One of my nieces is in Pushkar, Rajasthan, India on a summer trip with friends from Goldsmiths. And as people who have spent a lot of time  in India it has been very nostalgic for us to think of her there and we have enjoyed an e-mail her father forwarded to us very much. Nothing changes!

This being India, there is always some money-making catch involved. On the first day, we had barely taken ten steps from our hostel, when a man with a tray of flowers,approached us and gave us each a handful. He told us it was a ‘festival day’. “why don’t you go drop the flowers in the holy lake?” he said, “go now”. we wander down, thinking how quaint and spiritual this all is. At the bank of the ghat we see a swarm of waiting men. They know we’ve come to drop our flowers. We somehow end up spread apart over the bank, each sat with a different man, and we assume that each is just another flower-dropper wishing to help us. They say “repeat after us”. We all spearately chant a hindu prayer, to Brahma, to Krishna, for our families. He asks for your names, dear parents, and include them in the prayer. He tells me to drop the flowers, to pray for my family, ties a band around my wrist and draws a red dot on my forehead. “vishnu” he says. “vishnu” i repeat. “I promise to give” he says. “I promiseto give” i repeat. “3000 rupees” he says. I get a bit shocked. I say I don’t have the money. He says he’ll follow me to an atm, or my hotel. I panic. He starts saying that he’s a brahmin, a priest, and gets pushy. He sayd he will curse my family unless I give 1500 to the poor. He won’t let me shout to the others. After finally getting away, with a 100 rupee gift, we all realise that we’ve beeen throughly conned. It was the nature of the ceremony that was so clever, and all of us felt that to disagree was to offend their very religion, the very town. They’re clever here. Also, beware, you may have been cursed.

Elsa