Every year, thousands of pilgrims travel to a small temple in the Indian village of Chilkur to ask for United States visas.
In a shady courtyard, they circumambulate a shrine 11 times. Those who receive their visas come back and make 108 more circuits, marking each lap on a pink chit and leaving bundles of holy basil in front of the god’s image.
It’s not just visas: visitors to the temple also ask for spouses, children, property, and even government postings—according to a priest there, a minister came and made 108 grateful circuits shortly after getting his job. But immigration documents have become the temple’s signature wish. Around the shrine to Balaji—an incarnation of the Hindu god Vishnu—tradition mixes with globalization, and the bureaucratic and the divine intersect.
Read Full Article »