The human mosquito of Srirangam

The following is an extract from the travel book A River of Life: Travels through Modern India.

I catch an early bus out to Srirangam. It goes via the rock fort. Several passengers alight there and I manage to muscle my way to a seat, quelling any thoughts of politeness or chivalry. These are spurious concepts when it comes to Indian buses. There is no unwritten rule of "women and children first" - in fact they often come last - and if an aged man totters onto the bus and there are no seats, he will have to stand in the aisle with the rest of us and contend as best he can with the violent progress of the vehicle down potholed roads, with its sharp swerves round corners and juddering halts. The most he can hope for is an act of kindness by someone nearer to a seat that becomes available.

The Sri Ranganathaswamy Temple at Srirangam is one of the largest in Southern India, possibly the largest. Dating from the time of the Pandyas and Cholas - feudatories of the South, who overthrew the Pallavas of Kanchipuram during the 9th century - the temple's most prominent feature is a new addition, the soaring gopuram above the main entrance which was completed only in 1987. Relatively small in the early period of temple construction, the gopurams later came to dominate the temple complexes, far surpassing the main sanctum for architectural elaboration. Which, for the casual viewer like me, is no bad thing: even if I am not allowed in, I can still admire the sculpture of the showiest part of the temple. On top of a stone base a superstructure of brick and pilasters is constructed, in tapering tiers, adorned with carvings of men and gods in friezes from the epics, often, as with the gopuram of the Sri Ranganathaswamy Temple, riotously colourful, as enticing as the bright crepe packing of a box of chocolates. What sweetness must there be behind such a facade?

The activity within is, by comparison, small-scale. The town of Srirangam lies entirely inside the temple. Houses and markets, stalls selling souvenirs and fruit and garlands of flowers: all lay within the embrace of the outer walls. My usual qualms about active temples are allayed at once by the profusion of mundane activity inside. Cycle-rickshaws cruise past me; shoppers nudge me politely out of the way; a cyclist tings his bell at me and goes by, his passenger - a red-saried woman sitting sidesaddle on the rack on the back - casting a curious glance my way. It is one of the few stares I draw. Everybody else is too busy to notice me.

A Brahmin priest walks past me, through the entrance. He is wearing a dhoti, bluish-white, that swaddles his legs and is draped over his shoulders and portly stomach. He has a fearsome beard but his eyes are calm. As a mark of caste, Brahmins in Tamil Nadu wear their dhotis in the panchakachcham style, with the ends tucked in at five places. I try to count the tucks but can see only four. It looks as comfortably baggy as any other I have seen. On his forehead are the vertical markings - two streaks of white around one of red - which distinguishes him as a Vaishnava, a follower of Vishnu. Indian temples are believed to be earthly abodes of the gods, and are designed in such a way as to entice the deities to take up residence within. The god in residence here, in the form of Sri Ranganatha, is Vishnu, whose central image lies reclined on a bed of serpents in the gold-topped inner sanctum at the heart of Srirangam.

Although needless to say, non-Hindus aren't allowed that far in. There are seven concentric walls, radiating outwards from the inner sanctum like the growth-rings of a tree, showing how the temple has swelled as the town has expanded; non-Hindus can go as far as the fifth wall.

A guide shows me to the top of the fourth one and gives me a glimpse of the sacred heart of the place and the gopurams overtopping the main entrances of each wall, getting ever-grander as they move outwards, culminating with that colossus of a tower that is visible from the summit of Trichy's Rock Fort, three miles away. The guide who leads me up there is eager for me to enlist his services. His fee, he says, is more than reasonable. I decline all the same.

"Many place," he informs me, "only get access with guide." He jangles a set of keys to conjure images of locked gates, such as those he had opened to allow access to the top of the wall. "Also, much you are not understanding by yourself. With guide, all things can be understanding. This temple, very big. Much seeing."

I decline again. I am in no mood for a guide, nor in much of a mood for exploring every nook and carved cranny of the temple. My head is throbbing, my sinuses tingle dully with pain. An hour or so spent soaking up the atmosphere will be more than enough.

"You do not want guide," he says, "that is fine. You say no, I understand. I am no human mosquito," he tells me. It is a cute phrase, endearing. I wonder how he had acquired it. Presumably from some grumpy Western tourist sick to their hind teeth with importunists and persistent guides.

Feeling a little sorry for him - custom is thin on the ground - I offer him one of the cigars I had bought in Trichy’s bazaar the previous day. He sits with me, puffing away at the cigar, in the shaded columned hall outside the entrance to the fifth wall, beyond which I am not allowed to pass. We share a few scant details of our lives. He spends the short time answering distractedly while scouring the temple interior for prospective customers.

I leave the temple some time later and reclaim my shoes from the stall at the third wall. The guide who isn't a human mosquito is hovering around outside. He invites me to visit his brother's nearby shop. I still refuse to be bitten.