(Off to Thailand on Wednesday with a bunch of middle schoolers...yikes. check it out at http://asdthailand.blogspot.com)
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If you're ever in Dubai, leave behind the dusty construction of Barsha, the glistening skyscrapers of Sheik Zayed Road, and the stucco villas of Jumeirah, and head toward the Creek, where Dubai started. Enter Bur Dubai - Throbbing, thumping, beeping, alive. Hustle, bustle, smells and sounds, silks and shoes and silent shawarma stands, making you part of it all.
Press deeper, past the sunburnt tourists at the museum gate, and you'll find a shady courtyard. You'll need no common language to buy flowers from the Indian man at his table - just lift the long strands of small pink and white flowers, which he'll snip off to just the right length with a quick snap of the scissors; or point to the mound of fushcia blossoms, or lotus flowers waiting to be opened, a perfect fit for the palm of your hand.
Round the corner, and you'll find yourself in an alley. Lined with shops selling fruit and flowers, colorful bracelets. Smell of incensce drifts through the air. Towels and rugs hang overhead against the sky, drying in the breeze. Stop, though the seemingly endless passage beckons you to continue to discover more. Leave your shoes with the many others in numbered boxes and, feet cool on the freshly-washed stone, climb some steps to enter a building that looks like many others - but this one holds a secret: Here, in the heart of an Islamic country, a Hindu temple.
A bell dings regularly, but with no apparent rhythm, the soft whispers of supplications blending into a murmur. Bring your flowers over to the counter and offer them, while gazing at the holy objects in the room beyond - Shiva's silver trident catching your eye. Others offer flowers and fruit as well, all symbolic - giving up pride and greed, offering the fruits of their labor, thankful for blessings. Receive with a smile one of your flowers, blessed and returned to in turn bless you.
Cover your head and ascend another staircase. The sound of music - strings and percussion and chanting voice - fill your ears as you enter a room. Deptictions of gods watch from the walls as the blue-turbaned, bearded men play. The holy book sits at the end of the room - not an object claiming to contain god, but simply something to help focus your thoughts and prayers. Kneel along the wall for a moment, and simply observe. Don't be concerned with those around you, for although Hindus may worship alongside each other, they are each concerned solely with their own communion with god.
Leave through the other door and descend the stairs - look down. A young boy, clothed in orange, sits in his mothers lap. She holds him to keep him from squirming as a man skillfully uses a straight-edged blade to shave the hair from his head, while dad videotapes this Brahman ritual.
Taking some inner peace with you, find your shoes and return to the courtyard, crossing to the other side, only to remove your shoes again. This temple is one main upstairs room, men and woman separated by a waist-high wall, an altar the focal point - golds, reds, deep oranges on top of flowing white. The chanting of women and children, the beating of a drum. The priest circles the altar - water droplets land, handfuls of red and pink powder splotch the white cloth. A blessing as you leave - fruit, a blessing that enters your body as you consume it.
Your life may call you back before you're ready, but you'll vow to return, to explore, to find more places that fill you with a sense of something real.
