This is one place I would like to go to visit again and again. I felt very peaceful here. All the five of us decided to do 'samudra snanam' (dip in the ocean). The waves were not high. They were not even close to the ones I saw in the Atlantic ocean in New Jersey and the Pacific ocean in California. I was not afraid of waters anyway. The couples held each other's hands and took three dips in that salt water (yucky salty - some got in to the mouth). Nirmala was uncomfortable and I had to help her put her head inside the water. I collected some sand in a bag to take back to Varanasi, to offer it to Lord Viswanatha. We brought Ganga water from Varanasi from our Chardham trip to offer it to Lord Shiva in Rameswaram. Hopefully our return trip to Varanasi would be like a pradakshinam and would complete our journey. When we came out, fully clothed and our clothes dripping in water, we found out that they would not allow us like that into the Temple. Which meant we had to find a place to change into dry clothes. Many Indian pilgrims have the knack of changing clothes on the banks of rivers etc., in public, but very discreetly. We did not have that talent.
Now, Nirmala got the bright idea about the Kalivela choultry and thought that we could get a room there. They had establishments in many other holy places. Nirmala and I had donated money to this organization on separate trips to Srisailam in Andhra Pradesh. Actually, we qualified for a free room and board in any of their choultries. But that day, all we needed was a room to change our clothes. After some inquiries, we found the place. The man at the front desk was not as polite as we had hoped. Nirmala offered some money and they let us use the room to shower and change.
As we entered the Temple, a man greeted us. I had my Ganga water container ready to offer to Shiva and I told him that. He told Rao that he would be our guide.( We tried to convince him and as well as Rao that we did not need one). But we failed. By the way, this happens in many Temples. You have to be firm or be ready to pay whatever they charge you at the end. Anyway, we were charged 800 rupees which included handing us over to other so called guides. One took us for the shower in the sacred wells. He got a bucket full of water out of each well and poured on our heads. Each well had a name like Ganga, Yamuna, Savithri, Saraswathi and so on. I remembered that in 1987 only Sulochana went through this procedure. My children and I just sprinkled a few drops of the sacred water on our heads. We walked in clothes dripping with water from well to well (these are actually sweet water springs. There was a place to change into dry clothes, which we did. And finally a priest who was part of this group was wonderful and guided us in performing the ancestral rites.I asked him on our way out, how much he got out of the 800 Rupees. He got only 200 rupees. The others just walked with us. I gave him an extra 300 from my purse. He gave me some sand also to take back to Varanasi. I saved this package and threw away the one I collected.
We went to the interior shrine and I was anxiously waiting to offer the Ganga water and the crowd was pushing us. We had bought some flowers and fruits to offer( from a shop outside the shrine). Rao asked me to leave the Ganga water container in that small offering basket. Witnessing that abhishekam was very important for me because not many people are blessed with this opportunity of bringing Ganga water. I fell behind because of the crowd pushing and the other four went ahead and had darsan and told me that our container with the holy water was opened and the water was poured on the Shiva lingam.
I was disappointed that I did not witness that. I got irritated that my companions did not wait for me when giving out our names and gothram etc. to the priest. But the crowd was unruly and they probably could not help but move with the crowd. My ego was hurt because I felt that I was the one who remembered to bring it with us and I was the one who carried it around so carefully.
After the tour of the rest of the Temple, we went back to the choultry to pick up our bags of some wet clothes. The management there asked us to have a meal. It was a simple, wonderful and satvic meal, cooked and served by two women volunteers. It was tough for us women to sit on the floor to eat. The two men were ok. Our driver also was served his meal in separate quarters. Now we got into the car and continued on our journey.
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