BALI, November 16, 2011 (India Today): Walking down towards the beach, you wonder for a teeny weeny nano second where you are. Staring you in the face are the names of the villas – Srirama, Dewi Sitha, Lakshmana, Nakula, Bhimsena and so on. You become aware that Hinduism is alive and well in East Asia. Then one begins to check, instinctively, curiousity taking over. Bali turns out to be a Hindu majority island slapbang in the middle of a Muslim majority Indonesia.
Over 92 per cent of Bali’s population is Hindu practicing a strain of Balinese Hinduism. The different structures en route from the airport to Nusa Dusa are a reaffirmation of this tradition and culture. Two stark structures – a massive charioteer with a warrior perched on top of it and another which looked suspiciously like a dancing Nataraja simply drew your breath away.
After a little more digging, it turned out that in ancient Bali, nine Hindu sects existed, namely Pasupata, Bhairawa, Siwa Shidanta, Waisnawa, Bodha, Brahma, Resi, Sora and Ganapatya. Each sect revered a specific Deity. Some of people one interacted with at the resort turned out to be ardent Hindus even reciting a version of the Gayatri Mantra with great regularity. Amazingly, it is said that if a Balinese is asked what heaven is like, he will turn around and say – just like Bali, without the worries of everyday hurly burly of life. They want to live in Bali, to be cremated in Bali when they die, and to reincarnate in Bali. Karma Balinese style.
Fortress Nusa Dua was my home for a couple of days in sultry Bali. All the fancy five star resorts are bunched up in this deluxe enclave. Their security was suffocating and on one side is the Grand Hyatt which was taken over by the US Presidential Secret Service since Obama was staying there. Each day young Balinese women place floral offerings to the gods in front of every shop doorway.
Indian chefs were airlifted from the Djakarta Melia Hotel and the heavy duty smorgasbord was on display twice daily – from dahi puris to masoor dal and vegetable jalfrezi and chicken makhanwala.
(For more on this travel report, see “source,” above. For the most complete coverage of Hindu Bali that you will ever read, don’t miss the April/May/June, 2012 issue of Hinduism Today.)