We finally made it out to Little India yesterday afternoon. I really liked the area, it was like being in a different country. Singapore is great (clean, safe, organized, etc.), but sometimes you need a little chaos thrown into make things interesting, and to appreciate the rest. We walked up and down the main road, stopping for coconut milk (straight from the coconut - they hack a hole in it and hand it to you with a straw) and to step inside the Sri Veeramakaliamman Temple. The Kali part of that name it the jist of it, the rest is just all extra letters as far as I could tell.From lifestylewiki.com:
Hindus congregate at the Sri Veeramakaliamman Temple dedicated to Kali, Shiva's bloodthirst
y consort, who epitomises the struggle against evil. Kali has always been popular in Bengal, the birthplace of the labourers who built this temple in 1881. Images of Kali within the temple show her wearing a garland of skulls and ripping out the insides of her hapless victims, and Kali sharing more peaceful family moments with her sons Ganesh, the elephant god, and Murugan, the child god.From the temple's website:
Kali (feminine form of Sanskrit kala,"time" or "dark"), consort of the Hindu god Shiva in her manifestation of the power of time. A destructive mother goddess, Kali is frequently depicted as a black, laughing, naked hag with blood-stained teeth, a protruding tongue, and a garland of human skulls. She usually has four arms: One hand holds a sword, the second holds a severed human head, the third is believed by her devotees to be removing fear, and the fourth is often interpreted as granting bliss. Kali-omnipotent, absolute, and all-pervasive-is beyond fear and finite existence and is therefore believed to be able to protect her devotees against fear and to give them limitless peace. Finally, as absolute night, devouring all that exists, she is sometimes depicted as standing on the corpse of Shiva, which, like the garland of skulls, symbolizes the remains of finite existence. Kali's worshipers purportedly appeased her in the past with human sacrifices; today she is propitiated with the blood of mammals. Under the title Bhavani, she was invoked by the secret brotherhood of murderers called Thugs. The city of Calcutta (now Kolkata) received its name from Kali; Calcutta is the Anglicized form of Kalighata, the name of a large temple dedicated to Kali.While Kali herself may be shown in the midst of destruction, her most powerful icons represent anything but death"Bloodthirsty" seems to be a good description.
