On The Maha Temple Trail

If religion is the oldest reason to go on a road trip, Sandip Roy is its newest follower. He rediscovers the diversity of his own faith in Maharashtra.

- Sandip Roy

The monsoon, long awaited, has just hit Solapur. The rain is coming down in sheets. Plumes of muddy water from lurching trucks buffet our car. It is dark and the driver peers into the murky blur of torrential rain and blinding headlights trying to figure out the way to Tuljapur.

Every full-moon night, the Goddess Bhavani’s palanquin sets out on a procession in Tuljapur. It had sounded like a must-see experience in the morning, when it was clear and sunny. Now, Pankaj, the photographer, is trying to jugaad a raincoat for his camera out of plastic bags. I fear the worst for my notebook. The driver is probably just cursing us.

But Bhavani comes through. As the car climbs the low hills into Tuljapur, jagged lightning still splits the sky into two. But the rain holds off until we are inside the temple for aarti. By the time the chhabina procession starts (after 10pm), it has stopped raining. A little murti is placed in a palanquin on a tiger mount with its own vahan, a red diesel generator—21st-century gods need their twinkling lights.

Nagesh, a young priest, smears a sindoor tika on our foreheads. “Can we help carry the palki?” I ask on a whim. “Why not?” he replies. And thus we find ourselves in a moonlit, rain-soaked courtyard, lending a shoulder to the palanquin of the deity herself.