The two pilgrims at Ron Friday's table had put away their reading material and picked up their big lumpy bags. With effort, the men threw the satchels over their shoulders and made their way onto the crowded street. Watching them go, Friday wondered what the punishment was for stealing. With customers packed so closely together and focused on getting what they needed, the market would be a pickpocket's heaven.

Especially if they were going to get on a bus and leave the area quickly.

Friday continued to sip his tea as he ate the lamb from the wooden skewers. He watched as other pilgrims rushed by.

Some of them were dressed in white or black robes, others were wearing Western street clothes. The men and women who were not wearing traditional robes would be permitted to worship at the shrine but not to enter the cave itself. A few people were pulling children behind them.

Friday wondered if their hungry expressions were anxiety about getting onto the bus or a physical manifestation of the religious fervor they felt. Probably a little of both.

One of the police officers walked toward the bus stop to make sure the boarding process was orderly. He walked past the police station, which was to his left. It was a two-story wooden structure with white walls and green eaves. The two front windows were barred. Beyond the police station, practically abutting it, was a decades-old Hindu temple.

Friday wondered if the local government had built the police station next to a temple in an effort to protect it from terrorists.

Friday had been to the temple once before. It was a dvibheda-a bidi vision al house of worship that honored both Shiva, the god of destruction, and Vishnu, the preserver. The main portal was fronted by the five-story-tall Rajagopuram, the Royal Tower. To the sides were smaller towers over the auxiliary entrances. These white-brick structures were trimmed with green and gold tile and honored the two different gods. The walls were decorated with canopies, roaring lions, humanlike gatekeepers in what appeared to be dancing poses, and other figures. Friday did not know a great deal about the iconography.

However, he did recall that the interior of the temple was designed to symbolize a deity at rest. The first room was the crest, followed by the face, the abdomen, the knee, the leg, and the foot. The entire body was important to the Hindus, not just the soul or the heart.

Any part of a human being without the other part was incomplete.

And an incomplete individual could not manifest the ultimate perfection required by the faith.

However fast they were going, each pilgrim took a moment to turn to it and bow slightly before continuing on. As important as their individual goals were, the Hindus understood that there was something much greater than they were.