Geetanjali Krishna: Village temple, in the city

PEOPLE LIKE THEM

The afternoon was full of promise of a torpid summer, I thought, deciding to indulge in a rare siesta. The children were asleep, the house quiet, and conditions were as conducive for sleep as could be. Or so I thought. Just as I settled down, the house was suddenly racked by what sounded like an enemy air attack.

Loud noises, explosions and war drums sounded out, and the children were up in a jiffy. I groaned as I went to the balcony to see what was happening. It was a baraat, a wedding procession from the village behind our South Delhi colony, I realised, as an errant rocket whizzed past my ears and exploded in the balcony of the flat above.

Beating a hasty retreat, I tried to get my kids to sleep again, not anticipating that the baraat had decided to stop a while under our balcony and dance.

The drums were joined by hideously out-of-tune trumpets and interspersed by bombs so loud that my children and I were reduced to masses of cowardly, quivering jelly. Finally, I decided to go down and get proactive, instead of hiding behind the bathroom sink.

"Don't even think of saying anything to these fellows," cautioned my neighbour, who'd lived in the colony much longer than I had, "This area was probably part of their village long before the colony was made. Now all that remains amongst these posh houses is that tiny but ancient village temple, where this procession is going to seek blessings."

Apparently, the villagers have to pay obeisance to the goddess in the temple before all their rites of passage. They also prayed to the presiding deity of the temple, I was told, when plagued by chicken pox and measles.

Curious to know more about the temple, I walked up to it that evening. It was in a small open yard, with some old carved stones lying on one side, discarded idols from people's homes and flower garlands from long-over ceremonies.

The spire was not more than four feet tall, and the entire area was covered with the white vitreous tiles most often seen in bathrooms. An old well, all but blocked with garbage and undergrowth, stood behind the temple.

Out of its original village context, it looked small and unprepossessing. "Have you noticed?

There isn't even a proper new idol here," said my home-delivery boy scornfully, seeing me peering into its dark interior to get a better look at the deity, "the plot it's on would fetch a fortune and we'd have the pleasure of seeing a swanky house instead of this dump! What a waste of real estate!"

The old lady who has swept the colony lanes for years heard him and retorted indignantly: "This is our village goddess, our mother who has blessed our village and also everyone who has prayed to her. So don't mock her house!"

The delivery boy went off on his bicycle and she said, "He's not from our village, that's why he is ignorant about the significance of this temple. But don't you doubt it!" I shook my head.

She said, "There was a time, my father used to tell me, when there was no colony here "" just open land, and this temple," said she, "and you mark my words, this temple will be around long after this colony ceases to exist!"

Given that the rustic temple had resisted the efforts of builders and the ill wishes of delivery boys for so many years, that too in a colony where most homes had turned almost overnight into multi-storey "builder flats" with maximum coverage, she was probably right.