church, temple, and cathedral day

So do any of you know who St. Thomas is? I suspect you may. He was the Apostle of Jesus who stuck his finger in Jesus' stab wound to see if it was real, and he later moved to India in the year 52 AD. He died not too far from here by a lance to the back, in the year 72, but not before creating a brand of Christianity in the area that, frankly, I was not expecting. I am unused to Christianity without it being distinctly also European. (well, it wasn't completely non-european because of the heavy european influence from portugal and great britain, but still, christianity certainly pre-dates europeans here by a long shot.

Now, the cathedral of Santhome is distinctly European in architecture (and only about a hundred years old due to being rebuilt), but the smaller church that is placed on the spot where he died up on the hill, and many parts about the inside of the cathedral - now that is a different story.

I didn't take so many pictures at any of these places due to the overwhelming presence of people at all of them combined with the overwhelming tastelessness of photographing people at a church who are clearly there for going-to-church reasons. But I have a few.

Here's a picture of the sign explaining the following two pictures:




the stone cross is recessed in the middle


and this is the portrait of Mary that St. Thomas himself apparently brought to India, a long, long time ago. Lit by a horrible, horrible, profoundly awful fluorescent light right next to it.

This was also there:


the text reads: HEREIN IS THE RELIC OF ST THOMAS THE APOSTLE (A PIECE OF HIS BONE)

This was just outside:



(if you click on the pictures, they link to their larger, nicer versions within my picasa gallery.)

The cathedral was also very nice... but it was very, very crowded and I was done offending people for the day waving around my camera, so I left it to stay in its bag for this trip (I didn't even tell you about the Hindu temple we were at just before yet..). Subadra, Vishaka's mother, had a good friend show us all around the cathedral and he was extremely knowledgeable as he is the cathedral's semi-official photographer. The cathedral itself, it turns out, also happens to be St Thomas' tomb itself. This actually makes it one of the most important Christian cathedrals in the world, as there are only two others: St Peters in Rome and .. uh.. I forget.. some other St. Apostle-somethingoranother in Spain, that actually hold the tombs of one of the 12 Apostles.

He introduced all of us the the priest in charge of the place, as well as several other nuns and people that he knows there. They were all extremely nice, and I felt more than a little awkward when all these people go out of their way to talk to us (that is, Christoph and myself only, really) about where we're from, how long we're in India, had we been here before, what our plans are, what we think, and so on.

This guy, that is, Simon, gave us each these cards:


..after explaining to us the supposed healing powers of the sand that St. Thomas was buried in. The sand itself is under the laminate of the card within the circle in the upper right corner.

The numbers that look like credit-card numbers all mean something very significant about St Thomas. Apparently, them and the little "visa" wannabe symbol in the lower right aren't just terrible kitsch or whatever silly thing they look like at first, which was what we thought before it was explained to us.

Apparently it looks like a credit card so you can bring it into countries (and keep it with you), notably Muslim countries that wouldn't like religious relics being taken into them for the purpose of worshiping something distinctly non-Islam. Granted, you'd still not want to let them catch you praying to it; but if you have your wallet searched for contraband religious items (does this happen!?) - and the searcher doesn't read english - you'll get away with it because it looks like a credit card.

"huh!" we said to that. "well!"

So now I have one of these cards, though I'm not sure what to do with it.

As for the Hindu temple, no photography was allowed at all. And Christoph and I were given dirty looks every which way, which is primarily what I'm going to remember about it, I think. I also learned a lot, and Subadra was very patient with us, teaching us all sorts of things, but still.. Maybe it wasn't as bad as I say, but that was why I wanted to leave, that's for sure. (not that that kept Subadra from grabbing both Christoph's and my hand and showing us in certain buildings where I'm pretty sure that we were especially unwelcome..)

On a side note: surprisingly, this was the first place that Christoph and I have seen non-Indians - that is, in the form of a couple other white guys - since the airport.

But beyond the social awkwardness, the temple and all of its parts were nothing short of magnificent, and in any other situation I would take hundreds of pictures at every turn. And the festivities that were going on inside were loud, busy, and organized in some kind of bustling way that made no sense to me at all, but somehow always seemed to find us in the way.

But still, I think that Christoph and I are planning on visiting only non-functioning temples from now on - preferably of the Ultra-Historical variety.

And, of course, here are a couple of my favorite motorcycle pictures of today:





The great part about that last one? that's not even the largest family we've seen on one motorcycle. Nope, we've seen lots of 4s, what's really interesting are the 5s.

In any case, it is late, and you may not hear from me for a couple of days. Christoph and I are going to the jungle tomorrow night and I'm not bringing my computer, so don't be surprised if the 22nd rolls around and still no word.

But by then I hope we have lots of good news: involving tigers.