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of Rama and the return of Sita. The crowd shouted “Jai Ram” (victory to Rama, a common greeting among Hindus), as a huge ball of fire consumed Ravana and his head burst into flames, much to the delight of the crowd of onlookers. It was as if the crowd of onlookers had somehow participated in Rama’s victory and had themselves become, at least for the moment, citizens of Ayodhya.

T HE B RAHMAN’S W ORDS

    R AMA’S PRESENCE WAS EVERYWHERE in River Town. Images made of clay were sold in the bazaar. Posters with scenes from the epic Ramayana decorated the walls inside houses. Men assumed the name of Rama as their own, as had, for example, Ram Swarup (the image of Rama). Along dusty country roads, people approached each other with the greeting, “Ram, Ram” or “Jai Ram” (victory to Rama). And then there was bhabhi, who began each morning by singing Rama’s praises while sweeping and making ritually pure her small cooking space that she now shared with Brian.
    In early November, Roshan suggested we visit a sacred place of pilgrimage where heroes from the other Hindu epic, the Mahabharata, were said to have visited in ancient times. So I boarded a bus with Roshan and set out to visit this place of pilgrimage first hand. When we arrived, there were throngs of pilgrims roaming about and we joined them. At first, I didn’t see anything that could possibly attract so much attention. All I saw were small ponds of stagnant water flanked by small shrines attended by story telling Brahman priests. We stopped at one of the shrines to hear the story of how the Pandavas (the heroes of the epic Mahabharata) had cleansed their weapons in the pond next to the shrine in order to get rid of their sins for having killed their relatives and teacher, Dronacharya, after a great battle. We were also told that a shrine on the western edge of the pond was where Bharata, the younger brother of Rama, had placed an image of Rama in his honor. “And over there,” the priest continued, “is where Lord Shiva himself bathed to purify himself of all sins.” “Look! That stone phallus was placed there by Shiva himself after his bath in the pond.”
    Greatness as expressed here was far different from that found in my own and many other cultures. There were no grand monuments to the past, no Taj Mahals or mosques reaching to the sky. There were no sacred performances designed to convince us that what we were seeing was real. There were only pools of water, small, insignificant looking shrines and inanimate stone objects scattered around the landscape. What brought these lifeless features of the landscape to life, I discovered, were the words of the Brahman priests who sat next to them and told their stories. They “breathe” life into them through their words. The miraculous is transformed into the marvelous and revealed for all to “see” through the voice of the Brahman.
    Roshan and I washed ourselves in the water where the god Shiva is said to have bathed, entering the pond at one end and emerging at the other purified of all sins. I wasn’t sure that would work for me, but it was certainly worth a try! After our bath, we had tea and something to eat at a small stand before boarding the bus back to River Town. There was a crush of people all trying to get on the bus at the same time. I thought I felt a hand in my pocket and looked around to see the man standing behind me looking innocent and trying to attract the attention of the conductor handing out tickets for the bus ride. “Maybe that wasn’t a hand in my pocket,” I thought, but just to be sure I took my wallet out of my back pocket, placed it in my front pocket and covered it with my hand. After much pushing and shoving, we managed to get seats in the bus just before the conductor closed the door and the driver pulled out of the bus stop, with several latecomers clinging to the outside of the bus. We