An hour on the local bus from Bikaner, in Deshnoke, can be found The Rat Temple. The Karni Mata temple is named after the Hindu sage Karni Mata and was created after her mysterious disappearance from home. The rats that reside here are treated as sacred and protected.
At the entrance to the temple I was greeted by a black crow:
There are hundreds of rats in the temple and devotees queue up with gifts for the rats, many of whom look as though they are on their last legs. If a rat is accidentally killed it must be replaced by a rat made entirely of gold.
Gifts of cheese and ladoo are brought to the shrine, which people with white skin aren't allowed to enter. People also just sit around with the rats crawling over them and drink from the same water the rats have drank as obviously this water is now holy. These three little boys came to the temple every day instead of school they informed me, "Oh right!!"
At the beginning when I entered the temple I was terrified a rat was going to touch me, but after an hour this fear was gone and I was just wandering around with rats scurrying over my toes, I think I may have been in India for too long. Here are some photographs of the rats going about their daily business:
This little boy's mother insisted that I take his photo and I loved the fact he walked around with this look on his face the whole time like "Why has mummy taken me to a rat temple?" "And why are all these people worshiping rats?"
Apparently seeing the precious white rat is very auspicious and means you will have very good luck and I saw two in the afternoon!!
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