples, boys from the streets, the evening performance, and other adventures...

In the morning we went to watch the famous temples at Khajuraho. We started from the Eastern Group. The sun was scorching, but inside the temples it was cold. Alas, they are most interesting from the outside. The scenes from the Kamasutra are overrated and not numerous at all. Much more interesting are studies of women who are presented in every aspect of daily life: dancing, bathing, combing, caring for a child. The portraits are very realistic and show great attention to detail. Sculptures of the temples seem to praise and proclaim the beauty of women, both the physical and spiritual.

After seeing several such temples one gets soon tired and everything seems to be the same. It is impossible when seeing these sculptures for the first time, to recognize or even to appreciate the differences in style and iconography. One would have to be very prepared to consciously appreciate them. The average visitor looks, but not having the required knowledge, can not see anything.

Along the way we were teased by a lot of local boys and shopkeepers. Particularly two boys accompanied us everywhere: Ashok and Sanju. Ashok surprised us by greeting us in Polish. It's an awesome feeling when somewhere in the middle of India, a small Indian boy suddenly starts talking Polish and it that was not the simple "good morning", but whole sentences like: "How do you like the temples at Khajuraho?".

As soon as we bought them ice cream (while we were buying them at a small shop on the street, suddenly the third little boy appeared, hence we had to buy one for him too, but as soon as he got the ice cream, he disappeared), the boys said that they love Polish people very much and decided to guide us through their village and to all the other groups of temples scattered around the area. In such a way our journey begun: through the village of Khajuraho in the scorching Indian sun. The boys told us about themselves, about their life, about school and their families, stopping at every tree and telling what kind of tree it is and what can be done with it. Here we finally learned that time for mangoes is only in April, and therefore I could not have had a decent mango lassi at this time :)) And that the leaves of another tree, similar to acacia ( maybe it was acacia after all) is used to treat malaria. They told us also about benian trees and still others that I have already forgotten.

Then they showed us the various temples, but most interesting was just this time to wander and to talk about things. Somewhere along the way we met some women who saw that I was wearing jhumki (Indian earrings) and at once they began to sing a song about jhumkas. The boys did not know this song, instead when we asked them to sing a song, they sang the song "Paisa, Paisa" - about the money ...

Then we entered the winding streets of the old village. There we learned that the cow pats were used to deter mosquitoes from the houses. Of course, everything was perfectly clean. On the houses along the street, there were painted some numbers. They turned out to be the marks of the houses where children were vaccinated with polio. A little further we saw the whole house painted. There wedding was soon to be held, and so they marked the house, so that the guests, sometimes arriving from far away, knew which house they should go into.

Finally we reached the group of Jain temples. Even from afar you could see their snow - white peaks. Most of the temples are new, only a few of the old ones are preserved.

It is hard to imagine how all these exotic buildings looked like when they were covered with a wild jungle. Now everything is properly restored and perfectly clean (to get inside you must take off your shoes, of course, as in every temple in India).

Every time we went to visit a temple, the boys went away and again came running back just as we were leaving the temple. For some reason they did not want to enter a temple with us. It seems that they are not welcome there, perhaps by guides who are afraid of competition, or perhaps because of their low caste.

On the way back we took a rickshaw and all crowded inside it, we went back to the main street, to our hotel.

In the evening we went to the local dance show. Ashok said that he would be dancing there, but I could not see him among the dancers. The spectacle - one can see that it is organized by a government organization (Madhya Tourism), because it lacks professionalism and clearly falls into a routine, sure, because it is shown daily. Dancers sometimes did not remember their steps and looked at each other confused what to do. But what is most important is that they seemed to have fun while dancing, so that they almost infected the audience with their joy.

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