Friday, December 25, 2009

Deshnook - Mice everywhere!

Situated about 40 minutes from Bikaner, this is a temple built for goddess Karnimata who was 1 of the 7 sisters that have temples dedicated to them.

The temple is famous for being a place that's crawling with mice - called kaaba.

The Rajasthani word for 'little boy/son is Kabba and kaaba is derived from that - the mice are considered as sons of the goddess.

Considering how dirty they are, it was surprisingly clean and absolutely un-smelly.

The 600 year old temple has never had a single case of plague in its history. Even when there have been plague cases nearby.
It is said that the mice of the temple never ever step out of the temple - which seemed true since before entering we couldn't see even one!

It is further said that the mice from outside the temple don't enter the temple either - something a LOT harder to verify - but probably giving a good explanation for their ability to escape the plagues - insulation/isolation.

The temple has a long 'parikrama' that spans 36 kilometers and apparently has to be finished in one night - this year 80k people finished it.

Interestingly enough, the lady forbid people to worship her through her entire life (150 years estimated) but ofcourse once she was dead, people went ahead and did it anyway.

Karnimata was not really interested in the social life but her parents were after her life to get married. So, she did what any normal goddess-in-the making would do - she married the king.

However, she probably didn't like the honeymoon destination or maybe the king sucked at seduction but the wedding wasn't consummated because she wasn't interested. So she got her sister married to the king as well so that THEY could have a normal married life - I think some minus points for lack of foresight of getting the sister married in the first place - especially since she was a goddess in the making.

Anyway, so coming back to the temple, there are literally hundreds, maybe even thousands of mice roaming the place - so much so that first time visitors are advised to put their feet on the white tiles because its easier to spot mice on it - and avoid stepping on them.

Apparently its lucky to see a white mouse. I saw one - twice!
Don't care whether its true or not but its a good feeling :))

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