Does the treatment of devotees as passengers on a plane, fundamentally alter the experience of going to a temple? There hasn’t been any scholarship that has tried to articulate exactly why Hindus go to the temple. Some have suggested the sight of the deity to be important (Darshan by Diana Eck), others have suggested that the sacred energy in the temple grounds that transforms the visitors. Whatever the explanation, something is altered when the number of devotees are stripped of their personal belongings and herded through five jail-like rows to get a small glimpse of the central image housed in the sanctum. The principle is one of equalizing and checking the devotees who enter; no easy task in a country of billions. But once inside the different tiers of darshanam tickets also seems to segregate people and make them aware of their “difference” between each other. Some scholars have used Victor Turner/ VanGennep’s analysis that liminality or “dissolving of boundaries” contributes heavily to the experience of temple gatherings, especially when so many people of different socio-economic castes and genders are pressed together into narrow cages and herded in and out of the temple complex. I even saw the officials pushing back at devotees, shoving them quite roughly; one older woman almost fell over under the pressure. Throughout the wait in the lines at TTD (last post), there were many instances of a juggernaut letting loose.

The theory of liminality is so attractive to Americans who claim to refrain from touching each other as much as possible. Locked away in a supposed private and individual bubble most of my American friends wouldn’t be comfortable with the ways in which affection is shown in India. I hug my parents and sleep on the same bed as my family. I also share a lot of physical affectionate gestures with kin – hugs, shoving and grabs with my close girlfriends too. Across genders touching is less acceptable. The pilgrims who press up against each other seem so foreign to the American eyes.

 I remember vividly my very first Orientation in Linfield College, where they told us seventeen/ eighteen year old students not to touch any of our fellow American friends as we may in our home country. We were also told to stay minimum 3 feet away from other people in lines, and social situations. The abhorrence with touch was the first thing I heard as a young international student along with my Japanese and Chinese friends. That tip proved very worthy as later I realized some of my American friends also cower from another’s touch, fearing the touch of their fellow humans for a many reasons which I don’t wish to unpack here. Also germa-phobia and fears of contamination is visible in movies like ‘Resident Evil’ or the fact that most Americans carry hand santizers and pour them over their hands and bodies upon every social encounter. American children sleep separately from their parents too and I recall and friend once observing how odd it was that grown-up family and kin slept lying close together in India.

The second time I heard about an abhorrence to touch was in regards to Brahmin priests and how they treated people of lower castes. Having to maintain strict levels of purity, Brahmin males in ritual situations especially and Brahmin women before they have completed their morning rituals, are very particular about not touching even other family members till they have worshipped god. This doesn’t only extend to “lower caste members” but Brahmins won’t even touch cloth/ fabric and even their own children before the rituals are completed. This hesitancy with touch was heavily criticized by my American peers and is considered the root of the Hindu-caste problem.

In fear of sounding like an elitist Brahmin myself, I have refrained from commenting on the subject of touch. But upon experiencing so much “touching” since I set foot in India, I am confused at what the hullabaloo about upper castes wanting to be pure and untouched really tells us about the western gaze that has interpreted our country? Don’t Americans also hate “touching” each other? What makes un-touchability a privilege of Americans and bigotry of Brahmins? In other words, if Americans can refrain from touch, what makes their actions any less prejudiced? Can we really discern the root of someone’s untouchability by merely observing them?