Twice today I had reason to be walking a couple blocks West of the CCs Coffee House at 2800 Esplanade.  On the corner there is some sort of Indian place, a temple of some kind is my guess, followed by guessing an ashram, a community center  or perhaps just a house where many Indians in white robes live.  I remember occupants had long hair and beards starting to turn grey, and white robes.

So then the next thing is that this place is on a corner lot, and out at the corner in the middle of the sidewalk from both directions, carefully centered on a circular metal cover for I’m guessing a water main stood — wait for it — a half a jar on Dill Pickles looking fairly fresh and with the lid on tight.  And the smiling Indian gentleman in the white robe bobbed his head up and down at us and smiled each time we passed the pickle jar.

So here I am now, deciding what to make of the pickles over the flowing water main on the crossroads in front of the Ashram on January 2, 2009.

While searching for pickle ritual, pickle worship, pickle India and so forth I had cause to wonder, I know this will seem silly, but was teh smiling head bobbing man in white robes Indian or perhaps was he Chinese?  Was he Buddist?  I just don’t know, but its amazing how several witnesses to a scene will remember it differently.  I did find pickle rituals, pickle worship, pickle wate, pickle India links on the web of course, quite a time sink there.  Perhaps you’d be interested in The Pickle Water Festival?  http://pics.livejournal.com/frla/pic/000119a9/

Meanwhile I haven’t found any reallyt compelling information so I guess I will just assign the most likely scenario I can think of.  I’ll guess that the half jar of pickles centered over flowing water was an offering to some sort of Indian Deity.

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