temple visits

This past weekend I visited Dakshineshwar Temple and Belur Math, both along the Hooghly on opposite sides.

Dakshineshwar Kali Temple is along the eastern bank of the Hooghly river (and the locals call it Ganga even though it branches off from the Ganga a long ways away) and its a temple to Bhavartini Kali built in 1855. There's the usual temple madness, long lines to get in, pushing and shoving to make it to the altar with your offering, tons of flower and puja supply stalls. However, the lines here did seem to have some sort of order, although having security guards at the entrance and exit directing people like cattle outside of a temple is a funny/weird sight. I always get irritated by this whole process, this time I just walked around and absorbed everything, mostly people watched and snapped some pix. The architecture is very cool and its a pretty big complex with 12 smaller Shiva temples surrounding it (Shiva was Kali's companion). I'd much rather enjoy an older temple, maybe that has some archaeological/historical significance, with no crowds. Although I do appreciate the mythology surrounding the gods and goddesses (can someone start making hollywood movies about this?). Why is Kali standing on Shiva?

Belur Math is along the western bank of the river and is the headquarters for the Ramakrishna Math and Mission (Vendanta Movement). The Math is the monastic org for those who follow Sri Ramakrishna, and the mission is more of the social service branch and was founded by Swami Vivekananda. The campus is pretty awesome, with some very cool buildings, very peaceful and calm, none of the craziness of Dakshineshwar. The view of the river was also awesome. It was interesting and I would have liked to wonder around more but it was friggin HOT. I wrote an essay in high school about the Transcendental Movement in the US (how vedantic philosophy was brought over to the US) and Swami Vivekananda had a lot to do with it, so it was cool to see the place for those reasons.