Fulbright gives its senior scholars a car to use when they are in living in Kathmandu. This is both a good and a bad thing.  It allows the Fulbrighters a much greater freedom of movement than they would otherwise have, but it also means that the Fulbrighter is expected by the local people to provide transportation sometimes, especially taking  faculty out to the university and home, and taking others to places they would like or need to go. After a lot of trepidation and learning to drive on the wrong side of  the road, to avoid, at all costs, hitting cattle warming themselves in the middle of the streets, to maneuver the narrow lanes, to swerve around the bicycles and motorcycles with entire families on them everywhere, memorizing where all the worst potholes are, and the quickest way out to the Ring Road,  you tend to get more or less comfortable driving around.

    One day my housekeeper, Gita, who was my teacher of all things Nepali, asked me to drive her and her family to the Shrine of Kali at Dukshinkali, some good hour out of town. Now, most westerners, if they know of any of the myriad deities in the Hindu pantheon, are likely to know of two: Ganesha, the elephant-headed god of new endeavors, and Kali, the divine mother and protectoress,  most often seen in fierce poses, standing on her cohort, Shiva. 

    Kali is also the goddess who requires sacrifices to her in order to grant wishes or good fortune or boons of many kinds, and Dukshinkali is the primary place where such sacrifices take place in Nepal. When Gita asked me to drive her and the family to the shrine, I felt a little bit uneasy, not having been in the country for very long. I told her that I would, of  course, take her, but wondered about the sacrifice part. She sort of shrugged it off, or so I thought.

  The day came to go to the puja. I drove over to Gita’s and she and her husband, her mother-in-law, and two kids, all in their best clothes,  piled into the little Toyota sedan that I had. They also had a couple of knapsacks and a bag. Off we went, my paying more attention to the driving than anything else. After a little while, I heard a strange sound coming from the back seat, from the bag. Uh oh !!!! What the heck was that? Sure enough, Gita said, it was a kukhuraa, a chicken, that they were bringing to offer to Kali for her blessing for the family’s new endeavor into maybe buying an old car that they could use to start a taxi business. I learned all of this while trying to get through the small foothills going out of the city and following the scanty directions of how to get to this holy place.

   There wasn’t much I could do at this point, and I had no idea of what to expect, but it didn’t seem to me it could be anything good.

   We arrived at our destination without any problem, and I was amazed to see a huge crowd of people milling around. Everyone was dressed up, and the whole area had a feeling of festivity. I thought “Well, maybe this won’t so bad”.  We piled out of the car and headed towards the main activity area. There were vendors everywhere, mostly selling the marigold garlands that Nepalis love so much, and which they wear on any festive occasion. Kids were running around, playing games and ignoring their parents’ admonishings to behave. Gita’s two children soon joined in, although Gita, being a fairly stern parent, kept her eyes on them.

   I was busy watching  the activities, and wondering where the sacrifices were supposed to be. I wasn’t sure I wanted to see that part, and since this was a Hindu ritual, it was quite possible that an outsider like me not be allowed in the sacrificial area anyhow. And then I saw it. A long line of worshippers, winding around a stream, into an open area, in under a roof, but no walls. I saw a family emerge, pushing the carcass of a small goat down the stream, towards a small pool, washing it and then removing it from the water and taking it away. It had not occurred to me to think about what happened to the sacrificed animals.  I then noticed that I was a bit above the line of worshippers, and there they were, probably about 50 people, waiting patiently in line with the their potential sacrifices, and, while I hadn’t been watching, I saw that Gita and her husband had joined the line with their chicken. Others in the line had goats, and many had chickens, too. But others had only eggs and/or flowers…these were the Hindu vegetarians I was to learn.

  I watched in a kind of petrified horror that  we sometimes experience when in the vicinity of something we fear or worry about. I saw the line advance and a worshipper with the sacrifice would disappear under the thatched roof of the shed. I saw that there were two men waiting for them, and that they each wielded huge kukhri knives….they were the men from the caste who performed the ritual slaughter of the animals. I expected to hear loud cries from the goats, but, in fact, there was very little noise from them. Some worried snorts, probably from the smell of blood (which I couldn’t smell), but it was surprisingly quiet. Each animal was slaughtered (I couldn’t see that part, and didn’t want to) and put into the stream for the blood to be washed away, and for its sacrificers to take out of the temple area. I saw Gita and her husband disappear, and come out soon with the chicken no longer moving. It seemed so different from what I had expected.  The chicken was plopped back into its bag, we went to the car, the bag was put in the trunk, and we started home.

Gita and her family had chicken for dinner…and they did start their taxi business, because I bought the car for them to start it.

I may have to rethink my atheism. That is a story for later.