Hijab

Salman Rushdie was on the telly the other night! He had previous said that the Muslin veil sucked! Now, was he referring to the male big toe burka (burqa)? It has been rumoured that some men wear it as a badge of honour not because of some Islamic law or set of rules but as a symbol of Islamic pride. Now, does the big toe really choose this or is it forced upon by the little toes as a means of not provoking a sexual response? Or, dare I say, is it really that underneath, there is a grotesque mutant toe which must be hidden from view for fear of shame? Now there's a riddle for you!

Tandoori Rick's Feet!

I've had tandoori chicken, paneer (cheese), and fish so far, but have yet to try this so-called tandoori Rick's feet! A local delicacy that's meant to be very similiar to chicken feet but with just a little more meat on them and slightly more tender! I'm not convinced but will give it a try! Now, the trick is to get them really nice and crispy by baking them in the very hot tandoori sun for a day or two! This here virgin pair look set and ready to go! Yummy! Can't wait! Maybe best to coat them with a little ghee to get the grilling started! Fry baby!

Please don't eat me!

"Animals, since they eat one another, are of unequal strength, but there is never anything between them except that quantitative difference. The lion is not king of the beasts: in the movement of the waters he is only a higher wave overturning the other, weaker waves."

Those naughty demons again!

Vishnu as Narasimha

See the previous posting and all will become clear! The story may have been slightly altered! Forgive me!

Not Shiva! Not God! Not even a demon!

Not Ganesh! Not Hanuman! Not even a demigod! In fact, not to be worshipped at all! There is a story of a demon king who did penance in order to be granted a boon by the Gods! He stood on his head for a billion years in a pit of fire or something like that and then he asked Vishnu for the power not to be killed by either man or beast! His wish was obviously granted, as the Gods do keep their word, but this caused them a lot of headache as the demon king then went on the rampage killing everything and everyone in the cosmic universe! An emergency meeting was called to sort out the problem and someone came up with the great idea that Vishnu could become half man half beast and then be able to destroy this bastard trouble maker! Thus was done! BTW, this is just a bloke in a T-shirt! Mimicry in nature! Merely an attempt to become the Gods or Demons that he sees around him! The likes of a stick insect becoming stick! Pretending stick! A false God! Pseudo icon! A total dork more or less!

New girlfriend!

Sweetheart isn't she? Bababji hooked me up with this babe! She may be hang'in around with us for awhile! Don't know who that geezer is in the rear though! Maybe he's the lead singer of Mozzy Death Squad!

This is the main man! Original hippy! Don't mess with the Shiva!

Shiva is the supreme God in Shaivism, one of the major branches of Hinduism practiced in India.
He is the formless, timeless and spaceless Supreme God in Shaivism. Adi Sankara interprets the name Shiva meaning "One who purifies everyone by the utterance of His name" or "the Pure One". The name Shiva is the Holiest of Holy names. The Good Lord is beyond and unaffected by the three gunas (characteristics) of Prakrti (matter/nature) namely Satva, Rajas, and Tamas.
In Smarta traditions, Lord Shiva exists as one of three aspects of God, Trimurti. In the Trimurti, Rudra, another name for Shiva, is the Destroyer, and Brahma is the Creator and Vishnu is the Preserver. Shiva, in Shaivism, does everything; He is the Creator, Sustainer and Dissolver. All other Hindu Gods and Goddess are part of the One Lord Shiva. According to Shaivism, the Good Lord Shiva performs five functions: 1. Creator, 2. Preserver, 3. Destroyer of evil, 4. Reprieving us from the sins, and most importantly, 5. Blessing.
A Shaivite view contends that Shiva produces Vishnu who produces Brahma and thus creation began, within which the cycle of the Trimurti exists. Shiva also assumes many other roles, including the Lord of Ascetics (Mahadeva, or the Great God), the Lord of Boons (Rudra, or The Howler - rud-iti rudra), and also the Universal Divinity (Maheshvara, the Great Lord).Shaivaites, the worshippers of Shiva consider Shiva as the Ultimate Reality (see Ishta-Deva for fuller discussion).
Shiva is usually represented by the Shiva linga (or lingam), usually depicted as a clay mound with three horizontal stripes on it, or visualised as a blazing pillar. In anthropomorphised images, he is generally represented as immersed in deep meditation on Mount Kailash, his traditional abode.

Another Shiva lingam and trident!

Or are you just happy to see me?

Shiva Lingams

Painted images of major lingams found in various sites around India!

Ohhmmm......okay then......

Morning puja at Dasaswamedh Ghat

Manikarnika Ghat off in the distance viewed from our balcony...

Manikarnika Ghat is the main cremation Ghat of Varanasi. Manikarnika Ghat is one of the oldest and most sacred Ghats in Benaras. According to the Hindu mythology, being burned here provides an instant gateway to liberation from the cycle of births and rebirths. Lying at the center of the five tirthas, Manikarnika Ghat symbolizes both creation and destruction. At Manikarnika Ghat, the mortal remains are consigned to flames with the prayers that the souls rest in eternal peace. There is a sacred well at the Manikarnika Ghat, called the Manikarnika Kund. Manikarnika Kund is said to be dug by Lord Vishnu at the time of creation while the hot ashes of the burnt bodies makes one remember the inevitable destruction of everything in the world.

I Am Not An Animal, I Am A Human Being!

Well actually, I am Hanuman the Elephant Headed God and I am not, repeat not, to be made fun of! Ya get me? I will crush you like the worm! And er.....please leave some sweets and flowers! Cheers!

Maha Lemoniman!

In the battle between good and evil (and believe me, most are in these religious mythologies), Maha Lemoniman spat the poison sour nectar into the eyes of the demon gods and well, the rest was basically a carnival guts and goo!

Fierce Kali!

Some how when you put a bunny head (a second cousin of mine who double crossed me once), onto Kali's head, she becomes slightly less fearsome and far more cuddly and lovable!

Best have Kali on your side during battle!

Though she appears in various forms the most famous image of Goddess Kali shows her holding a severed head in her one hand and sword in the other, with her foot on Lord Shiva's chest and a garland of skulls hanging in her neck. The depiction of this form of Goddess Kali has a famous legend behind it according to which during a battle, Goddess Kali became over enthusiastic and started destroying everything in her sight and could have destroyed the entire universe. To stop this endless violence Lord Shiva (her husband) threw himself under the Goddess Kali's feet. The goddess got so much shocked on seeing Lord Shiva under her feet that she stuck out her tongue in bewilderment. In this way, her raging madness of destroying everything ended and everything was calmed. Since then Goddess Kali came to be depicted in the fierce form of standing with her one foot on Lord Shiva's chest and her tongue stuck out.

You Sick Cow!

Mister Cow wasn't feel too well! He was however bundled up quite warm and was being looked after by a Sadhu! At night he had a nice warm fire to gaze into and think about the cosmic universe and contemplate if he would rather be there or here on earth! Day by day he seemed to get a little better and the clothes began to come off bit by bit! After several days he even started twitching his legs a bit from time to time! I think he wants to stay here with us for a little while longer!

In keeping with the sub plot Demon theme!

Demons do dance alone! Nice tongues too!

Spaghetti Carbonara

Now the dictionary definition is: hot spaghetti noodles tossed with beaten eggs and a mixture of cream, grated cheese, bacon, salt and pepper, which has been slightly thickened by cooking.

And what we have here is an Indian version which is Chinese vegatables, bean sprouts, cabbage and carrot rolled into pastry for spring rolls with a sickly sweet tomato sauce and grated paneer! A bit of cucumber for good measure!

Tell it to the travel judge eh? There is a theory which is that you should never, ever, attempt to get western food! They can even screw up toast!

Laxsmi in disguise!

Oddly enough, I happened to cross paths with this Ricksters Asia Tour guy and he had a Lonely Planet Travel Guide with him and a disposible chewable tooth brush. I found that you could use it as a disguise (brush, container & instructions) for Laxsmi (Goddess of Wealth) on the cover, so as not to be seen as yet another backpacker traveller with the holy travel 'Bible'! Works quite well!

Void!

Is it a shrine? Is it a cave? Is it sacred? No, it's the rubbish drop hole in the train carrage floor! Drop and bio materials here for the animals who live along the train tracks to eat!

Long Sighted?

This guy who was on the train besides me (who looks an awful lot like that Ricksters guy doing his Asia Tour 2007) obviously needs some reading glasses!

Crying Door!

Don't cry! I love you door!

Taj & me!

Yeah, it was build for love! Pure decadence! Honestly! If only he had got the chance to build the black marble one as well before that bastard son of his locked him up! Now, that would suit a dark little bunny like myself!

Meet Mother 'Towel Head' Teresa

A towel, it says, is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitch hiker can have. Partly it has great practicalvalue - you can wrap it around you for warmth as you bound across the cold moons of Jaglan Beta; you can lie on it on the brilliant marble-sanded beaches of Santraginus V, inhaling the heady sea vapours; you can sleep under it beneath the stars which shine so redly on the desert world of Kakrafoon; use it to sail a mini raft down the slow heavy river Moth; wet it for use in hand-to-hand-combat; wrap it round your head to ward off noxious fumes or to avoid the gaze of the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal (a mindboggingly stupid animal, it assumes that if you can't see it, it can't see you - daft as a bush, but very ravenous); you can wave your towel in emergencies as a distress signal, and of course dry yourself off with it if it still seems to be clean enough.
More importantly, a towel has immense psychological value. For some reason, if a strag (strag: non-hitch hiker) discovers that a hitch hiker has his towel with him, he will automatically assume that he is also in possession of a toothbrush, face flannel, soap, tin of biscuits, flask, compass, map, ball of string, gnat spray, wet weather gear, space suit etc., etc. Furthermore, the strag will then happily lend the hitch hiker any of these or a dozen other items that the hitch hiker might accidentally have "lost". What the strag will think is that any man who can hitch the length and breadth of the galaxy, rough it, slum it, struggle against terrible odds, win through, and still knows where his towel is is clearly a man to be reckoned with.

You looking at me?

The idea here being that once you put the eyes onto a benign blob it becomes a living diety! The god then inhabits the actual object! So, be careful and don't mess around with this stuff! I could be hard to get rid of!

Never enough of these demon guys I say!

Bring em on! Just bare in mind that it would be impossible to have good without evil! This is there's actually more like gargoyles and ward off evil!

Swastika Eyes!

Aniconic blobby wayside shrine thingy! You gotta love it!

Vrindaban Snoop Dog!

Happy as a pig in .................?

Go on my son! Get in there!

Smiling door!

Mmmmmm......looks yummy whatever it is!

3rd eye

Seeing through the barrage of glue and posters.........

Shiva was clearly the original hippy!

Looking a bit camp here mind you!

Demons Dance

Babajibear says he doesn't like the clay demon masks! What a dork eh? How can you not like clay demon masks? Just to annoy him I bought one just like this and left it for him to take back to London for me! Heh heh.......

Honestly, who doesn't like demon masks I ask you?

Geeks rules the world!

Gadget Geek Boy Ricksters can blog away at will as he's on-line daily with his mobile phone/computer/BMW/gismo and I'm at the mercy of India's joke internet cafes so this blogging thing is a bit of a luxury but for what it's worth to those bored at work, I shall see what I can do on the fly..................

Zzzzzzzzzz.........

Another hard day on the job! Literally! Snooze ya loose! I was going to buy all their stock too!

Hanuman man! He is da man!

At first I was thinking that if Ricksters was a Hindu god he would be Visnu because he's gotten quite skinny now not drinking alcohol but on second thought he would most likely be Hanuman! Although that little monkey and his Asia trip 2007 has nothing to do with me! BTW, I clearly I would be Ganesh!

No monkeying around here!

Watch your peanuts when passing street shrine to Lord Hanuman! He's quick!

Assault on the senses!

I wanted to find out how they made my masala lassi so I went down to the wonderous spice market! Ahhhhhhhhh...........

A window into chaos!

In Greek cosmology, either the primeval emptiness before things came into being or the abyss of Tartarus, the underworld. In Hesiod's Theogony, there was first Chaos, then Gaea and Eros. The offspring of Chaos were Erebus (Darkness) and Nyx (Night). Ovid gave Chaos its modern meaning: the original formless and disordered mass from which the ordered universe is created. The early church fathers applied this interpretation to the creation story in Genesis

Green stuff!

Not edible! No eat! This is in the clothing market not the spice market! Eat and get very ill indeed!

Don't be calling me names now!

The 108 names of Lord Ganesh

Akhuratha
One who has Mouse as His Charioteer
Alampata
Ever Eternal Lord
Amit
Incomparable Lord
Anantachidrupamayam
Infinite and Consciousness Personified
Avaneesh
Lord of the whole World
Avighna
Remover of Obstacles
Balaganapati
Beloved and Lovable Child
Bhalchandra
Moon-Crested Lord
Bheema
Huge and Gigantic
Bhupati
Lord of the Gods
Bhuvanpati
God of the Gods
Buddhinath
God of Wisdom
Buddhipriya
Knowledge Bestower
Buddhividhata
God of Knowledge
Chaturbhuj
One who has Four Arms
Devadeva
Lord! of All Lords
Devantakanashakarin
Destroyer of Evils and Asuras
Devavrata
One who accepts all Penances
Devendrashika
Protector of All Gods
Dharmik
One who gives Charity
Dhoomravarna
Smoke-Hued Lord
Durja
Invincible Lord
Dvaimatura
One who has two Mothers
Ekaakshara
He of the Single Syllable
Ekadanta
Single-Tusked Lord
Ekadrishta
Single-Tusked Lord
Eshanputra
Lord Shiva's Son
Gadadhara
One who has The Mace as His Weapon
Gajakarna
One who has Eyes like an Elephant
Gajanana
Elephant-Faced Lord
Gajananeti
Elephant-Faced Lord
Gajavakra
Trunk of The Elephant
Gajavaktra
One who has Mouth like an Elephant
Ganadhakshya
Lord of All Ganas (Gods)
Ganadhyakshina
Leader of All The Celestial Bodies
Ganapati
Lord of All Ganas (Gods)
Gaurisuta
The Son of Gauri (Parvati)
Gunina
One who is The Master of All Virtues
Haridra
One who is Golden Coloured
Heramba
Mother's Beloved Son
Kapila
Yellowish-Brown Coloured
Kaveesha
Master of Poets
Krti
Lord of Music
Kripalu
Merciful Lord
Krishapingaksha
Yellowish-Brown Eyed
Kshamakaram
The Place of Forgiveness
Kshipra
One who is easy to Appease
Lambakarna
Large-Eared Lord
Lambodara
The Huge Bellied Lord
Mahabala
Enormously Strong Lord
Mahaganapati
Omnipotent and Supreme Lord
Maheshwaram
Lord of The Universe
Mangalamurti
All Auspicious Lord
Manomay
Winner of Hearts
Mrityuanjaya
Conqueror of Death
Mundakarama
Abode of Happiness
Muktidaya
Bestower of Eternal Bliss
Musikvahana
One who has Mouse as His Charioteer
Nadapratithishta
One who Appreciates and Loves Music
Namasthetu
Vanquisher of All Evils and Vices and Sins
Nandana
Lord Shiva's Son
Nideeshwaram
Giver of Wealth and Treasures
Omkara
One who has the Form Of OM
Pitambara
One who has Yellow-Coloured Body
Pramoda
Lord of All Abodes
Prathameshwara
First Among All
Purush
The Omnipotent Personality
Rakta
One who has Red-Coloured Body
Rudrapriya
Beloved Of Lord Shiva
Sarvadevatman
Acceptor of All Celestial Offerings
Sarvasiddhanta
Bestower of Skills and Wisdom
Sarvatman
Protector of The Universe
Shambhavi
The Son of Parvati
Shashivarnam
One who has a Moon like Complexion
Shoorpakarna
Large-Eared Lord
Shuban
All Auspicious Lord
Shubhagunakanan
One who is The Master of All Virtues
Shweta
One who is as Pure as the White Colour
Siddhidhata
Bestower of Success and Accomplishments
Siddhipriya
Bestower of Wishes and Boons
Siddhivinayaka
Bestower of Success
Skandapurvaja
Elder Brother of Skand (Lord Kartik)
Sumukha
Auspicious Face
Sureshwaram
Lord of All Lords
Swaroop
Lover of Beauty
Tarun
Ageless
Uddanda
Nemesis of Evils and Vices
Umaputra
The Son of Goddess Uma (Parvati)
Vakratunda
Curved Trunk Lord
Varaganapati
Bestower of Boons
Varaprada
Granter of Wishes and Boons
Varadavinayaka
Bestower of Success
Veeraganapati
Heroic Lord
Vidyavaridhi
God of Wisdom
Vighnahara
Remover of Obstacles
Vignaharta
Demolisher of Obstacles
Vighnaraja
Lord of All Hindrances
Vighnarajendra
Lord of All Obstacles
Vighnavinashanaya
Destroyer of All Obstacles and Impediments
Vigneshwara
Lord of All Obstacles
Vikat
Huge and Gigantic
Vinayaka
Lord of All
Vishwamukha
Master of The Universe
Vishwaraja
King of The World
Yagnakaya
Acceptor of All Sacred and Sacrificial Offerings
Yashaskaram
Bestower of Fame and Fortune
Yashvasin
Beloved and Ever Popular Lord
Yogadhipa
The Lord of Meditation

Ricksters Tour of Asia 2007? Nothing to do with me!

A little beauty is found whilst waiting for me to have a wee in an alleyway outdoor public urinal!

Road Demons

I don't know why you always see these hindu demon guys as mudguards or decoration on rickshaws and trucks but it should probably have be something to do with protection from road rage!

Holy Moomooji!

You looking at me? Yes, I am looking at you, you sexy beast! Come home to my place for a cud dle!

Gimmie 10 Rupees?

It used to be 'gimmie one rupee' and now it's 'gimmie 10 rupees' but you still get these little rascals clinging to you like little monkeys! No pestering whislt on the balcony across the street!

Maha Kali has you for lunch with Chapati & Chai

Maha Kali : Kali is the goddess of dissolution and destruction. She is known for destroying ignorance, and she helps those who strive for knowledge of God. Her name means "The Black One" and the city of Calcutta is named in her honor. Kali is fearsome in appearance. She has wild eyes, a protruding tongue, and she wields a bloody sword. Kali also holds the severed head of a demon, and she wears a belt of severed heads.

Hmmmmmmmm....?

Well, it's been very interesting! First proper day back in Delhi and the afternoon here at the Red Fort has been very calming indeed after the mayhem outside these gates! But I'm ready for a curry now so see you later! Gotta get me Bhang Lassie as well! Wayhey!

Red Fort? Been there! Done that!