Every birdie quite likes toddy

I

The recommended reveille today is 6.00 which will allow sighting of the rising sun and some more rooftop bird watching. On the front side of the house there is a large tree, without leaves but with numerous small fruit or pods as well as just a few red flowers. We learn that this is a cotton tree that is just starting to bloom and that it is a magnet for all sorts of birds. Our morning tea is delivered to the roof to sustain us as we watch. Francine and Ivan joining us for a while. They are leaving this morning, sharing a car with Navneeta, who is heading for the airport at Bhubaneswar.

JP is going to take us for a pre breakfast walk this morning. When he arrives he is carrying a double barreled shotgun. This is in case we met wild boar or sloth bears when a shot in the air should scare them. He sets a good pace and as we walk he tells us about the trees and plants that we see. There are jackfruit trees, banana trees, mango trees and newly flowering cashew trees. There are also many date palms but more about them later. We see the watering hole, some redundant rice paddies and the devastating effect that termites can have on healthy trees. We visit a local village where all of the teenage girls are playing hookey from school, their mothers are doing all of the work and the men are absent. One of the chores that the women have is smearing all of the yard surfaces with a paste of water and cow dung, applied by hand. This dries and keeps down the dust.

We find the men squatting around a date plam tree watching a man pour a milky liquid from a pot into a plastic bottle. This is toddy, the sap of the date palm, which is sweet and ferments naturally to create alcohol. Each village has a toddy man who climbs the trunks using two loops of rope, cuts a wedge out  of the trunk and hangs a pot on the tree to catch the liquid which is guided into the pot by a strategically placed leaf. The bottle is proferred and D takes a sip. Diageo and Seagrams can rest easy. R did the smart thing and politely turned the offer down. It would appear that becoming a toddy man is a lucrative move as he has the biggest and smartest house in the village.

Moving on we find the brickmakers' pit where they hand dig the red earth,  mix in some water, fill in to a wooden mould then lay out for two weeks sun drying. After this the bricks are piled in to a tower with holes at the bottom where a fire can be set in order to harden them. All of this work is done by two men who sub contract for one of the big construction companies. They get paid around £2.50 for a day's work. 

There are trees dotted around the brick pits that are alive with birds. R's favourite,  the hoopoe, is among them. Some of the smaller birds visit a toddy pot on a nearby date palm. JP tells us that many birds and animals including elephants enjoy a drop of toddy. After cyclones, elephants are the second most destructive natural force in the area, another reason for building more substantial houses. By now D has exhausted his camera battery and spare and it is starting to get hot. Back at the house a splendid breakfast awaits - beautifully cooked omelets, parathas, toast and marmalade and delicious home grown small bananas. They also make a first rate pot of tea here.

We spend the morning lazing around the house and avoiding the heat. There are some interesting books to look at and a blog to write although we will not be able to post until we get some decent internet. After lunch we are going on an excursion to a monastery complex which is the home of Mahima Dharma, India's youngest religion. The taxi arrives and JP comes with us as far as the main road.  He tells us that our driver is briefed and will show us where to go and that we should be at the main temple in good time for the ritual at 5.30.

Our route takes us back west into Dhenkanal and then out to the north east along a well surfaced road. After a couple of turns and one section of road under construction we arrive at Jorkana, our destination. Our driver beckons us to follow and points to an entrance. He admits to no English and the only English sentence to be seen forbids lungis, shoes and alcohol inside the temple. We leave our sandals at the entrance and step inside. The priests are known as saddhus and most wear a bare minimum waist rope with a strip of orange cloth to protect their modesty. We are soon told in sign language that photography is not permitted inside the temples.  There is renovation work and repainting going on in this temple. We look at a couple of shrines but are really none the wiser.

Our chap walks us through a couple of arches to the next temple. There are more saddhus here and they as us where we are from. We spend some time explaining that Scotland and the UK are not the same as America. Then we get to the matter at hand. We are offered books in English about the faith. We opt for the thinnest paperback one. Rs30 seems a reasonable amount to pay for some sort of explanation of what is going off. The saddhus are delighted to have made a sale and offer us ash so we can have spots on our foreheads. 

After one more temple we make our way to the scene of the main ritual. This is a large square with stepped stone seating all around a two srorey high central raised area. Set into the perimeter walls and the central construction are niches and small doored rooms.   There is a flame in a small brazier that has burned continuously for 250 years. Indian gas mains must be more reliable than the electrical ones. The ritual seems to involve a lot of sweeping, carrying of buckets of water and people prostrating themselves.  There are quite a few Indian visitors watching with us. From time to time large groups of them move to the far side of the temple quad. Fearing that we might be missing something we follow. They are all sitting on the stone steps waiting to see what happens.   A saddhu tolls a large bronze bell, like an English church bell, while two others walk round the quad hammering on brass gongs. It is all very loud. Then it stops and the Indian spectators get up and head for the exit. As do we. The car is parked right outside and we set out in fading light for home. 

In the dark the track seems much longer but we arrive safely to be greeted by JP who suggests beers on the balcony. What a good idea. As we freshen up the lights go out and our beers are enjoyed with the aid of an LED lantern. Likewise dinner which featured peas with red carrots, bottle gourd and coriander chicken, all to the usual high standard. As we retired for the night the electricity was restored.