Another Day, Another Adventure!: Bikaner and the Temple of the Rats

We arrived in Bikaner at about 5am after a difficult night on an overnight bus. Luckily, we had a hotel reservation and went directly to the hotel. We slept for several hours until we were awoken by our phone ringing. It was my family calling to say merry Christmas! When they had called the day before (while we were racing our camels across the Great Thar Desert of Rajasthan), the call hadn't connected so I didn't get a chance to speak with them. It was a wonderful way to be woken up on Christmas morning. Everyone was there so we took turns talking to all my sisters, my nephews, and my parents.

When we finally got up, we set out to explore the town. We did a bit of walking tour and saw all the havelis (heritage homes) and temples in Bikaner. There is a beautiful Jain temple which is covered in colorful paintings inside (that's really unusual for a Jain temple). During our walk, we noticed that most of the shops were closed for Christmas, which I thought was interesting since most Indians are not Christian.

In the afternoon, we took a bus to Deshnok to the Karni Mata Temple. Otherwise known as the Rat Temple. The story goes that Karni Mata (a 14th century incarnation of the goddess Durga) asked the god of death, Yama, to restore to life the son of a grieving storyteller. When Yama refused, Karni Mata reincarnated all dead storytellers as rats, depriving Yama of human souls. And now the rats are considered holy at this temple.

As we entered, we saw rats scurrying around the floors. A rat running across the path here and there. I took a deep breath and told myself I could do it.

We crossed the temple courtyard and then entered the temple itself. There were hand railings along the entryway and when I looked down at them, I saw that they were lined with rats. Rats were perched all along the railing. And there were many, many more rats scurrying across the temple than there were in the courtyard. I took another deep breath and went for the darshan (which is like the altar where you pray – it is the idol of the god). I took about two steps when a rat ran across one foot and then the other. This is supposed to be a very lucky thing and is considered a blessing. I screamed and ran out of the temple. Jigar, who is much braver than I am when it comes to rats, continued on. He made it to the darshan and even took the prashad (food blessed by the gods). Rats share the same prashad as the people! After a few minutes, Jigar came out to get me. He said they were doing a special pooja inside and that anything you pray for will come true if you come all the way inside the temple and pray. He asked me if I wanted to come. I told him that no, I was just fine where I was outside the temple. He went back inside. I don’t know if his prayers came true or not, but I feel pretty blessed already so I was OK with not going back in..

The next day, we went to see the fort and then we went out for a special lunch in honor of

Christmas. It was kind of our Christmas dinner. We went to the Laxmi Niwas Palace and had a feast fit for a king. It was a scrumptious meal in the palace courtyard.

Bikaner was a pleasant surprise for us. We really enjoyed the fort and the palace. The rat temple was an unusual and memorable experience. It was a fun stop in our tour of Rajasthan.