Indian crossroads

William Dalrymple’s Nine Lives: In Search of the Sacred in Modern India explores the clash between modernization and tradition in contemporary India.  Early on, he illustrates with several anecdotes from his travels:

“Outside Jodhpur, I visited a shrine and pilgrimage centre that has formed around an Enfield Bullet motorbike.  Initially erected as a memorial to its own, after the latter suffered a fatal crash, the bike has now become a centre of pilgrimage, attracting pilgrims – especially devout truck drivers – from across Rajasthan in search of the miracles of fertility it was said to effect . . . . In  Kannur in northern Kerala, I met Hari Das, a well-builder and parttime prison warden for ten months of the year . . . . But during the theyyam dancing season, between January and March, Hari has a rather different job.  Though he comes from an untouchable Dalit background, he nevertheless is transformed into an omnipotent deity for three months a year, and as such is worshipped as a god.  Then, at the end of March, he goes back to the prison.”