An everlasting chant wafts from the ancient walls of the temple of Kapaleeshwarar: ‘Om Namasivaya.’ The effect is hypnotic. I wander inside and the chant merges with Vedic folk music as a joyous crowd of worshippers sing in praise of Shiva.
An elderly couple are having a birthday blessing and the Dravidian precincts are a riot of colour, jasmine garlands and spice. In a quieter corner, a girl kneels beside a stone cow and whispers her prayers into its ear. I have been in Tamil Nadu in the southernmost peninsula of India for one day and already I’m mesmerised. This is a land of temples and pilgrims, where you would have to have a heart of stone not to feel at least a little in touch with the divine.
In the north of the region, the city of Chennai, or Madras, with its pristine seafront, is where the English first landed in 1636, so temples like the Kapaleeshwarar exist alongside colonial echoes.
After a day exploring, I take a short flight to Tiruchirapalli, where I visit the magnificent Srirangam temple, the largest in India. It is really a complex of temples, each giving way to another through gates, like the Forbidden City. But the best is yet to come: an unforgettable road-trip through the lush delta. On my driver Mayil’s advice, we take the minor roads southwards from Trichy and an exquisite landscape unfolds. The soft watery greens of paddy fields yield to golden stretches of harvested corn laid out on the road. Coconut and banana trees stretch up into the sky. Women sit washing by rivers, or walk with pots and baskets and sugar cane balanced on their heads. The smell of eucalyptus and roasting cashews fill the air. The colours are impossibly bright.
There are animals everywhere.
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