Fulbright blog

So Fulbright had asked all the students for us to send entries for them to use on their blog, giving advice to potential future Fulbrighters. I submitted one, and the just added it - here's the link:

http://usfulbrightstudent.blogspot.com/

Konark Sun Temple

Nov 11
So apparently there are only a few Sun temples in India. I saw one near Ahmedabad a few weeks ago, and there was one near Bhubaneswar, so Nihal and I hired a taxi and took a triangular route from Bhubaneswar to Konark to Puri, one of the most important Hindu pilgrimage sites. All of this is in the east in the state of Orissa. On the way there we stopped at Dauli where there is a big Buddhist stupa built on the hill.

The sun temple was really amazing. The whole building is supposed to be in the form of a chariot and there are carved wheels and also horses to pull the sun god. I think our taxiwala called a guide he knew, because as soon as we arrived, a man wanted to come give us the tour of the temple. This guy was pretty amusing, too. I think he'd been doing this since the 60s he said, and he did seem to know his facts... sometimes a little too much. He talked for some on the edge of the temple before he would let us go in, and he had specific spots and things he wanted us to take pictures of.

And in addition to this being a sun temple, this is also one of the Indian temples that have erotic carvings...many of them...pretty much a big majority of the walls. Our guide's commentary was pretty amusing! It was the most fun I've had touring a temple here yet! The guide said that there were a lot of people converting to Buddhism around the time the temple was being built - the 1200s i think, and so the Hindi king building the temple wanted the Hindus to procreate and prosper and so basically put the Kama Sutra on the temple as propaganda. Man, who wouldn't convert??
Our guide pointed out which positions 'you have to be strong to do' and other interesting things like a man treating himself for an STD.

After that we went on to Puri which is right on the ocean. It's the site of another of the most important Hindu pilgrimage temples, Jagannath temple. It was dark by the time we got there, and there was a big market around the temple. It was amazing how crowded the whole area was. Unfortunately I couldn't go in the temple, only Hindus are allowed; I tried to negotiate my way in but that didn't work at all. Nihal looked "indian" so he got in without problems! We stopped on the way to eat Puris - a type of fried indian bread - in Puri. We thought it was fitting.

By the time we got back to Bhubaneswar it was late and most restaurants were closing. We hurried to the hotel just next to ours for dinner. Despite both of us saying we weren't very hungry, we somehow both decided to go for this huge buffet. I just didn't feel like waiting to order something. So of course we at a lot, and it was expensive! We had a good laugh about it afterwards - how we both went from not very hungry to chowing down at the buffet!

Day Trip to Sun Temple

11.01.09

Wow, I can't believe it's November already! It's hard to believe especially since the weather is still warm and the holidays are different here! Yesterday evening our new friend, Bhavesh, invited us to this Indian pop rock concert of this singer, KK. It was a lot of fun! I was surprised it took the Indians so long into the concert to start dancing though!

Then today we, my roommates, Caryn, and I, decided to take a day trip to this sun temple at Modhera, a few hours away. They made potato sandwiches and vermicelli noodles to take with us, and we left around 7 in a taxi we hired for the day. It was a lot of fun! The sun temple was really beautiful! It was built in the 1000s. There was a big reservoir with steps going down into it which I guess people used to use for washing and such. There were lots of little niches with little shrines along the way down. Then next to it was the temple. It was all made of stone, sandstone I think, and the carvings were beautiful. This stylized form is really interesting; the women figures are especially curvy and feminine (to put it mildly), but the men figures also are a bit soft and curvy as well, in much contrast to Roman figures where the muscles were so emphasized, my roommate pointed out.

Then we went to Patan to see Rani ki Wav, a really great step well there. It is one of the best examples of step wells which were common in this area of the country. They provided a place for people to get water and also a cooler place for people to relax and rest. This particular one was buried for a long time and so the carvings are better preserved. And the carvings really were amazing! Really beautiful and spectacularly preserved. They made the sun temple look like nothing!