The Temple

The temple in what was then my marital home is next to the kitchen. I'll give a brief description of the house. You walk into the house and straight in front of you is the staircase leading to the second floor. You walk into the house and on your right is the front room. To the left as to walk on into the house under the stair case is the fridge and on the right is the lounge. Walk straight past the fridge there is a toilet on the left walk on and you come into the kitchen which then leads into a conservatory which leads into the garden. Now the temple is on the right opposite the kitchen.

The house has had an extension so where the temple is built that was the toilet in the garden. So you can hopefully imagine how big the house is.

Firstly it is not right to have a temple near the kitchen. This is because certain foods are prohibited near a temple and cooking is a definite no no. Brahmas do not eat garlic, onions, the diet is very simple. The other thing is the temple should not even be in a lounge, the temple connects to the lounge. When it is time of the month for woman they are not allowed anywhere near a temple. So that is a very brief description of the house.

Now the temple itself. When I first saw this temple, I was disgusted how the ex-in-laws had actually laid everything out. Talk about insulting your beliefs! The temple we know was a toilet in the garden so I am hoping you can imagine you have a vague picture of it in your mind. What the old man had done was put some bricks on the floor to make like a shelf and then a board on top. Along the shelf were pictures of all the various Hindu gods.

He then had a line of bricks coming out toward the conservatory door on which he put boards and again various pictures, next to each of these pictures he had the diva's, these are clay or brass made like candle holders, you put ghee in them some cotton wool and the wool burns until the ghee is finished in the diva. Right in the middle of the temple he had a huge brass diva with loads of Ghee in and cotton which burned 24/7. The Ghee was dirty it smelt, all in the entire temple was filthy. It even got infested once with mice because of little bits of ghee and bits of bread he used to offer the picture. Yep he offered the pictures bread.

This is very important I say this, my ex father in law did not really like me at all because of my caste and he also did not think I was pure enough to be anywhere near the temple.

When I was pregnant with my first, I was sitting near the temple having a cup of tea. Nobody was at home except me and my unborn child, as I was happily sitting on the dining table, my back to the kitchen when all of sudden I was overwhelmed with fear and the presence of someone. I thought maybe one of the in-laws had come back from work, but there was nobody home. I went back to my seat, as soon as I sat down, somebody grabbed a chunk of my hair and gave it a really hard pull. I turned around expecting to see one of the family members but nobody was there. I did run upstairs, got dressed and went to my mums. It is a surprise I did not go into labor that is how scared I was.

The old man (excuse the expression) used to wake up every morning at 3am, he would bathe, go downstairs, light all the divas, say his prayer and then meditate for 2 hours. After his mediation, he would ring the bell.

I woke up one morning after a very restless night; I had a dream of the temple. I dreamt that the temple was painted in a sky blue. The pictures had all been replaced by statues, all clay and painted, in the middle of the temple stood a 4 foot idol of Mata. All dressed in red and gold. There was only a few Divas' there were no more bricks, or shelves.

I told my in-laws about this dream and they shrugged it off.

4-5 years down the line, the temple was as it came into my dream, the idol the color. Mt father-in-Law remembered the dream I told him and he actually said it was me who brought this amazing change.

The next incident was very scary for me. It stopped me going downstairs after 11 PM at night.

I woke one night really thirsty. I looked at the clock and it showed me 3:30am. I could hear the bell ringing in the temple and so I thought the old man has finished his prayers I'll go downstairs and get a drink of water.

I went downstairs. The temple lights were on and I could hear the bell ringing. No other lights were on. I did not turn to look at the temple but got a glass out from the cupboard filled it with water. I don't know what prompted me to turn around and look at towards to temple, but I did. I did not see my father-in-law standing there ringing the bell in fact there was nobody there. But the lights were on in the temple and the bell was ringing. I threw the glass and legged it upstairs.