shravanabelagola

i am sitting in front of the gomateshwara on a 1000-year old temple wall on indragiri hill, 620 mountain-carved steps above sravanabelagola, while all around me the stone temple complex echoes the prayers of the jain priests within, at once smooth and staccato.  i have just been blessed by a man who, under any other circumstances, would remind me of an indian al bundy, with his faded orange dhoti and white -- well, in a priest, it doesn't seem right to call it a wife-beater, but that's how i think of it, still.  i feel absurdly gratified that he remembers me from yesterday evening's sunset at chandragiri, across the village tank from my perch this morning.  i shouldn't: i am the only westerner in town, so far as i can tell, and i am wearing the exact same thing i wore yesterday. 
it is my 14th day in a row getting up before sunrise.  last night was shivaratri, a festival that i can't quite understand the purpose of, but the celebration of it involved fasting all day yesterday, then staying awake all night -- singing, chanting, going to temples and the like -- and this morning, cooking, for a big feast this afternoon.  i wandered the town last night, ostensibly in search of dinner and a jain temple, and ended up finding a sacred hanuman tree with what looked like an enormous monkey face emerging from a bole in the trunk, the resemblance accentuated by white-painted eyes and an orange-covered muzzle.  the tree, and the pavilion surrounding it, were festooned with strands of wire studded with colored lights, and worshippers had hung ropes of white and orange and yellow flowers on every conceivable surface of both tree and pavilion, including some i wouldn't have thought of, personally.  above the place, "welcome" blinked in colored paper lights, or rather "welco" -- four boys were trying to fix the "me" which would not stay lit.  they had not fixed it by the time the power went out all over town.  i was, idiotically, headlampless. still, there were enough bikes and stuff around that i could find my way to the shiva temple, generator-powered, with thousands of white lights and the inevitable ear-shattering sound system. in one corner, two priests were handing out flowers and kumkum powder for forehead-dots.  in another, worshippers circled a lingam with incense sticks.  i wish i could say what the place smelled like (besides heavenly, which is true) but the only label i saw for the sticks was "shiva pooja," which isn't really a scent, but a purpose.  and all around, people:  sari'd women sitting cross-legged on a raised platform, groups of skinny boys with their cellphones, little kids running at breakneck speed up and down stairs and bouncing off the walls, the little girls all short-haired and sporting elaborately flounced princessy-style dresses.  o, and me. 
someone cut the power to the sound system, and the piercing screech of amplified cymbals was replaced by real live women singing and clapping and ting!-ing real live cymbals, which sound so pure and beautiful in their natural state.  one woman in the singing group met my eye and patted the ground next to her.  the next moment, i was plopped down and peering at the words to the song we were singing (in kannada, which was unhelpful), joining in for the choruses and the clapping bits.  india rocks.