The air conditioning showed a temperature of 32 degrees. What? I thought. It was just below what was outside. We let it go for the time being. Without sitting on the bed and getting polluted, we decided to visit some temple. Coffee was at hand. No issues. After a debate on a few temples, we took an auto and went straight to Goddess Kamakshi Amman Temple. It had rained that day, and the roads were water-logged. It was less than a three-minute ride. The Sanctum Sanctorum had been closed for the evening Abhishegam. And unexpectedly, the crowd was very heavy. We walked around the outside precincts. With the hormone therapy I undergo, I get hot flushes every now and then. This, coupled with the heat aggravated by the short rain, made me dizzy and hot. Taking out one’s shirt in a temple is not an objectionable thing to do. So removing it, I sat in whatever place I could find where there was some breeze. Meanwhile, my wife, being a resourceful person, went around and requested a watchman to let us directly into the Sanctum via a short path. Looking at our plight, he agreed, but we had to wait till the temple was opened and devotees were allowed inside. Meanwhile, a priest known to us was spotted, and my wife spoke to him too.

So when the temple was opened, we were immediately called and taken inside to the Sanctum. These people were so nice, they gave me a stool to sit on. After praying and ‘archanai,’ having had a good darshan of the Goddess, we came out with a satisfied mind. My wife was very particular about visiting a roadside Pillaiyar Temple, which she had seen nearly sixty years back as a small girl. We get attached to particular temples and particular deities, and without visiting these, when the opportunity arises, we would feel empty with a sense of loss. Over the period of sixty years, the road level had gone up so high that the temple was down below, and one had to get down. One can never understand this practice of laying roads one above the other without digging and relaying.

My shirt was totally drenched with sweat, and we went back to our room. And the temperature? Same 32 degrees with the AC on. Not willing to get out, I asked my wife to get something to eat from the restaurant below. After that, I watched the TV and the IPL match.

And later, however much I tried to sleep, I could not. I kept tossing and turning, wishing sleep would somehow bless me. It didn’t. We were to get up at 3.30 a.m. to get ready and be at the temple by 5 am for the ‘Abhishegam.’ I hardly slept for half an hour, with my body feeling hot, sweaty, and sticky.

Continued in 261. Out In Inn - Part 3