Chapter Five
‘A cowherder,’ you say. ‘A butter thief!’
Gossip mongers all of you.
He held Govardhana like an umbrella,
saved the world from torrential rains.
Take me to that mountain
Nacciyar Tirumoli 12:8
Leaving the ferry-wallah with a smile wide as the Kavery River, a fifty-rupee tip in his hand, I pulled my soaked hair into a knot, shouldered my pack, and walked into the scents of guava and roses, the tinkling of anklets and bicycle bells, and the tinny recordings of devotional CDs chanting Tirumal’s names. Narayana, Krishna, Govinda. A herd of goats were sleeping away the heat nestled on a mound of sand dumped in the middle of East Chitra Street. Pilgrims dressed in red queued at a cart where a man dished out a prasadam of vegetable rice with pickles onto squares of newspaper.
