A Serious Consequence of Environmental Degradation Hitherto Unknown to Western Science

(Some of this material may be unsuitable for children between the ages of 65 and 90, provided they are my grandparents and I might have to talk to them about this later).

The Sun Temple was built on the seashore of Orissa, West Bengal’s south-westerly neighbor, by a 13th century Hindu monarch upon the defeat of the area’s Muslim rulers. 7 statues of horses stand before the structure, build to resemble an enormous chariot. The construction required 1,200 engineers and architects and tens of thousands of laborers. At the time of completion, the two towers stood 250 and 170 feet in the air, and sat in the shallows of the Indian ocean. A pavilion slightly further out at sea channeled the rising sun to fill the main chamber of the temple with light once each season. Today, the sea has receded 3 km, and the tallest tower has collapsed, but the temple is extremely impressive, and the surrounding gardens pleasant and well-tended.

The main attractions of the Sun Temple are the literally thousands of carvings that cover the surface of the pavilion and temple. The Lonely Planet guide recommends getting a guide so that you make sure to see the most notable sculptures. On the bus, I met a nice fellow from South India named (I think) Krishee, and we agreed to split the Rs.100 cost.

Finding a guide isn’t hard—the moment we stepped off the bus, a wispy, scruffy faced, sharply dressed man approached us with his Official Tour Guide badge in plain view. He seemed no more likely to completely rip us off than any other tour guide, so we followed him over to the temple gates.

It soon became clear, though, that we were going to have some communication difficulties.

“The people knew very much about the dijeeg,” he said as we approached the entrance.
“The what?”
“Dijeeg, dijeeg!” he replied. My companion Krishee, whose English pronunciation was substantially better than our guide’s, told me that he was saying “disease.”
“Oh, disease,” I said aloud.
“Yes yes,” the guide said. “American pronunciation is a bit different, but don’t worry, my English is very good.”

Upon entering the temple, the guide first walked us over to the statues of horses.

“Why seven? Which it is?” he asked, rhetorically, looking directly at me. (Strangely, he nearly ignored Krishee for the entire tour, seemingly talking only to me). “I prove it to you. Seven horses, seven colors of the rainbow, seven days of the week.” Not yet doubting the reliability of my guide, I asked, curiously,

“Now how do they know that?” My guide felt threatened by this no-holds-barred threat to his credibility and responded adamantly,

“I am not the kind of guide who will waste your time!” To other such questions about the justifications of certain explanations, the guide would answer, “It is true! It is not false!” or, “OK, OK, I prove it to you,” and then repeat more or less what he had said before. In the hyper-competitive market for sun-temple guides, I guess he was worried that I was questioning his authority, and might abandon him for someone else. My frequent need to ask him to repeat explanations due to his pronunciation and syntax further compounded his worry. He therefore took it upon himself to try and win me back, which proved ineffective but, as we shall see, hilarious.

At a carving of the Buddha, with droopy ears and hands that extended down to his knees, our guide explained that Buddhism had mostly declined by the construction of this temple, and was not accepted by Hindus (which I think is false, and wouldn’t explain why there is a craving of the Buddha at a Hindu temple). He then proceeded with a profound piece of political wisdom.

“People with long ears and long hands have the power to change society,” he said, seriously. “Abraham Lincoln, he is from your country,” he told me, obviously impressed with himself for knowing this. “He had long hands and long ears. Gandhiji, father of our country”—our guide brings his hands to his forehead in a respectful bow—“long hands and long ears. Hitler,” he said, before pausing thoughtfully, and finally concluding, “no, neither. Winston Churchill, long ears” he told us, as if making an important discovery. He began to lead us to the next site, but stopped for a moment to add, contemplatively, “but not long hands. Hm.” My comrade Krishee had started munching on a package of biscuits. When I tried to steal him an incredulous glance, he was frowning and nodding and making approving noises.

Realizing, I suppose, that his political insights had failed to impress, our guide still had a chance to capture my respect, for we had yet to observe the expanse of erotic carvings on the main temple. He had already pointed out statues of the different kinds of “sexy ladies” performing various styles of Orissan dance. But we hadn’t gotten to the main event.

“Look at this,” the guide told us. He was pointing to a carving of a woman standing over a man, his head firmly planted in her crotch. “This is a very weak man satisfying the woman by the oral sex.” Krishee bit into a biscuit. “But you know, I think that the oral is the very best kind, the very best kind of sexual experience, and I tell you this because I am your senior.”

At another carving, the man said, “Here, the first wife is enjoying the sex with the husband, but the second wife is entering to tell the first wife ‘go away, it is my time.’ Because women can be the most jealous for sex. It is true, the most jealous.” He said this in a tone of resignation, as if making known one of life’s unfortunate facts. We continued circling the temple.

“This man has big cock,” said the guide, pointing to a carving high up on the temple wall. Indeed, he was correct. “He is a bull, or a horse. He can satisfy two women at once. Not that you need to have big cock to satisfy woman.”

The guide also explained to Krishee and I the reason for the practice of sati, or widow burning.

“In this picture,” he said, “we see a man and woman standing on a balance. Why, which it is? I tell you,” he paused, for emphasis. “If the woman weighs less than the man, then the woman will die sooner. So, then, there is no need for the sati.” So that’s why they had to have widow burning in India; men kept marrying women that were too large for them!

For a while, I thought maybe the guide was just giving us explanations as a 13th century Orissan might. But, one other description led me to believe that this guy was either a quack or a nutjob.

“You see here, the dog is licking the groin of the woman,” he told Krishee and I. “This is because, at that time, the lick of a dog or a cat could cure any wound.” Why this woman’s vagina was supposed to be a wound, I’m not exactly sure. He continued, “And if the dog or cat was not allowed to lick the wound, then the dog or cat would die.”

Nice story, I thought, interesting cultural belief.

“But, because of climate change,” the guide said, winding up his speech, “the lick of the dog and cat no longer heals the wounds.”

I was assured later that foreigners always get the sexed-up and mythed-up version of the tour. I sort of felt sorry for Krishee, but at the end of the day, he told me we shoudl give the guide something for a tip. We each gave the guide 60 rupees, and started to be on our way.

"Um, excuse me, 80 rupees?" the guide said.
"I thought the charge was 100," I said.
"No, 100 per person," he insisted, showing me the fee card much more closely than he had before. Eventually, Krishee felt bad for the guy, and we each forked over another 20 rupees before heading back to the bus stand and going our seperate ways.