In countless Hindu homes in Kerala, God’s name is taken in vain. When dawn breaks, women and men muscle their yawn with the name.... When milk boils over or a bus is missed, at work or in a cinema theatre when things don’t go the way they ought to, one name is called. Six syllables that within them compress a world of meaning and the anatomy of human hope: frustration, disappointment, a sinking of the spirit and then like a vein of gold, a furtive hope and an implicit belief that by speaking the name things will be set right instantly. Gu-ru-vay-ur-ap-pa....

One of my earliest memories of religion is associated with the temple in Guruvayur. There was the long drive from Shoranur in the early hours. Of persuading legs, that had gone to sleep, to traipse down the long corridor that led to the temple lined with tiny shops, each holding a cornucopia of kitsch, religious and otherwise. The raised platforms are always thronged by people. It is here that marriage ceremonies are held and it is said that Guruvayurappan sometimes indulges in mischief by pairing the wrong couple. The seemingly endless queue that circumambulated the sanctum sanctorum, the rhythmic chanting of ‘Narayana, Narayana’ from devotees seated in dark corners, the huge heap of red manjadi seeds that are flecked with coins and where as a child I was encouraged to put my hand in and play with the seeds….and finally when the doors of the Garbagriha are opened and the lamps light the deity, the eager cries of devotees reverberate.

God knows that my faith is total; nevertheless when it comes to rituals and temples I find myself veering closer to the iconoclast. It wasn’t as if I was born mouthing polemics on the needlessness of rituals rather than the mandatory bawls. But when I was very little, there was the visit to Tirupati where even before dawn broke, a barber shaved my hair and self-esteem off. I remember the glint of steel, the icy-cold water sprayed and the tug of fear when a mysterious hand gathered my hair to take away. I was not yet four, but I remember wondering if it would ever grow back or if I was to go through life with a bald head and glinting spectacles.

Then there was the ritual of the family row every time we had a puja. My very devout father and my not so devout mother began the puja by squabbling about the coconut’s beard. My father insisted that the coconut that was to be placed on the puja platter have a beard and my mother demanded, “Give me one good reason why God would prefer a hirsute coconut to a clean shaven one!”

In time, my reticence to pray became part of conversation topics along with the latest piece of furniture acquired, the family dog and the price of cauliflowers. I didn’t mind being the family atheist except that occasionally I had to endure the repugnance attached to rotten eggs. Even a leftwing trade union leader friend of my father eyed me suspiciously. How could I, a petty bourgeois child, who knew nothing of Marx or Lenin or Stalin or Trotsky or any one of those deacons of godlessness, be godless? It spoke of a congenital subversiveness.

In his youth, my husband made a promise of doing a thulabharam with pencils at Guruvayur. When my husband decided to fulfill the vow, it involved much planning and many long distance calls. To source the pencils, to check with the temple authorities, to round up various relatives, to find a date when political dignitaries wouldn’t swamp the temple....

We reached the temple by evening; a mini bus full of the devout and me, an accidental pilgrim. Minutes ticked by and as it came close to closing time, the crowds grew more fervent and feverish. A couple of women tried to jump the line; I glared at them. They retreated into their place. Suddenly, a door in a wall opened and from it streamed a film actress and her director husband and their entourage of minion actors. “They have had a special darshan,” one of the women murmured, awed by the presence of the film actress.

When I finally stood before the sanctum sanctorum, jostled, poked, pinched, I found it hard to fold my hands and see divinity imprinted on the back of the head of the man or woman before me. Instead, I watched the faces of the people around me, trying to see what it was that they saw....

As I stood there, I thought of the countless millions that flow into the coffers of this temple every day and knew that God, mine or theirs, would prefer for those millions to be routed to help give dignity back to a person rather than gild a temple dome. But who listens to an accidental pilgrim?