Getting The New Car Blessed

I went with Brahm Datt and Rajesh to pick up the new Toyota Innova. Brahm Datt insisted on doing a puja immediately to bless the car so we stopped first to pick up a box of laddoo (sweets) then stopped at the temple a block from the house.

The street was packed with a line of people that went out the door and down the street, there were vendors selling garlands of marigolds, loose flowers, coconuts, shiny satin cloths with gold trim and trinkets outside the entry and across the street a crowd of beggars - mothers with children, elderly people and handicapped people - waiting for alms. It was a crazy scene - a mixture of sparkly, shiny, colorful things on one side and dirty, drab, poor people on the other.

We slowly drove past the temple and I realized that there were three right next to each other. The first was a Hindu temple (to Shiva I think) next to a Sai Baba temple followed strangely enough by a Jehovah's Witness temple (or chapel?). Brahm Datt hopped out of the car to find a pandit to bless the car and we drove around in the prosaic task of finding parking but apparently the parking god wasn't anywhere near that neighborhood.

We circled back around and pulled up in front of the Shiva temple (thankfully the huge line was at the temple next door). I got out of the car into the chaotic heat and crowd. The air was a mixture of incense and sewage.

Brahm Datt had already picked up the provisions (2 strings of marigolds and a coconut) and the plump pandit came out with a little pot of orange paste. He proceeded to do some chanting while drawing a swastika, an OM sign and some dots and squiggles on the hood of the car with the orange paste. He circled the coconut around my head then cracked it on the ground and dripped some coconut water on the car as he circled around it then he gave Rajesh and Brahm Datt orange dots on their foreheads. He put a string of marigolds under a windshield wiper and we went inside the temple.

There I was instructed to put the other string of marigolds around the stone lingam and put a laddoo on it as well. He sprinkled some more of the coconut water on it and gave me an orange dot on my forehead. I handed over 101 rupees and it was done.

Outside the temple I gave some alms to some people then we left. We got to the gate of the house and Indra was waiting with a jug of water. We stopped before going through the gate and she walked around the car pouring some water on the wheels then Rajesh drove it in, we gave the guards from next door some sweets and now the car being duly blessed is ready to hit the road!