When I was around fifteen years old, I got my period while travelling. This was perhaps the first time I had gotten it while I was out of my home. Unfortunately, I was travelling in my native place in Mangalore. This meant, naturally, we visited every temple within our eye range. This was not my first rodeo, both in terms of getting my period, or visiting temples in the afternoon heat.

But life finds its ways to trick you. There are customs in India, which state that if a woman is going through, what Ibsen called "Monthly Unpleasantness", we cannot visit temples. Or provide offerings, or sit on white couches, or generally exist as people. And so, I was asked to not enter the temple.

To describe the heartbreak, pain and anger I felt at that would be futile. My dearest companions, these words, cannot express them. I typically love visiting this temple just for food. It’s called the Annapurna temple, named after the goddess who provides food (anna). Food in south Indian temples is made using some other magic. It’s typically satvik (tends not to have onion, garlic etc) food, some sambar, rice, and maybe payasa towards the end. But it’s heaven nonetheless. We typically had food sitting on the floor, shared with gold laden women in decked out sarees, dark men in blue lungis and children in bright-coloured clothes. The food needed no praise. You could tell its worth from the way it was hogged down by the crowd. And there’s something primal about eating food from your hands in public. Rice on spread out fingers, stuffed into gaping mouths, morsels dripping down carelessly. It’s almost cannibalistic. 

People were raised in different times. They give all sorts of reasons for these customs. I won't blame them. But to look at a fifteen year old and tell her that she is impure is not a great idea. Granted, I was a contrarian child and hated temples. As a child, they epitomised the control adults had over me. Go to this place, stand in line for hours and see a rock. What for? As I grew older, the fascination with their beauty took over. To look at the structures of temples from all over this country is to marvel at a mystical level of architectural prowess. The columns and their trippy draconic creatures, the psychedelic paintings, the statues in strange poses, all designed to overwhelm you with a sense of enchantment. But these preferences had not taken root yet. I was still a bit cuffed up over all the rocks. 

These strange forces come into your life in some moments. Sometimes you trigger them with your misguided actions and other times they are thrust upon you. And the facade that daily life maintains crumbles. The world becomes lopsided, as you once again discover that you were groundless, maybe the whole time. You see it on the news, big flashy parades, women barging into temples, your uncles making snide comments in the back, chewing on some chakna. But it never registers until it stings you. Until its claws make its way into the crevices of your family, your home, your life. 

I sat outside the temple, a grey, sculpture laden pillar supporting my slouched back. Next to me was an actual elephant. Not a sculpture, but a real life, actually, big giant huge elephant. I was moping around, stewing in self pity. But I noticed something too. This elephant, this majestic creature that could, if it wanted, actually kill me, was just standing there. Wide, sad eyes, great big rugged wrinkles the size of an arm on the skin. It had a pithy chain on its front left leg. I had heard once that though elephants can easily escape the chains they are in, they usually do not. Since, when they are children, they are trapped in chains, and do not believe they have the strength to break them, even as adults. It’s supposed to be a cheesy parable about the chains we put on ourselves. Having not verified, and never planning to verify, the veracity of this claim, I won’t stand by it. But cheesy parables have a kernel of truth to them.

South Indian temples typically keep some elephants for visitors. They train the elephants to accept money, bananas and other goodies, and give their blessings in return. And so lines of temple-goers came up to this mammoth. They offered their money, he submissively took it, and raised his trunk to their bent heads. The show disgusted me. I was put off by the sheer crassness of it. How dare these people use this animal to their benefit? Do they think this is what religion is? Don’t they have any shame? The real person experiencing shame was the one making the judgement. 

A strange thing happened right after. I saw, maybe for the first time, myself in that animal. At that moment, me and that elephant both seemed to be trapped. Teenage self centeredness, but it felt true. The big, sad eyes didn’t help either. I decided it was enough. I would do whatever it took. This would never happen again.

It worked! Well, sort of. I do go to temples now, regardless of the downtown situation. And without any particular reason, people around me have more or less given up on trying. I am not entirely sure what changed. Perhaps I annoyed them out of their convictions. This also means they weren’t that strong anyways, because I didn’t try too hard. Still, over the years I have seen so many women describe their stories. They they don't visit temples, or make festival offerings because of this. They have their own reasons. Sometimes they don't mind following these rules. But the reason is always stated with some degree of sadness. Oh you know, I have my period, so I can't go. The eyes turn downwards a bit. Or they stand outside praying, when they should be inside. It breaks my heart each time. And a surge of anger rises, which has nowhere to go.

But if I could go back, I’d maybe just do one thing. And it wouldn’t involve angrily screaming, as I had always fantasised I would. It would have just been to clearly state that what they were doing was wrong. That I knew, they knew, and the Gods they wanted to visit in the temple knew what was actually impure that day. Not unrelenting bile-filled anger, but the resoluteness of bamboos in a storm. Swaying and willing to bend, but never uprooted.