She is summoned by Sri to another part of the temple as if the centuries old gods are impatient to meet her. Here within this pillared hall the poojas go on and on as if the deities are under some compulsion to give ear to the Sanskrit slokas that are being intoned by the priest. The camphor splutters and a cloud of incense rises as they touch the heat and light from the aalathi to their eyes and pray with folded hands and bowed heads to the flames that spring up and burn so steadily. The gods are safe here within their sanctums and for Sri and Dewa and Anna too there is a feeling of safety. There is worrying news from the south, across the waters, of bombs going off in streets and railway stations. But for now, for this moment in time, they establish a connection with the ancient glittering gods within the safety of this sanctum, gods decked in silks and jewels and garlands. Day in and day out the Brahmin priests carry out the poojas, their entire lives lived according to rituals—the plants they see are those that lie within the coconut halves, the kumkumum, red as blood, spilled on the white fleshy kernel. They do not walk on the streets of Madurai as the people do, among the dead rats with bloodied mouths that are flung on the pavements. Sri, Dewa, Anna along with all the others, have to walk along these streets, prepared to risk any kind of pollution because it is part of human life. Yet the priests are there to lead the penitents along the paths to salvation on this brief pilgrimage.