Goa. The most storied Christmas party-cum-beach traveller’s scene in backpackerdom. Nirvana for freaks and greying hippies.

Though I arrived Christmas eve, it was a bit of a let down. I wished I were there.

Goa is OK. But it takes more than the usual tropical attractions (pounding surf, white sand, bikinis) to grip me for more than a day or two.

Goa is special, though, for sea food. Tika shark coconut curry. Kingfish masala with ice cold Kingfisher beer.

Up to now I’d been avoiding the Indian hooch. I dread cashew Feni, coconut Toddy, and other local intoxicants. I’m gun-shy since I poisoned myself and Keith Russell (who, admittedly, imbibed more of the lethal stuff than I) with tainted Sri Lankan Arak. Many here die or are blinded from wood-alcohol-enhanced country liquor.

South Indian food is rightly famous. You eat with your fingers (right hand only!) to FEEL your meal, as well as taste and smell. Spicy, sometimes very spicy, yogurt cools the burn.

Dining South should be superb (vegetarian, healthful, tasty), but it is often a disappointment. Most quickly get bored of rice, mushy vegetables, and dhal (lentil gravy). The best Indian food is to be got outside India.

I’m happy with a few favourites; Uttapam (spicy pancake with onion & tomato), lassi (yoghurt drink), and what we might call masala tea (milky, sweet, spiced with cardamom).

Weird, though, is the restaurant service. As we moved south it became increasingly prompt, courteous, and efficient. The mythical Curry in a Hurry — it is reality!

You see, in the North you expect employees whoachieve the absolute minimum through the expenditure of the most conspicuous activity. (James Cameron)

A sweeper’s job is to sweep, not necessarily move sweepings from the floor to the bin. It’s enough to go vigourously through the motions.

In the North you have no confidence that your food order will ever arrive.

Even if you lurk until the server is standing idle, rush forward and demand tea. He will stand slack, smile sheepishly, shuffle side-to-side, perhaps glance at the roof. It would be improper not to have you wait.

Christmas day I visited Old Goa, the Portuguese city which once rivalled Lisbon in magnificence.

All that remains are imposing cathedrals and beautiful churches, some of the largest in Asia.

There is something culturally comforting in Christianity. Spotting a steeple is like spying a dress instead of an Indian sari.

It’s the same feeling I get eating a peanut butter and banana sandwich — comfort food for me (but abhorrent to many others).

Are you Christian?, I’m often asked. I mumble some non-answer like, I was raised in a Christian culture …

Missionaries (including my Grandmother Grace and, I think, my Great Aunt Ida Graham) have done some wonderful work here; hospitals, orphanages, training centres.

But I’m loathe to associate myself with Christian religious violence, Papal misdeeds, the Inquisition(more horrific here than anywhere else).

I have, too, distaste for Western paternalism in these many charitable Christian institutions.

In Kalimpong I toured Dr. Graham’s Home, a Christian school founded 1900 to educate children of tea-workers. Graham, a Scottish minister, is a name prominent in my family tree.

I wondered if, but for a few generations, I might have been a heathen-hating pulpit-pounder? Endlessly reiterating the same tired message to a bored audience?

… Nah. That doesn’t sound like me.

India’s greatest missionary, Francis Xavier, arrived 1544 finding fertile soil amongst the untouchable castes. Hindus have 330 million Gods and Demons. There was certainly room for one more.

Christians soon divided into competing sects and sub-sects. Complicating the usual religious turf-staking, many Indian Christians remained loyal to their hereditary castes. Even today some caste Christians won’t allow untouchables into their homes.

Christianity is much in the news. Hindu extremists have been burning churches in protest of Christian proselytising.

A great blessing here, actually, is the scarcity of Church recruiters. You must be born a Hindu — that’s that. And anyone can call themselves a Buddhist, as I’ve frequently seen. (There may be a requirement to buy the Dalai Lama’s book, I’m not sure.)

I even visited the Jewish enclave in Cochin. Only 80 orthodox souls remain, those who haven’t immigrated to Israel. Don’t be surprised that there are 3 castes of these Malabar Jews, not allowed to inter-marry.

I attempted a tour of the famous Hindu temples of the South. Indeed, I persisted longer than anyone else I met, before temple fatigue and disillusion brought me low.

Hinduism is baffling.

Even poor saint Francis Xavier, buried in Goa, died incomprehensive. How could Hindus worship a stone penis as God when the one true religion knows that God is corporal in wafer and wine?

FX wrote home, There is a class of men here called Brahman (priests). They are the mainstay of heathenism, and have charge of the temples devoted to their idols …. They do not know what it is to tell the truth but forever plot to lie subtly and deceive their poor ignorant followers.

The priesthood of India does seem corrupt to this wandering fellow. I’ve yet to see or hear about a kindly one.

At the famous rock fort temple at Trichy I went looking for the authorities to rescue a confused, injured owl. I could find no one to help though there were hundreds of racketeers and baksheesh-demanders of every ilk.

The most popular temple for tourists is in Madurai.Riotously baroque … towers covered top to bottom in a breathless profusion of multicoloured images of gods, goddesses, animals, and mythic figures. (LP Guidebook)

It’s a Hindu comic book come to life visited by 10,000 every day.

shrine at Madurai

Riotous, yes. But to me it was no more than an unholy shopping bazaar. Jesus would exhaust himself upsetting tables.

The temple Art Gallery — laugh or cry? Of all the dilapidated, cob-webbed, rubble-strewn museum disasters I’ve traipsed, this was the worst. Where were the attendants? Disdainful, palm-outstretched, baksheesh hounding.

Without specifically naming Madurai, Roger Housden (Travels through Sacred India, 1996), wrote, at one of the great temples of the south … each scale of the administrative hierarchy pays a dividend to the level above … At the bottom of the pile are the beggars.

I’m over-stating again. No one else was as critical or judgmental. I was fault finding when I, an outsider, should have been appreciating the festive buzz. The pilgrims don’t seem to mind.

Actually, the priests lately have fallen on hard times. In ancient days (the 1940s!) the well-fed Maharaja would be weighed against gold, silver, or pearls. The booty distributed amongst his Brahmen.

I was VIP (exciting mobs, shaking hands, signing autographs) at a remote Hindu village festival. My chance to meet a real priest, one pious man. But no priest was present. This event was organized only by village volunteers from all castes.

Puzzling.

Hindus have no Pope, no central authority. At each temple the hereditary priests are left to their own devices.

It’s unfair to compare Hindu temples with Christian churches.

The word temple is inaccurate. More correct is shrine— simply a roof over the inner sanctum of the resident Gods, represented, usually, by statues; dyed, garlanded, oiled, blunted by the caresses of affectionate devotees.

Only the inner sanctum (where Non-Hindus are not allowed) is sacred. The rest of the temple can be a construction yard and a parking lot. And usually is.

Some say that Hinduism is a simpletonism, a foreign construct to try to explain the hodgepodge. Indians would more often use the word Dharma, describing religious practice and their whole way of thinking. The two cannot be dissected as we try to do in the West.

I visited some lovely, quiet, sanitized temples — those converted to museums. Westerners appreciate them. But to Hindus they are dead.

I’m sure this story made the News — Father Graham, an Australian missionary working with lepers since 1965, burned to death along with his two young sons. Over 100 miscreants poured petrol on the vehicle in which they slept, then set it ablaze.

Is Sonia implicated?

Sonia Gandhi (of the Nehru dynasty, unrelated to the Mahatma), leader of the opposition Congress Party, is the media anointed ruler-in-waiting — and, born in Italy, she is Christian.

Hindu nationalist BJP is in power. Most believe that the current spate of anti-Christian violence is politically motivated; an anti-Sonia campaign.

She, I, and perhaps 50,000 more alit the holy hill of Trimula, the busiest pilgrimage site in the world, eclipsing Jerusalem, Rome, and Mecca.

Politicians love to be photographed here. A viewing of Vishnu guarantees that any wish will be granted.

Non-Hindus like myself and Sonia must sign a guestbook.

She refused.

Her detractors made the most of this awkward moment. (Sonia doesn’t have the moral credibility to declare herself Hindu, Muslim, Parsi, Buddhist, Sikh, and Jain — the way the Mahatma did.)

Trimula is a marvellous place. A world wonder. A centre of excellence NOT developed by foreigners. In fact, it is ignored by Westerners.

Fleets of buses, armies of pilgrims. Simple housing, services, meals are all provided free.

Trimula is organized; discouraging beggars, touts, and litter. I even saw one of the 6000 temple employees painting over red betel spit stains on the street!

As many as 100,000 people queue for up to 12 hours for a fleeting darshan with the God. Most believe it auspicious to surrender hair to Lord Venkateswara — men, women, and children descend bald, and radiant.