On the 8th of June last year, the residents of the Paraiyar “colony” in a nondescript village in North Tamil Nadu performed the kumbhābhiṣeka of their newly built Mariamman temple. I was there. In fact, I had been there for the four years leading up to that moment.

The dusty, winding embankment that leads from Kananthampoondi to Kaveriyampoondi cuts through the settlement, dividing it into two. For the decade since we had moved into the area, the depression to the south of the road had housed the small, dilapidated structure that served as the community’s religious center. As the years passed, the structure had grown more and more desolate. The paintwork had entirely disappeared. The lamp was seldom lit. The threshold is rarely occupied by anyone but the local dogs. The foreground was home to card players.

Things eventually came to a head when one fateful night thieves made away with the deity’s jewellery, leaving the community substantially poorer. I only learned much later, even though a number of people from the community worked with me on building sites every day. A general sense of fatalism seemed to grip members of the community over the years leading up to the COVID interlude. People started moving out, migrating to Bangalore to work primarily as flower decorators in temples in that distant city, while their own temple lay bare and unkempt.

­Sometime in 2021, I was moved to remedy the situation. Instead of riding my bike past the temple on the way to work, I took a left and parked my bike. I was familiar with a number of members of the community personally and had attended weddings and birthday parties before, but still, this was a dive into the deep end of the cultural swimming pool for a guy who had never learned to swim.

“We can’t have a broken temple in the middle of our village...” I said, “It’s not good for any of us”.

“We know, but what can we do? People don’t want to put up the money to rebuild it,” was the reply.

“How much do you think it’ll cost?” I asked.

We sat down under the card player’s Neem tree and made a rough calculation. Four and a half lakhs, we decided, would cover the basics: two and a half lakhs for the maṇḍapam, one lakh for the paintwork, and one lakh for the kumbhābhiṣeka. For 50 households, that would mean a contribution of 9,000 rupees each. And if we wanted to have it ready by the following Ādi month, that would mean maybe a thousand rupees per household per month for the next nine months.

“Easily doable”, I thought.

“Impossible”, the faces in front of me said.

I went door to door in an attempt to both nudge and to discover the source of the problem. Most people seemed guardedly enthusiastic but pessimistic.

“We are ready to give the money, but others won’t”, said everyone.

Equal contributions were an important part of the puzzle, but one that I had no control over. The community had to figure that out themselves. I just said, “Look, let’s begin and worry about that later. After all, people who contribute more will earn more puṇya!” Would such an esoteric argument hold water in these skeptical times?

Other problems, I would find, were equally challenging to surmount – a lack of stamina, a lack of trust and a ballooning budget.

I bit the bullet and crowd-sourced one lakh rupees from eight friends. The money was handed over. The community had to decide who would manage the money. Who could be trusted? How could fights over expenses be avoided?

“Sir, you keep the money and accounts”, was the immediate reaction.

Not wanting to get entangled in money matters, I declined. “Your temple, you figure it out and just show me the accounts”, I offered.

And so it began.

A sthāpati was hired. I went to meet him at the Shanmuga College of Arts, where he taught history. A quotation was provided for the vimāna, a new maṇḍapa, pillars, carvings, and each “bommai” or figurine on the roof of the vimāna and the maṇḍapa. I sat with the group and did my best to slash costs to fit the budget.

“We need this, we don’t need that, you masons can do this yourselves, I’ll draw you a plan… we must aim to finish within the four and a half lakhs, otherwise you know how it is… Do you really think you can get people to cough up even more money?”

But idealism seldom conforms to the diktats of pragmatism… for which it may suffer, but due to which it eventually prevails.

My every objection was ignored.

“Let’s plaster the pillars ourselves”

“No”

“Let’s do only four bommais”

“No”

“Let’s leave out the dvārapālikās”

“No”

The community wanted it all. So, all or nothing it would be.

Drip by drip, money was collected. Fifty thousand from the traditional ooru thalaivar of the Agamudaiyar clan, the one lakh from my Smārta Brāhmaṇa friends and two lakhs from within the community itself. A year had passed.

Murugan sthāpati from the Viśvakarmā lineage and his team from Chidambaram started work. In six months, the maṇḍapa structure was built and the vimāna repaired. Then, the money ran out, and the workers disappeared. Sthāpati said the community owed him another lakh for work already done, and he would return only if that deficit was covered.

Stamina drooped and things seemed to revert to their pessimistic normal. A year passed, and then another. I made multiple visits to the community, cajoling. Finally, I invited Naresh from Ārṣavidyā to come and deliver an inspirational speech. In beautiful Tamil, he explained the traditional model of concentric ritual spaces, of which the grāmadevatā held the most important circle. “Building the temple for your own grāmadevatā with your own money and labour will make it a shared achievement, something that will belong to all of you and that all of you will value”, he exhorted. Everyone nodded sagely. But another year passed, and I wondered if we had come to the end of the road.

Early one morning, maybe it was November 2024, a group gathered outside my door.

“We’re ready to start again...”

The community had scraped the bottom of their barrel of goodwill, collecting money from their well-wishers in other villages and Tiruvannamalai town. Another Agamudaiyar naatamai from the ooru contributed twenty thousand, the panchayat head from Kaveriyampoondi put in fifteen thousand, two real estate wheelers and dealers put in twenty-five thousand each, local politicians, including the sitting MLA, coughed up twenty thousand, clothes shop and jewellery shop owners in town chipped in with five thousand each… almost all of them Vanniyar Gounders and Konaars from the three neighbouring villages and Tiruvannamalai town. Another four lakhs had come from within the community.

A meeting with the sthāpati was to be held. I was invited to be a witness. Money would be handed to me, and I would circuitously hand over the money to the sthāpati. Saravanan from the ooru was also present. Sthāpati rightly pointed out that rates had risen over the past three years, and his initial quote would have to be revised upwards. Also, that his initial quote did not include this bommai and that bommai. Violent arguments ensued. The original quote, which was in Anand’s pocket, appeared to have been lost. It was sthāpati’s word against the community’s.

“You said…”

“You promised…”

“Most definitely included…”

“No… No… No… show me the original quote”

But there was no original quote. The community had to give in. The back payment was made. The new rates were agreed upon, and a list of bommais decided upon.

“Let’s stick to four bommais”, I said cautiously.

“No”

A total of twelve bommais were decided upon – Ellaiamman, Angalamman, Kāmakṣī Amman, Kṛṣṇa, Mariamman, Śiva, Pārvatī, Muruga, Gaṇeśa, Dakṣiṇāmūrti, Viṣṇu, and Durgā.

“We need a kapodam”, said Raja vehemently.

“That will cost an extra fifty thousand”, said sthāpati calmly.

Fury again. More arguments. The crowd was screaming in indignant unison. Sthāpati is standing like a rock in a storm, unfazed. He’d seen all this before... village after village.

Finally, the more fractious members of the group were led aside, muttering oaths under their breath. Fifteen people from the community signed up to personally fund the bommais with contributions ranging from six thousand to twenty-four thousand. If ever there was time for their flower-decorating relatives in Bangalore to stand up and be counted, this was it.

Sthāpati’s team started work again. The silhouettes of the bommais started to hold up the sky. The pillars were decorated. An inverted lotus bloomed on the ceiling. The dvārapālikās assumed their fearsome aspects.

The community continued their weekly contributions to keep sthāpati from disappearing again. When the masonry work was finally done, the Panchayat thalaivar of the Vanniyar Gounder community from the neighbouring village of Pandithapattu provided the paint, all 1.25 lakhs worth of it. Saravanan from the Vannaan community provided the electrical cabling.

Divakar Iyer from the big temple in Tiruvannamalai was appointed for the kumbhābhiṣeka, the date was fixed, and invitation cards were printed and distributed. At the final count, a total of thirteen lakhs had been spent, of which seven lakhs came from within the community, and six lakhs were contributed by well-wishers from other villages and communities.

The morning of the 8th arrives bright and beautiful. The yāgaśālā has three separate homas going on. Smoke reaches for the sky. All the married couples from the community, decked in their finest attire, wear garlands and sit on the floor facing the makeshift yāgaśālā. It feels like the event, which will recur every fourteen years going forward, also serves as a renewal of the community’s marriage vows under the gaze of their grāmadevatā. Saṃskṛta hymns resound via the newly acquired speaker system.

The yāgas are done, the water sanctified. The old Iyer pūjārī carrying the water does a pradakṣiṇā around the temple, his eyes closed, his body sweating, his breath focused on the right words.

The water is carried up the Casuarina pole scaffolding to the very top. I stand on that sturdy platform as my daughter looks on from way below.

“You must pour the water on the kalaśa”, I am briefly pushed to centerstage. I tilt the kudam and cup my right hand below the stream of water, guiding it over the kalaśa. Others join in. The kalaśa is anointed. A clutch of mango leaves is sourced. The water is sprinkled on the gathering below… it is received in gratitude. Families rush with their plastic water bottles to collect the sanctified water that will then be sprinkled around their homes and pūjā rooms.

The finish line has been crossed, but it is just a new beginning.

Forty-eight days of annadāna later, the maṇḍala pūjā is held. The following week, the maṇḍapam is the venue for an ear-piercing ceremony. Two weeks later, on the last Friday of the month of Ādi, is the koozhu festival, which hasn’t been held in years. I join the line of women balancing pots on their heads as they walk from the Gangaiamman shrine to the Muniappan shrine and then return to the newly built Mariamman temple.

“We used to pray to rocks… now we have this,” says Bhagya, who, until then, I only knew as the woman I greeted every day as she herded her goats past our house.

I prepare to slip out of the crowd and head home.

“Are we doing it right, Sir?” calls out Sangeetha, with a big smile.

Now is not the time to reveal that I know nothing about anything.

“You’re all doing wonderfully”, I reply, as I exit the temple and turn in the direction of home.

Months have passed, and life for the community has returned to normal after years of struggle and weeks of excitement. Today’s just another day. I am on the way to the village of Agaram for work. As I ride my bike past the temple, a gaggle of kids runs out of it and onto the road to surround my bike. They launch into the customary chant that I’ve been hearing ever since I moved to rural Tamil Nadu.

“VeLLekaara, veLLekaara… give me pencil veLLekaara” (“White man, white man, give me pencil, white man”)

But this time was to be different. A couple of voices are raised above the din…

“Dei, adhu Ajay saar da, avar namba Tamil daan. Namba kooda banner le irundaar, paakale?”(Dei, that’s Ajay saar da, he is our Tamil only. He was on the banner with us, didn’t you see?)

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