temple bluff

- Excuse me, can i please take a photo of you with your hands held together in a prayer?

With those words a young man turned to me as I entered a mysterious colorful beautiful Indian temple. As a prove of his seriousness he waved at me with a huge camera half his size.

Since i was having very little to no interaction with local people i got glad, excited and intrigued and agreed on the spot.

As we were walking towards the shooting point I realized why it felt natural - the guy was a journalist so it was a hint of home. Also it turned out that he was making an article about the mixture of cultures, but since I was obviously the only representative of "other cultures" that was eager to mix - it was my responsibility and duty now to prove his story right by posing to the camera.

After being rejected as a lover, partner and even as a guest in this country within few days I let myself feel "adopted" and was smiling like a newly-homed puppy as we were walking towards the main praying spot for the pic. Members of the temple same as visitors were giving us way, smiling at me in what it seemed at the moment - encouraging way. Even ten minutes later parading down the street i still was filled with this heartwarming sense of kindness of those people and endless gratitude for making me feel welcome.

It was not until two days later when I raised it in a conversation just to hear that no strangers are allowed in this society, sometimes in rather aggressive way. I was also flattered to hear that members of the society feel afraid to be seen with someone not from the same race and more than that - embarrassed.

More interesting things were about to be revealed in that one conversation to irreversibly cut my faith in people's kindness and openness to each other -apparently young generation prefers "whites" while the old one insists on "brown and within their own community". No reference to any inner qualities' human relations or anything else heard.

Spending rather tough 10 days of extreme social survival holiday i only regret one thing - to have taken part in that article which implies fake principles and values of fake reality. Such a bluff.

At least I've tried, I rang the bell